FinTech IPO Index’s 3.9% Rally Spreads Some Cheer in Holiday-Shortened Trading Week

The new year looms, and for the FinTech IPO Index, with a year-to-date performance that tops a 64% return, 2024 has been kind, to put it mildly. December alone, as of Thursday’s close, marked an 18.4% gain.

In the past several sessions, it was the platforms that made the most headway, with several companies ahead by double digits.

Huize Resumes Its Rally

Huize shares gathered 26.4%, extending the post earnings rally that began earlier in the month. In that report, company materials revealed that gross written premiums reached a quarterly record high of RMB2,060.7 million ($293.6 million) in the third quarter of 2024, compared to RMB1,245.1 million in the same period of 2023. First-year premiums more than doubled year over year to RMB1,354.4 million in the third quarter of 2024. Month to date, the company is up more than 439%.

Oportun shares were ahead by 18%.

Sezzle retraced some of its losses, gathering 12.5%, after slipping nearly 23% the previous week. As had been widely reported, Hindenburg Research alleged that Sezzle engaged in risky lending practices, including using high-interest credit lines to fund loans to subprime borrowers. Hindenburg also raised concerns about the sustainability of Sezzle’s business model.

Elsewhere in the BNPL space, Affirm’s stock was up more than 5.5%. In an announcement on Friday (Dec. 20), WooCommerce, an open-source eCommerce solution built on WordPress, said it has expanded its decade-long partnership with Affirm. The new joint efforts will make Affirm a default payment option for merchants using WooPayments.

According to the announcement, merchants using WooCommerce’s integrated payment solution, WooPayments, will be able to instantly offer Affirm’s customized pay-over-time plans to their customers at checkout. Eligible merchants will also access Affirm’s newest Pay in 30 offering, which will launch alongside the existing biweekly and monthly installment options.

MoneyLion launched a partnership with YouTube superstar Jimmy Donaldson, better known as “MrBeast.” As PYMNTS reported this week, MoneyLion is partnering on “Beast Games,” a new competition series by MrBeast that premiered on Prime Video last week.

MoneyLion is also launching the MoneyLion Beast Games Giveaway, a $4.2 million at-home sweepstakes, featuring over 1,000 prizes awarded to viewers and MoneyLion customers throughout the next year, per the recent announcement. The news came about a week after Gen Digital announced plans to acquire MoneyLion.

MoneyLion’s stock was 0.5% higher.

A Few Names Slide

Earlier this month, Blend Labs announced a partnership with PHH Mortgage, a subsidiary of Onity Group Inc. By automating and eliminating many of the manual steps that delay approvals and timely closings, the implementation of Blend’s Mortgage Suite is expected to enhance the borrowers’ application experience, shorten loan cycle times and free up loan officer capacity so they can focus more of their time on advising borrowers, the companies said. The partnership also includes the implementation of Blend Close, which enables seamless digital closings.

Blend shares slid 6.4%.

KE Holdings stock slipped 0.3%. The company said in an SEC filing this week that its planned acquisition of Kongjian Zhihui Decoration (Beijing) Co., Ltd., a company primarily engaged in home renovation business, has been terminated. The acquisition had been announced in October of last year. KE said in the filing that there had been uncertainties tied to satisfying the closing conditions. No additional consideration has been paid or is payable by Huize.