FinTech IPO Index Off 3% Amid Conflicting Signals On Consumer Spending

The FinTech IPO Index was down 3.2% heading into the end of the week and is down 10.2% headed into the final days of October. The hole is a deep one if the Index is ever to make it into positive territory — the Index is down by more than 48% year to date.

Pick your day, and of course, things seem brighter or darker — and we’re just getting started.

Because none of the names in our nearly four-dozen-strong pantheon have weighed in with their own measures on revenues, earnings (where applicable) or takeaways on the health of the consumer.

But if recent reports are any indication, there may be some stormy seas ahead as earnings reports start to trickle in — and then come in waves.

Top of investors’ minds, of course, will be the state of spending, and the picture thus far is an uneven one. On the one hand, the banks that have reported earnings so far have said that spending across debit and credit cards has been robust (though, perhaps to no one’s surprise, they’ve also been increasing their loan loss reserves).

In many cases, as PYMNTS has reported, the big banks are the ones that have seen some resilience into these last few months of 2022, where pent-up demand still is being backed up by the fact that there remains some untapped spending power — call it dry kindling — on credit cards.

On the other hand, as reported this week, main street businesses have been getting a bit gloomier on near-term prospects.  They’ve pulled in the reins a bit on hiring, which in turn hints at a reluctance to expand in the face of uncertain demand.

Indeed there has been some weakness in retail spending, which we note may not auger well for at least some of the FinTechs in our group, which depend on those end markets for top-line torque.

KE Holdings was off about 7% as measured from the end of last week, as there seem to be some macro concerns about China’s economic performance brewing, where the government had delayed the release of GDP data (and that metric has been slowing to about 3% annually, down markedly from previous mid to high single digit percentages).

Hippo Insurance was roughly 17% lower through the past five sessions.  Home insurance is in part dependent on home-buying activity. Mortgage rates have soared to multi-decade highs, spurring a pullback in transactions.

The company said this week that Kiraboshi Bank, a regional bank based in Tokyo, Japan, is live on the nCino Bank Operating System.  The integration, according to the announcement, was successfully led by IBM Japan.

Robinhood was down slightly from the end of last week in the wake of the news, per CoinDesk, that it has released a beta version of Web3 Wallet to 10,000 users.

Enfusion gained a bit more than 10% since the end of last week. Enfusion said this week that Apex Group, a global financial services provider, has selected the Enfusion platform to enhance the delivery of middle-office services to its global fund administration client base.