Digital payments are expected to keep growing at a fast pace and make cash increasingly irrelevant thanks to new shopping experiences (livestreams, in-store cashierless checkout…) and digitization of big-ticket transactions.
These large transactions (B2B, real estate…), which are dominated by paper documentation, are having a well needed digital makeover.
Cryptos are also gradually emerging as a means of exchange both online, where they make possible the transfer of property and trading of virtual goods, and in-store where retailers and consumers increasingly adopt them.
Ethereum’s shift to a Proof-of-Stake protocol is widely expected to accelerate adoption of ETH payments and NFT transactions and further position the blockchain technology as a pillar for mainstream Decentralized Finance (DeFi) services, the Metaverse and as one of the Web 3.0 layers.
Payments and cryptos are often the cornerstone of more ambitious service offerings (online trading, lending, payroll management…) turning Fintech firms into full digital banks and leveraging their highly scalable platforms.
Finally, Fintech is likely to remain a fertile ground for M&A due to high industry fragmentation and economies of scale that can be achieved through business combinations.
After a pandemic-driven hyper-charged growth followed by a steep slowdown, it looks like the e-commerce and digital payments ecosystem is back to a normalized growth environment. That should give investors more comfort in assessing and valuing e-commerce and fintech assets and reasons to reenter the theme now that expectations and valuations have been reset. In…
After a material growth slowdown since summer 2021 when most geographies exited Covid restrictions and consumers found their way back to physical stores, the US e-commerce and digital payments ecosystem showed signs of bottoming out in the Q2 earnings season. Amazon (North America), eBay, Farfetch, Etsy, PayPal among others all reported improving growth metrics in…
The crypto community has just been shattered by the biggest crypto heist to date: 173,600 ethereum and 25.5 million USDC (a U.S. dollar pegged stablecoin), or an equivalent of $622 million, have been stolen on the Ronin network. This network is a so-called sidechain used to settle crypto transactions on Axie Infinity’s video gaming platform.…
There has been a lot of talk recently around NFTs (non-fungible tokens) with, notably, the sale by Christie’s of digital art patchwork “Beeple” for $69m. NFTs are blockchain-based records that identify notably unique pieces of digital media (music, video, gifs, tweets…). The fact that NFTs come with documentation about an item’s history and are based…
“A Zest of Crypto On Booming e-commerce Trends” is probably the best way to depict right now our Fintech certificate which is up 25% year-to-date (and 80% over the last 12 months). We started building a crypto pocket in our portfolio and investing in several “crypto equities” (that mine or invest their cash reserves in digital…
We have built a material exposure to Brazilian Fintech names over recent months, considering that Brazil was likely to accelerate its digital shift as it was and still is one of the most severely pandemic-hit countries. The bet is paying off as confirmed last night by the impressive Q2 metrics reported by StoneCo, which offers…
The success of Fintech firms in recent years has mainly been a consumer story: consumers increasingly pay with their digital wallets (Apple Pay, PayPal…), use their banking apps (Revolut, N26…) and send money to family through peer-to-peer apps (Square Cash…). Consumer payments & banking will undoubtedly keep growing over coming years thanks to the rising…
NAV & Performance
ISIN
CH0473585237
Currency
USD
Type
Active Equity
Issuer / Rating
UBS / S&P A+
Inception Date
08.11.2019
Liquidity
Daily