Fintech

Here’s why neobanks are hot stocks

The neobank concept is one big reason behind soaring valuations for payments apps and companies like Afterpay

Square's $29bn acquisition of Afterpay earlier this month got lots of people talking about the future of finance. One buzzy term that kept coming up: neobanking.

The likes of Square, PayPal Holdings, Robinhood Markets and Coinbase Global are all sometimes talked about as players in neobanking. The basic idea behind the term is that a digital wallet holding cash or cryptocurrency can be linked to payments and other forms of commerce or financial services. It is a playbook used most notably so far in China.

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