What happened: The US public fintech company MoneyLion was acquired by Gen Digital, an identity protection and cyber security company with dual headquarters in the US and Czech Republic (Finovate). Gen Digital was founded in 1982 and went public in 1989. It is better known for its products, such as Avira and Norton. Gen Digital paid $1 billion for MoneyLion, marking its first move into offering financial services to its customers.
My comment: I am spending a lot of time in embedded finance, but a cyber security company acquiring a B2C fintech company was not on my bingo card. Gen Digital has a broad range of brands; in a way, you could say MoneyLion is another brand in their portfolio. While MoneyLion is not sustainably profitable, it has shown significant progress towards it. This means Gen Digital could grow MoneyLion and keep it a stand-alone brand. That being said, I am curious to see if MoneyLion is just meant to be another brand in their portfolio or if they plan to leverage the power of embedded finance and embed MoneyLion’s capabilities in some of their other brands. With the rise of frauds and financial scams, perhaps Gen Digital and MoneyLion’s vision is to combine cyber security and financial protection in one product offering.
