MoneyLion makes trading debut after SPAC merger

Digital investing and banking platform MoneyLion began trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange after closing its merger with special purpose acquisition company Fusion Acquisition Corp. 

The combined company is renamed MoneyLion Inc. and is led by its existing management team including MoneyLion co-founder and CEO Dee Choubey. When the SPAC deal was announced in February, the combined firms shared an expected valuation of $2.9 billion. 

Shares were trading at $8.63, down 13.7% as of 4:15 p.m. ET.

MoneyLion, a New York-based fintech company founded in 2013, joins the ranks of other recently public fintech companies like Social Finance Inc., Robinhood Financial and Square’s Cash App. The firms are among a growing list of fintechs aiming to be the go-to place for consumers to manage all aspects of their financial lives. 

Going public was the clear path for MoneyLion as the fintech grows in tandem with the underlying changes in American society, like more consumers being interested in financial planning, said Choubey in an interview. On top of that, there are more gig economy workers, which make up a large portion of MoneyLion’s user base. 

“Americans are untethering from the 9-to-5 work week to work that is much more gig, much more flexible work,” he said. “Thirty percent of MoneyLion’s members are gig economy workers.”' 

Gig economy workers establish income via multiple streams, but incumbent financial services institutions were not built to take variable income, and provide financial products to that demographic, he said. MoneyLion is picking up that niche market and capturing those assets. 

“That's our superpower,” he said. “We can take the variability of someone's income and instantly our algorithm is able to say you're a very good customer for us.”

MoneyLion has been busy curating a wide range of financial products from online and mobile banking to automated investing and personal financial management with its Financial Heartbeat tool. 

MoneyLion announced in March its acquisition of Wealth Technologies Inc., a fledgling startup that adds robo-advice services to a financial institution’s tech stack. For MoneyLion, the idea is to use the tool to bring the previously exclusive experience of private banking and personalized advice to the masses, said Choubey. 

The fintech has garnered 8.5 million users on the platform, and is currently beta testing its cryptocurrency offering. The crypto marketplace will let users buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies and is expected to become available to all users on the platform Oct. 5, said Choubey. The decision to step into crypto was easy after seeing competitors like Cash App do the same, he said. 

The fintech also surveyed its users, revealing that 77% said that if the platform created access to instantly move dollars into crypto, they would use it.