Aika’s Newsletter

Aika’s Newsletter

Home
Archive
About
Revolut's Puzzle
Revolut is shipping products and launching in new countries at a breakneck pace. Will it be a paradigm shifting company?
 • 
Aika Ussenova
Fintech in LatAm: Banking the Unbanked
Nubank, Ualá and others building path to LatAm customer
 • 
Aika Ussenova
Where are $100B fintechs?
There are only few big ($100B) companies in finance and almost all of them are incumbents. Where are $100B fintechs?
 • 
Aika Ussenova
5
CashApp Is King
CashApp is a part of Square, a $100b company founded by Jack Dorsey. I provide breakdown of CashApp's business model and economics.
 • 
Aika Ussenova
6
Kaspi.kz - What’s Next for the Most Important Company in Kazakhstan
A profile on Kaspi.kz - a bank turned technology company that IPO’d in London last month raising over $1 billion and becoming the largest listing out of…
 • 
Aika Ussenova
11
Network Effects in Fintech
Can they provide an enduring competitive advantage to consumer fintech companies?
 • 
Aika Ussenova
4
Understanding Klarna
Plus: How customers use CashApp and Kaspi.kz financial results
 • 
Aika Ussenova
Tinkoff and Russia's Ecosystems
In Russia, everyone is building ecosystems - Tinkoff, Yandex, Sber, Mail.ru and many more. But Tinkoff is a great bank and perhaps it should stay as…
 • 
Aika Ussenova
1
TransferWise and its Many Pivots
TransferWise proved that fintechs can be profitable. Along the way it didn’t shy away from pivoting. I think its transitioning from B2C to B2B and it…
 • 
Aika Ussenova
1
Stripe Should Be a Bank
Stripe is building the internet infrastructure. Paul Graham thinks it's the next Google. Should it become a bank?
 • 
Aika Ussenova
3
Banking on Young People: gohenry, Current, Step, Greenlight
Banking apps for young people collectively raised over $350 million in recent months. I am looking at their strategies.
 • 
Aika Ussenova
Why Be a Bank?
There are two types of digital banks: bottom-up and top-down.
 • 
Aika Ussenova
© 2025 Aika Ussenova
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture