By KIM BELLARD

I don’t really follow FinTech — I can’t even keep up with HealthTech! — but it caught my eye when Visa announced that it was acquiring FinTech company Plaid for $5.3b; a 2018 funding round valued the company at $2.65b.  A 100% increase in valuation within a year suggests that something important is going on, or at least that people think something is.  

I suspect there may be some lessons for healthcare in there somewhere.  

For those of you who are equally as unfamiliar with FinTech’s terrain, Plaid has been described as the “plumbing” that supports many other FinTech companies.  Launched in 2013, one in four people with a U.S. bank account are now believed to use Plaid to connect with 2,600 FinTech developers connected to more than 11,000 financial institutions.  Its customers include Acorns, Betterment, Chime, Coinbase, Gemini, Robinhood, Transferwise, and Venmo.  Plaid claims it connects with 200 million consumer accounts.