Today is not just a pleasant summer weekday. It is the day that the first pure-play underbanked financial technology company went public.  And not with a whimper: at $43 dollars per share, higher than expected, and 27 times earnings, higher than Visa.  Sequoia Capital, the blue-chip venture fund, and Total Technology Ventures paid up to $3.70 per share and can delight their LPs with a healthy ten-bagger. You can find the company on the New York Stock Exchange as GDOT.

This is not just a boon for Green Dot’s shareholders.  It’s a seminal day for a new generation of the underbanked industry.  The new generation is not about AFS vs banks, which both point fingers at the others’ poor products, pricing and customer value.  The new generation about earning trust, creating short- and long-term value, leveraging high tech and high touch, giving access to a better future and generating profits as a result. It’s about better AFS and better banks, about retailers, phones, internet, community and scale.

I believe that unless companies can do this at scale and profitably, it will remain a niche enterprise for activists (sorry to say).  So, today is a big day.  Congratulations Steve Streit, Mark Troughton, and the team!  Now don’t mess it up!