Hello Fintech Friends,

We're a week into the new year, and we already have fintech Twitter drama.

Carta's customers came after them on Twitter for reaching out to investors to broker share sales; the SEC's Twitter was hacked, announcing its Bitcoin spot ETF approval a day early; and Ramp and Brex are back at it again with the charts.

But it's not all drama - this week, our editor Sophie Vo published a great Signals wrap-up of 2023 and the fintech in/out list for 2024, and Cowboy's Jillian Williams interviewed the Cognito founders about building their company and getting acquired by Plaid:

Signals 2024 Roundup: 21.7x revenue multiples are out

A roundup of fintech fundraises, exits, and product launches in 2023. Also, the In/Out list for fintech trends going into 2024.

This Week in FintechSophie Vo

🎧Building the Best, with Jillian Williams feat. John and Alain of Cognito

Welcome to 2024! And get ready for our second installment of Building The Best, hosted by the fantastic Jillian Williams of Cowboy Ventures. In this episode, Jillian is joined by the co-founders of Cognito, an ID verification and KYC provider to the fintech world, which was acquired by Plaid in

This Week in FintechJillian Williams

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

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Get the latest in fintech with our concise 10-minute News Briefing, now available on Apple and Spotify. Tune in for this week's crucial updates on industry events, job trends, and a special focus on AI's role in fintech – all at your fingertips.

‎The This Week in Fintech Podcast: TWIF News Briefing- 12th January on Apple Podcasts

‎Show The This Week in Fintech Podcast, Ep TWIF News Briefing- 12th January - 11 Jan 2024

Apple Podcasts

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Bank of America launched a new product, CashPro Insights, a digital tool that analyzes information flowing through the CashPro platform, to facilitate treasury management for its business customers.

Mastercard partnered with illicocash, the fintech subsidiary of Congolese bank Rawbank, to introduce a virtual card program in the DR Congo.

Visa launched a Web3 loyalty engagement platform to help its business users reward customers not just for their purchases but for engagement and interactions.

📰 Other News

We start the year with some good news across financial services!

The US Federal Reserve is expected to begin lowering its benchmark rate, after two years of quantitative tightening.

In-spite of intense lobbying by TurboTax and Intuit to prevent people from filing their taxes for free, the IRS is planning to roll out its own free online system.

BTC is boring now: US spot bitcoin ETFs are on the verge of launching, after the exchanges that will list the spot ETFs filed with the SEC and the SEC announced its approval (a day after its Twitter hack).

American Express is enabling account-to-account bank payments for utilities in the UK through its new partnership with OVO, one of the country's largest energy suppliers with four million customers.

Washington DC is contemplating a bill that would prevent banks and fintechs from 'exporting' other states' credit rates and terms to DC residents, by mandating that all loans made to DC residents are effectively 'made in DC.' New York's governor, meanwhile, released a consumer protection law to prevent predatory lending.

The FDIC ordered Salt Lake City-based bank Liberty Bank to either sell itself or liquidate entirely – the last steps before the regulator would have to place it in receivership – due to accounting irregularities. The bank has only million of assets.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

European neobank Revolut is rolling out a new HR platform, Revolut People, to 325 of its customer companies in the new year, competing head-on with platforms like Gusto or Rippling.

Digital lending provider Arc launched an online venture debt marketplace for startups.

COCA and Wirex partnered to launch a non-custodial crypto debit card.

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📰 Other News

Big tech firms are fighting back against new US regulator rules proposing more oversight of digital wallets.

Baaskit brought its banking-as-a-service platform to Chile, while Nubank was given approval to bring its savings product to Colombia.

X (aka Twitter) says it will introduce payments this year.

German investing platform Trade Republic made its first net profit in 2023 and is moving into card payments.

BitGo became a custodian for the Coreum crypto ecosystem.

🤝 Partnership Corner

Zolve, a cross-border neobank that helps immigrants gain access to financial services, partnered with Surround Insurance to enable auto insurance for immgirants in the US.

Tesla partnered with credit union lending technology company Origence for vehicle financing.

👎 The Bad News

Cap table management platform Carta came under fire after it was revealed by a customer that Carta's employees had reached out to the customer's angel investors to sell shares of the company to an interested buyer. Carta's CEO claimed that this was the behavior of a rogue individual, and not consistent with the opt-in requirements of its secondary share marketplace, but nevertheless the company exited the secondary share exchange business (CartaX) entirely due to the potential for conflicts of interest.

Treasure Financial laid off 14 employees, around 70% of the company.

Revolut faces a class action lawsuit in Illinois alleging it unlawfully collected, used and stored customers' biometric data

The California Department of Financial Protection issued a consent order this week against Credova, which lets merchants provide installment loans to their customers, for charging hidden fees.

The CFTC is urging policymakers to enshrine stricter anti-money laundering and digital identity requirements for DeFi, following a Treasury report which found that "North Korea, cybercriminals, ransomware attackers, thieves, and scammers are using DeFi services to transfer and launder their illicit proceeds."

Tally came under fire from users on Reddit for signing customers up for lines of credit without their foreknowledge or consent.

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