Hello Fintech Friends,

Do you miss the touch, look, and vibe of seeing your fintech friends in-person? Come join Osborne and our TWIF India team in Delhi next week!

👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

Life looks a lot different when you stop interrupting the power of compounding. Discover how.

Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.

💬 Quote of the Week

📖 Read of the Week

Jareau Wadé, formerly of Finix and Tilt, talked through a few interesting growth lessons for early-stage fintech infrastructure startups, illustrating Adyen, Stripe, and Checkout as examples.

Francisco Arceo, the author of Chaos Engineering, makes a compelling case that large language models could be improved by building them in a decentralized way, enabling forking and modifying.

Pitchbook released its Q1 Enterprise Fintech Report, which – similarly to our Q1 Signals report – found that Stripe carried the category in fundraising.

And in a more fun read this week, The Kingdom Of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin For Years.

📊 Stat of the Week

One-third of Gen Z have side gigs to bolster their financial security. (Source)

Real-time transactions in the UAE are expected to reach a volume of 146 million by 2027. (Source)

BCG projects that fintech will be a $1.5 trillion industry by 2030, with APAC poised to overtake the US. (Source)

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

BankID, a Swedish fintech co-owned by seven banks, launched a digital identity card.

Asset manager and investing giant Franklin Templeton launched its U.S. Government Money Fund on the Polygon blockchain.

Danske Bank launched a B2B business intelligence service that helps clients keep track of the financial health of their customers.

📰 Other News

It was reported last Friday that the FDIC was set to put First Republic Bank into receivership, looking for an acquirer to take over the bank. By Monday, it had been settled that megabank JP Morgan would take over the troubled bank - the 14th-largest bank in the US and the second-biggest US bank failure of all time - acquiring its $93 billion in deposits. Now, commentators are speculating on which will be the next US bank to fail, with stock for some regional banks plummeting. In the age of social media-driven bank runs, the Federal Reserve admitted that it should have taken more decisive and forceful action with Silicon Valley Bank when it collapsed.

The FDIC has proposed a series of deposit reform rules as a result - including lifting the deposit insurance cap specifically for business payroll accounts.

In better financial services news, Mastercard welcomed six new fintech partners into its Start Path Digital Assets program to develop better blockchain financial rails.

The Singapore Fintech Association and Australian Trade and Investment Commission launched a joint program to foster fintech innovation in both APAC countries.

And Hong Kong told local banks to work with crypto firms.

In less great news, the US Department of Justice is investigating Mastercard over anticompetitive practices in its debit card program.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Venmo added a new crypto transfers product to its services.

Remittances provider Wise launched a new 3.92% APY on US user balances.

Stripe held their annual Stripe Sessions convention, announcing new product launches like Teams Payments for Businesses with Microsoft and lower-cost payment options in the US, Australia, and Japan with Uber.

Uber Freight also launched a new fuel card for carriers powered by fintech AtoB.

Healthcare buy-now-pay-later provider PatientFi launched a new membership platform for aesthetic practices.

Coinbase launched a new international perpetual futures exchange out of its Bermuda jurisdiction.

Better launched a digital 3-day home equity line of credit.

GMEX launched a carbon credit app, Zero13.

📰 Other News

In lighter bank news, the new Apple high-yield savings account crossed $1 billion in deposits in just four days, SMB-focused neobank Owners Bank announced a new ecosystem of fintech strategic partners, and Revolut entered Latin America with a Brazil launch.

ACI and MagicCube partnered to enable contactless payments from any phone.

Twitter introduced new creator monetization and subscription payment features.

UK neobank Monzo passed 250k business customers.

Paytently, a B2B payment orchestration platform, emerged from stealth.

Payment facilitator Finix officially became a payments processor, competing head-on with Stripe.

🤝 Partnership Corner

Shopify partnered with Melio to build a B2B bill payments solution.

👎 The Bad News

The FDIC took action against Cross River bank, alleging that the bank engaged in ‘unsafe lending practices’ and limiting its future bank partner activity.

Neobank N26 reduced its headcount by 71 employees, or 4% of the company.

Come meet us in-person at fintechhappyhour.com, and join our angel investing syndicate.