Hello Fintech Friends,

Welcome to the 768+ new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 163,000+ other subscribers. Today's newsletter is brought to you by Ingo.

I had fun talking to Bits About Money writer and prolific payments engineering tweeter Patrick McKenzie. The conversation meandered between a lot of topics – deposit insurance, AI in fraud, blockchain identities, investigative journalism, how online payments have changed... You can give the episode a full listen here on Spotify, here on Apple, or below on Youtube.

Coming up on our agenda: Live in San Francisco? Love baseball?

​Join us for a networking lunch bringing together 100 top fintech founders, co-hosted with JPMorgan and Visa. Connect with industry leaders, exchange insights, and explore new opportunities in the payments space - all while celebrating the Giants’ Season Opener against the Seattle Mariners!

JP Morgan x Visa x TWIF: Bases Loaded – Fintech & Payments Networking · Luma

Join us for an exclusive networking lunch bringing together 100 top fintech founders, hosted by JP Morgan, Visa, and This Week in Fintech. Connect with…

This Week in Fintech

And for more info on today's headline... read on in our fintech section.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

(👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm)

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🏦 Financial Services & Banking

JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America are increasingly declining to reimburse customers who fall victim to scams targeting their Zelle accounts, reversing a policy that had been strongly encouraged by the CFPB. Given the proliferation of online peer-to-peer payment scams, I have some sympathy here for providers who make honest efforts to prevent their customers from falling for them. Should every bank make you take a scam selfie?

The SEC will drop it case against crypto firm Ripple and Wall Street is preparing to introduce ETFs based on Solana.

Fifth Third Bank and other financial institutions are using artificial intelligence to attract customer deposits and enhance banking services, while Metro Bank is implementing AI across its corporate and commercial loan portfolios to improve lending processes and risk assessment.

Banco Santander, Spain's largest bank, is making a significant expansion into the U.S. market, aiming to increase its presence.

The Senate voted to eliminate the CFPB's oversight of big tech payment applications, potentially altering regulatory frameworks for these platforms.

Digital lender OakNorth agreed to acquire Michigan-based Community Unity Bank (CUB).

A Federal Reserve working group proposed establishing a network for sharing information on scams to enhance fraud prevention efforts among financial institutions. The President issued an executive order scaling back the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, a move that drew bipartisan criticism for potentially harming small businesses in underserved areas.

The presidential administration is still planning to end the CFPB.

💬 Quote of the Week

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Investing platform Robinhood launched a prediction markets hub within the Robinhood App, so customers can trade on the outcomes of world events. (Which, in an abstracted way, also describes macro investing.)

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🍻 Upcoming Events

JP Morgan x Visa x TWIF: Bases Loaded – Fintech & Payments Networking · Luma

Join us for an exclusive networking lunch bringing together 100 top fintech founders, hosted by JP Morgan, Visa, and This Week in Fintech. Connect with…

This Week in Fintech

💼 Job of the Week

Abode hiring Senior Software Engineer (AI Fintech Startup) in Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area | LinkedIn

Posted 4:56:12 PM. Location: Austin, TX (East Austin Office) | Commitment: Full-time (Hybrid) About Abode Abode is an…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

📰 Other News

Payroll and HR platform Rippling filed a lawsuit alleging that competitor Deel planted a spy in the firm's Ireland office with the deliberate goal of stealing potential customers considering the two platforms. When caught in a honeypot operation, the alleged spy reportedly locked himself into a bathroom on-site and flushed his phone down a toilet before fleeing the property. While there are many sensational elements to this story (dramatically released Monday morning for added effect), a lot of the reaction I've seen in group chats has been along the lines, "I thought everyone did some competitive spying?"

Square, the small business payments subsidiary of Block received approval from the FDIC to offer its Afterpay consumer loan product Cash App Borrow, enabling eligible customers to access small, short-term loans through the Cash App platform.

MoonPay obtained a Money Transmitter License from Wisconsin.

The CEO of Greek neobank Viva Wallet filed an injunction against JPMorgan in an attempt to block the banking giant from pursuing any further lawsuits or takeover attempts.

🤝 Partnership Corner

Nubank partnered with OpenAI to enhance customer experiences and internal efficiency. The pair developed a custom enterprise search engine to streamline workflows and a Call Center Copilot to assist agents in real-time.

Walmart signed an exclusive partnership with Klarna, a buy now, pay later BNPL provider, for checkout lending... or did it? Upon investigation, "The deal is an exclusive... with OnePay (formerly One), a separate JV between Walmart & Ribbit."

ACI Worldwide partnered with Ingo Payments to enhance digital disbursement solutions.

👎 The Bad News

Business neobank Mercury cut ties with embattled sponsor bank Evolve, as reported by Jason Mikula.

BUX, a European neobroker owned by ABN Amro, was fined €1.6 million by Dutch regulators for compensating financial influencers (finfluencers), existing customers, and comparison websites to attract new users to its platform.

Bakkt experienced a 35% drop in its share price after losing two major customers, Bank of America and Webull, which significantly impacted the company's revenue streams.