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This Week in Fintech

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This Week in FintechNik Milanović

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

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💼 Fintech Job of the Week

💬 Quote of the Week

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Citi launched a free desktop browser extension to help cardholders search for offers and coupons at online merchants, similar to the functionality that PayPal acquired from Honey. The bank is also reportedly in talks with fintech startup Prism Data* to use its cash flow scoring in credit underwriting.

Sunwest Bank partnered with fintech Torpago, a commercial credit card and spend management provider and Marqeta, a card issuing platform to launch the Sunwest Visionary Card, Sunwest's commercial credit card.

📰 Other News

The bank bond market is loosening up, with banks like Truist and Fifth Third raising over $40 billion in investment-grade bonds this month alone on the back of record earnings.

Regi0nal banks, meanwhile, are feeling the squeeze - net income was down roughly 90% from a year earlier at KeyBank, 70% at Citizens, and over 40% at PNC.

BlackRock is on-pace to become the world's largest bitcoin holder, with 11,500 owned, while passively-managed mutual funds and ETFs amassed more money than their actively-managed counterparts for the first time.

BNP Paribas partnered with SuperTech to launch a UK innovation lab aimed at addressing data-led challenges in the financial services sector.

Citi is partnering with alternative investment manager LuminArx Capital to launch a private lending vehicle for companies.

Donald Trump promised to block development of any central bank digital currency in the US.

Mastercard added 15 new companies to its Start Path program, working on open banking and small business innovation.

The UK is promising (more) legislation on privacy for digital currencies.

UK shopping retailer Sainsbury's will wind down its banking division, after selling its mortgage book to Co-operative Bank last summer. Lloyds will cut 1,600 jobs.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Following up on his claims that PayPal's newest product releases would "shock the world," new CEO Alex Chriss announced a new PayPal Checkout experience, a fast lane for guest checkouts, smart receipts, advanced offers, and AI-driven product recommendations and cashback. PayPal's stock dropped on the news.

Retail investing platform Public launched a new options trading platform in which it splits options revenue with its users.

European open banking platform Tink launched a rules-based risk engine to protect merchants from fraud on instant payment rails.

Buy now, pay later provider Affirm announced that it is launching a spending account tied to its debit card, which will offer savings account-type interest, ATM access and direct deposits.

MX launched new customer analytics to help financial institutions more effectively cross-sell based off transaction data.

Neobank Revolut launched mobile wallets for cross-border payments.

UK personal finance app Plum launched a spend tracker to help customers budget.

Small business payments platform SumUp launched new product features: their business accounts now offer digital cards, can add MasterCard to their wallet, and will be able to use tap to pay in Europe.

Accounting platform Prismatic launched out of stealth.

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📰 Other News

Apple announced that it will open NFC payment capabilities to third-party developers in Europe, following an antitrust investigation, which could spur innovation in European mobile payments and merchant PoS.

British payments broker Accept Cards made the rare decision to become fully employee-owned, with all the shares transferring to an Employee Ownership Trust.

Cross-border payments fintech Neo hit profitability after a year of rapid growth.

🤝 Partnership Corner

Hilton partnered with small business lending marketplace Bridge to make it easier for hoteliers to afford owning a hotel.

Paxos expanded its stablecoin to the Solana blockchain.

Web3 payments firm Wirex partnered with Liquity to make it easier to buy and sell its LUSD and LQTY tokens.

👎 The Bad News

The FTC "conducted its own review of the facts and law to decide that Intuit’s claims that TurboTax was a “free” service were wholly unsupported, and that the vast majority of tax filers were not eligible for the “free” version of the service. Instead, they were upgraded into costly deluxe and premium products."

Maybe we'll finally see more free tax filing options?

Wise accused banks of charging its users hidden FX fees to use its services.

Retail investment platform Robinhood settled its case with Massachusetts regulators for a $7.5 million fine, alleging that it made stock trading too fun.

Corporate expense management platform Brex let go of 20% of its team and reports surfaced that it may be spending $17 million per month.

After having its Lithuanian banking license revoked for AML failures, UK electronic payments firm Transactive announced that it will be shutting down.

The SEC charged Shanchun Huang with manipulative trading in the stock of Future FinTech Group shortly before he became its CEO.

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