Hello Fintech Friends,

It's Money2020 week and our cup overfloweth with fintech product launches. Prepare for a long and exciting Friday newsletter!

The most surprising news of the week, to me, was that JP Morgan's stablecoin has processed over $300B of volume and currently handles $1B in daily transactions, mostly from business customers. I'd love to see a breakdown of the customers and use-cases, if anyone has it. (This matches my thesis that banks – counterintuitively – may be the first large drivers of stablecoin + crypto adoption.)

I'd like to say a quick thank you to RAISE for extending the invite to speak on early-stage fintech investing at their annual summit. A few key takeaways from the conversation:

• Mobile penetration has been one of the biggest drivers of fintech adoption in the last decade.
• B2B, enterprise, and embedded is replacing D2C in fintech's 'second wave.'
• The availability of fintech is usually a pre-requisite for other tech categories to flourish in emerging markets.
• There is still opportunity at the 'bottom of the pyramid' for more innovation to empower consumers.
• The #1 value that investors can provide early-stage founders is helping them to raise their next rounds.

I'm resharing this excellent chart from 500 Global that I referenced on the panel. E-commerce and fintech are usually the two first categories to reach $1B in market cap in new geos, which in-turn catalyze the growth of other sectors:

Speaking of new geos, we're about to host our first-ever Lusaka Fintech Happy Hour and we're coming back to Cape Town

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

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💬 Quote of the Week

"I think the fall is a catalyst for pursuing self. It's like a forcing function. And it's how the vast majority of people will discover it, but it's not the only way to discover it. And so I personally have received a lot of joy and gratitude from having done so." - Fintech Brain Food's Simon Taylor

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

In spite of intense lobbying by tax planning software providers like TurboTax, the IRS will pilot free, direct tax filing software in 2024 to a subset of consumers in 13 states.

JP Morgan partnered with Mastercard to launch a new pay-by-bank solution, allowing merchants to take payments directly from customer bank accounts.

Bank ABC's neobank product ila Bank rolled out a Samsung Wallet integration.

Itaú Unibanco partnered with embedded payments provider Inswitch to debut a way for Brazilian consumers to use PIX to pay around the world.

US Bank launched an embedded, multi-channel point-of-sale lending platform to let firms offer customers financing at checkout.

📰 Other News

JP Morgan's stablecoin, the JPM Coin, passed $1 billion in daily transaction volume.

Banking regulators in the US are overhauling the 1970's Community Reinvestment Act legislation to increase banking access in low-income communities in the age of digital banking. The Federal Reserve also confirmed it will cut US debit card fees.

Mastercard and UAE fintech Pemo signed a strategic partnership to promote cashless expense management for SMBs, while Trovata and JP Morgan partnered to streamline treasury management.

Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered are working on a network for stablecoins and CBDCs, while the European Central Bank starts the groundwork for a digital euro.

The US Treasury proposed a crackdown on the crypto mixers that facilitate anonymous transactions.

The Federal Reserve and state of New York fined Metropolitan Bank $30 million for risk management and KYC failures.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Unit* launched a new lending product offering to let software companies embed lending into their products.

Nerdwallet partnered with banking-as-a-service provider Bond (owned by FIS) to launch its first-ever consumer credit card.

Square introduced 10 new generative AI features to enable customers to automatically produce content and onboard customers.

Jio Financial launched new insurance and lending products in India, while Google Pay (disclosure: where I worked) partnered with banks and other lenders in India to offer loans to individuals and merchants on the Google Pay app, which is processing 4 billion transactions monthly.

Neu launched a credit card for young people and students and all-in-one UK card app Curve launched its first credit card in the UK.

Airbnb launched pay-over-time with Klarna in Ireland.

Payroll API provider Argyle* launched Passport, a consumer control dashboard for API payroll connections:

...and enabled new functionality so that users can use their phone numbers as their passwords.

Google released DigiKavach, an early threat detection and warning system to identify emerging financial fraud patterns.

Education debt management platform Candidly launched an emergency savings product.

TodayPay launched a new solution to let merchants offer instant refunds to their customers across multiple rails.

Marqeta launched new credit capabilities, including commercial or consumer credit cards that are seamlessly integrated into their own digital experience, with rewards that can be tailored to cardholders.

Expensify made a move into Venmo's market with new personal payment and bill-splitting features.

Socure launched a pooled insights solution to enable customers to identify first-party fraud.

FinanceHQ launched to match financial advisors to clients.

Stripe introduced new features to its Link checkout product:

📰 Other News

Catch, the benefits platform for gig workers, relaunched with new ownership.

AI-enabled financial advisor and wealth manager Arta opened its doors in the US.

Fiserv is moving into banking-as-a-service with its merchant acceptance, banking, and card issuing businesses available to others through a set of APIs.

Galileo received Mastercard certification to provide services simultaneously in five new Latin American countries.

FTX believes it can return up to 90% of customer funds.

....and Ferrari will now accept crypto payments in the US.

🤝 Partnership Corner

Zero Hash* partnered with Plaid to enable embedded bank account-linking for ACH-funded crypto trades.

Cross-border payments platform TerraPay partnered with Nequi by Bancolombia, a digital financial platform with customers in Colombia, to work on remittances.

Fiserv partnered with Melio to streamline accounts payable and receivable for small businesses.

Cryptocurrency platform Wallmer partnered with Mesh Connect*.

👎 The Bad News

The CFPB took action against Chime for deceiving consumers about the speed and cost of remittance transfers through its mobile app, Sendwave, ordering them to pay $1.5 million in refunds and $1.5 million in fines.

Carta is currently embroiled in a scandal over the alleged mistreatment and harassment of former employees.

Nigerian bank Fidelity Bank blocked transfers to African fintechs OPay, Moniepoint, and Palmpay over KYC concerns.

Worldline shares fell 50% on lower-than-expected guidance for merchant relationships. Shares in UK B2B cross-border payments provider CAB Payments also fell over 50% after the company revised revenue guidance sharply downwards.

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