Hello Fintech Friends,

This was a tough news week for the community. Bob Lee, the creator of Cash App and former CTO of Square, was killed in San Francisco. The tragedy has provoked an outpouring of fintech community sympathy and gratitude for Bob’s life and his impact on ours. Our thoughts are with his family.

👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

🤝 Event of the Week

If you are based in New York, you can't miss next week's event Runway, hosted by our friends Capchase and Spendflo. Join to meet New York's leading VCs and startup operators, learn about how founders and CEOs can weather the storm in this new normal, and enjoy an evening of drinks, food, and insightful discussions.

💬 Quote of the Week

“Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.” - Anon (widely attributed to Anthony Bourdain)

📖 Read of the Week

Better Tomorrow Ventures’ JC Bahr-de Stefano published Building the next decade of consumer finance this week, recapping a panel that he moderated at Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas. The five key takeaways:

1. Alternative data augments FICO across the entire credit spectrum — this is about FICO+, not replacing FICO.
2. Real-time data powers better products and outcomes by enabling greater access and improving the quality of risk management.
3. The movement to make alternative data mainstream has to happen outside of the credit bureaus.
4. Recent innovation in infrastructure has made this data far more accessible than it has been in the past.
5. Mature lenders don’t want scores, they want raw data or attributes.

📊 Stat of the Week

“1 in 10 payments still fail for no good reason,” per Stripe’s annual letter. The letter itself is worth a read in its entirety to get a sense for how the online economy continues to grow, in spite of a challenging year for tech and business.

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🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Singapore and Malaysia launched an interoperable cross-border QR code for merchant payments.

Swedish bank SEB and French bank Crédit Agricole are launching so|bond, a blockchain platform for digital bonds to reward participants for improving their environmental footprint.

Three Goldman partners launched a new RIA, Modern Wealth Management, with "no advisors, no tech stack and no assets."

📰 Other News

More than 10 million customers (!) have used Bank of America’s financial planning tool, Life Plan, since launching two and a half years ago.

Small bank deposits have fallen in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank, but not by much – but consumer spending is starting to slow as recession fears loom.

Brussels-based Euroclear may launch a distributed ledger platform for bond settlement this year.

Lloyds Bank will partner with blockchain provider Enigio to put its trade finance documentation on the blockchain.

The OCC has officially opened up its new Office of Financial Technology. The California Department of Financial Protection put together an interesting study on the true cost of earned wage access products. The CFPB finalized a rule that will make lenders collect geographic and demographic data, lending decisions, and the price of credit on loans they make.

Japanese bank Mizuho and mobile messaging app Line ditched their mobile bank launch plans.

Lloyds and NatWest in the UK are both slated to close more branches.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Rocket Mortgage launched its own credit card to help homeowners save for and pay off their new homes.

Latitud launched Meridian, a business account for LatAm startups to manage and move their money.

Brex launched an entirely redesigned mobile app to track expenses, book and manage travel, request budgets, and make payments.

Payment facilitator Finix launched a raft of new features focused on enabling payments for online and e-commerce businesses.

Pinwheel launched Smart Branch, an app to bring payroll connectivity to banks.

Just as Wealthfront went into active investing, so Public launched its own roboadvisor and investment plans.

Commercial real estate fintech Built launched a new business unit to help property developers reduce risk.

Bloomberg launched BloombergGPT, a 50-billion parameter large language model for finance.

Tax filing platform april launched AI for taxes.

SMB-focused neobank Novo launched working capital lines for small businesses.

Greenlight launched a B2B offering to let banks focus on the kids.

📰 Other News

Big week for coming out of stealth -

Smoakland came out of stealth to enable consumers to purchase cannabis with cryptocurrency, because regulators were having a slow year anyway.

Salt Labs came out of stealth with a rewards platform for hourly workers to be better compensated.

Oscilar came out of stealth with a new solution to help financial institutions fight fraud.

Chipper is now integrated with most bank and mobile money accounts in Africa.

Dutch neobank Bunq applied for a US banking license, following in the steps of similar forays like those of Monzo, N26, and Revolut. Meanwhile, US crypto exchange Gemini is taking its derivatives exchange overseas.

UK embedded banking provider ClearBank (different from revenue-based financier Clear) reported triple year-over-year income growth to £58 million in 2022.

Google banned personal loan apps on Android from accessing sensitive data like photos and contacts.

Cash shortages in Nigeria have led to a large spike in digital money usage.

🤝 Partnership Corner

Australian SMB-focused neobank Cape partnered with Xero to launch one-click automated accounting.

Mastercard partnered with global hospitality enterprise payments network Illusions Online to bring bespoke travel benefits to Mastercard cardholders.

CharityVest and PayPal teamed up to enable PayPal grant electronic payments for charities.

Remittances platform Wise partnered with Interactive Brokers to enable simple international investing.

AllianceBlock and Crunchbase are partnering to bring detailed business data to DeFi.

👎 The Bad News

P2P bitcoin exchange platform Paxful will suspend operations, citing regulatory challenges.

The male/female pay gap at Revolut rose from 22.7% to 25.4% and its board has been publicly frustrated by its response to its auditor’s warning that financial statements are inaccurate.

Denmark’s Lunar Bank will sell off its P2P business to Swedish investment platform SaveLend Group.

The SEC charged the founder of student financial aid startup Frank with defrauding JP Morgan and arrested her, with potential penalties of up to 100 years in jailtime.

Accounting firm EY was banned from Germany for two years over its accounting failures in the Wirecard fraud.

LGBTQ-focused neobank Daylight was hit with a lawsuit.

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