Hello Fintech Friends,

👋 Welcome to the 1,679+ new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 157,000+ other subscribers. Today's newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Fintech Meetup.

📢 We're looking for great Fintech Freelance Writers! If you would be interested in writing for TWIF, let me know by replying to this email. This year, we're building up our writing team on a lot of new projects.

🎟️ Quick reminder that Stablecon prices go up tonight at midnight, will we see you there?

One Big Thought

This week, I was planning to make the big story of newsletter about the US Executive Order on digital currencies and stablecoins.

And then the President of the United States launched his own fintech company...?

And then X announced that it's working with Visa on its 'everything app' with the goal of becoming a fintech company.

And then global neobank Revolut rolled out a new commercial real estate lending arm.

If there's one rule of the 2025 timeline, it's this: There will be surprises.

I'm sure I'm missing a few other massive announcements this week, but one big thought: 2025 feels very different from the past few years. It's invigorating to see companies taking risks again. Capital markets are rewarding companies again for healthy growth. After the easy-money days of 2020/2021, fintech spent the past couple years growing up, and now when a neobank moves into CRE, it's a credible move. Will this year see Klarna, Circle, or Stripe go public? How many users will Revolut and Nubank have by EOY? How many countries will TBC operate in? Will Affirm buy a card network? Will Brex and Ramp bury the hatchet and join forces to become Bramp (or Rex?)

One guarantee: There will be surprises.

Also, while I have you here, a few thoughts on the digital currencies EO:

• The EO doesn't actually change anything so far, in that banks, fintechs, and crypto companies can't take direct guidance from the EO and change their operations accordingly. But what it does mean is that this administration's posture will be much less hawkish towards new financial products.
• The EO establishes a digital currency working group with the remit of proposing a regulatory framework governing digital assets in 180 days (!) with initial findings due in 30 days (!) This is not a long, meandering '5 year plan.'
• The EO expresses a direct preference for privately-issued stablecoins over central bank digital currencies. Not surprising, given the pro-markets orientation of this administration, but it brings up some interesting questions about how private coins will be regulated, whether they'll be treated differently than tokenized deposits, and how other countries' CBDCs will interact with US stables. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a great technical primer (yet) on the product distinctions between CBDCs and stables – just a lot of consulting firm marketing docs – but I'd love to share one, if someone can find one and forward it to me.

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

Trump Media & Technology Group announced its expansion into financial services with a new fintech company under the brand name Truth.Fi. The company plans to diversify its $700 million reserves and offer investment products by investing up to $250 million through Charles Schwab into traditional and cryptocurrency assets, including Bitcoin.

Tokyo’s stock exchange will unveil new protections for minority investors, as corporate Japan faces surging interest from global private equity firms.

Las Vegas' Beal Bank had a record year betting on inflation and rising interest rates after borrowing up to $4.7 billion from the Federal Reserve's discount window

Senator Ted Cruz led a renewed Republican effort to defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The proposed legislation seeks to eliminate the CFPB's funding by setting the Federal Reserve’s contribution to the agency at zero.

HSBC announced it will wind down its M&A advisory businesses in the UK, Europe, and the Americas to refocus the bank's efforts on Asia and the Middle East.

Visa and Mastercard face a multi-billion-pound lawsuit over interchange fees. The lawsuit alleges that the companies charged excessive fees to merchants.

Frequent fintech sponsor bank Patriot Bank entered into an agreement with the OCC over issues stemming from BSA/AML risk management.

💬 Quote of the Week

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Revolut established a new commercial real estate lending business unit, appointing industry veteran Duncan Batty to lead the initiative.

Nova Credit enhanced its Income Navigator tool by introducing advanced document fraud detection capabilities, improving the accuracy and reliability of income verification for lenders.

Fineqia issued an Exchange-Traded Note tied to digital assets, providing investors with regulated exposure to cryptocurrencies.

Lucid launched a no-code platform for multi-chain decentralized finance management, enabling users to manage DeFi assets across various blockchains without coding expertise.

Ticket prices go up at MIDNIGHT! ⏰

Don't miss out on your last chance to get tickets at $500 off the full rate, and make sure that you secure your spot to register for meetings at Fintech Meetup 2025! The process begins on Monday, so time is running out to take part in the biggest and most valuable meetings program in fintech!

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

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💼 Job of the Week

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🤝 Partnership Corner

X partnered with Visa to integrate Visa’s payment solutions into X Money’s wallet to launch the "X Money Account," a wallet and peer-to-peer payment service. This is a step towards transforming X into an "everything app," offering services beyond social networking. The X Money Account will enable users to fund their X wallet, link debit cards, and transfer funds to bank accounts using Visa Direct. Initially available to U.S. users, the service is expected to roll out later this year.

BVNK teamed up with First Digital to promote global stablecoin adoption by integrating banking and digital asset solutions.

JetBlue enabled Venmo as a payment option for flight bookings, allowing customers to pay directly from their Venmo balance.

Grey collaborated with Clear Junction to provide payment solutions tailored for digital nomads, improving cross-border financial services.

Prism Data* partnered with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to introduce a new risk assessment tool leveraging consumer-permissioned data to refine credit decision-making.

👎 The Bad News

Some shareholders of Divvy Homes, backed by a16z, may not see any proceeds at all, after the company's $1B sale left them without returns.

The CFPB fined Wise $2.5 million for advertising inaccurate fees and failing to properly disclose exchange rates.

Vyne, an A2A payments platform, ceased its UK operations due to market challenges, discontinuing services for merchants and customers.

The Southern District of New York office of the Department of Justice has convened a grand jury related to Synapse, "presumably stemming from the still-unknown amount of missing end user funds, somewhere between $65 million and $96 million."