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The Front Page of Global Fintech

The the largest fintech community in the world. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in news opinions, and all things financial technology.

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This Week in Fintech (11/19)

This Week in Fintech (11/19)

Hello Fintech Friends,

I gotta say, the Tucci had me on the edge of my seat last night.

Big, big shout-out to all of our amazing partners who are making the Fintech Formal a reality. Have a great weekend.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.


💬 Quote of the Week

“Most probably will start using crypto without realizing it (eg their bank issues a mortgage on-chain) - they'll just get better rate & faster processing. Eventually they'll realize a lot of apps & workflows they use & love today will be running on Web3 rails. That's the end game.”

📖 Read of the Week

The fintech team at Andreessen Horowitz continues to put out engaging primers on how different elements of financial infrastructure interoperate. This week, they published a short overview of how money moves (domestically and internationally) and the components of that process.

📊 Stat of the Week

Challenger banks and fintechs tripled their share of the UK credit card market and grew their personal loan books by 50% this year. (Source)


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🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Standard Chartered's venture arm launched letsbloom, a fintech that helps regulated firms get on the cloud.

National Australia Bank relaunched its online small business lending service.

CommBank's venture arm launched a machine learning shopping app for Gen Z.

📰 Other News

Mastercard signed up American Airlines, CSI, Fiserv and Tsys for its buy-now-pay-later program and opened a card program in New Orleans focused on financial inclusion.

CaixaBank is embarking on the tricky task of unifying its IT systems with the recently-acquired Bankia.

Singapore and Abu Dhabi collaborated on a 'breakthrough' cross-border trade finance program. The Philippines is accelerating its push to digital payments, in-line with the central bank’s goal of 50% of payments being digital by 2023.

Citi is opening a 7,000 square foot branch in Manhattan as banks are all moving into the clouds.


💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Google Finance launched the ability for users to link and track all their brokerage holdings on Google.

Euronet launched a real-time cross-border B2B payments solution and Roxe and Nium partnered to launch a consumer remittances product.

UK fintechs Mode and PayEscape are partnering to let people accept their payroll in bitcoin. Ripple launched a bitcoin and ethereum hub, and is working on a defi offering. Venmo launched a crypto price-tracking feature.

Online lender NewDay launched an instant-access credit account and Smartpay launched a no-fee buy-now-pay-later option in Japan. Klarna launched its pay-in-4 installment service in the US.

AcreTrader launched AcrePro, an online brokerage for farmland.

Nasdaq launched a dataset for tracking retail investment activity.

Fidel launched a transaction stream API. Open banking app TrueLayer partnered with Lightyear to launch instant account funding.

Yieldstreet launched a fund for small investors to bet on art.

Australian neobank Volt launched a white-labeled banking-as-a-service app. Core banking provider Nymbus launched a banking-as-a-service solution.

Voyager is launching the “first” crypto-based debit card (after all the other crypto debit cards…) with Mastercard.

📰 Other News

Amazon has stopped accepting Visa cards for payments made in the UK due to high fees and is in talks to switch its co-brand card from Visa to Mastercard.

LatAm fintech Divibank raised $5 million in debt through Goldfinch’s decentralized protocol. Uruguayan fintech Prex will let users purchase cryptocurrency starting December.

Rapyd is partnering with shopping app Nate on a global e-commerce platform. Canadian fintech Newt signed a deal to operate a SaaS platform for BBVA’s customers in Mexico. Banking-as-a-service provider Jiko signed a partnership with Euphoria to build a banking app for the transgender community.

Mercado Pago obtained approval to be a credit card issuer in Chile. N26 made its exit from the US official with the closure of 500,000 bank accounts.

3% of users left Binance after it implemented mandatory KYC. Plaid, MX and Flinks are setting up a new data security framework.

UK neobank Starling bought a £1 billion mortgage book.

Ikea is accepting open banking payments through Trustly.

And in very sad news, Brandon Dewitt, the co-founder of MX, passed away from cancer at age 38.


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🇪🇺 Europe
  • Starling Bank is to offset its carbon emissions starting this year which is estimated to cost around $40,000. They also added support for its multi-currency accounts into Xero in real time.
  • Klarna has finally launched in Ireland and also launched “Money Talks”, a card game to encourage people to talk about money.
  • Truelayer has signed new neobroker Lightyear as a customer for its payments product, to be use to fund accounts at the investment platform.

🌏 Asia

  • PhonePe crossed 2 billion monthly transactions milestone.
  • In India, Velocity, a revenue based finance startup, raised $20 million. GoKwik, a commerce enablement startup, raised $15 million. GuardianLink, an NFT marketplace, raised $12 million.
  • BSP, the Philippine Central Bank, plans to build a regional instant bank transfer network. It's already integrated with Singapore.
  • Arbo Works, a Singaporean fintech startup founded by ex-Google employees, raised an undisclosed amount.

📜 Policy

In collaboration with Ben White.

  • The Biden Administration signed into law the infrastructure bill, including a crypto tax amendment.
  • Democratic Senators issued a letter pushing the CFPB on credit reporting errors.
  • Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said stablecoins need not face identical rules to bank deposits, countering the Presidential Working Group’s recommendations last week.
  • OCC Comptroller nominee Saule Omarova testifies in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.
  • The SEC issued a risk alert for electronic investment advisers, after examinations found deficiencies in internal policies related to information security and investor best interest.
  • The SEC rejected a Bitcoin ETF proposal from VanEck.
  • US prudential regulators are expected to release a crypto regulation framework, according to Politico (paywall).
  • The SEC is reportedly scrutinizing BlockFi’s high-yield crypto accounts.
  • Ripple accused the SEC of “picking winners and losers” in a March court filing.
  • Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Ademayo spoke about the opportunities and risks of crypto, and called for a regulatory framework.
  • The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is pushing back a key open banking initiative by 6 months.
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