Hello Fintech Friends,

We’re excited to come back to Chicago on May 12th at the Pendry Rooftop! 👉 Get your tickets here.

Also, we’ve finalized the dates for three Fintech Treks this year:

• London, September 15 to 18
• Mexico City, September 29 to October 2
• Dubai, December 1 to 4

If you’d like to join, sign up here for more info.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

💬 Quote of the Week

📊 Stat of the Week

US demographic surveys show that from March to April, there was a 32% increase in those saying they were relying on credit cards and loans to meet their spending needs. More than 1 in 10 adults reported tapping loans from friends or family to meet spending needs, a 34% increase from a year ago. (Source)

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🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Citi launched instant Sepa payments in Europe.

BNY Mellon launched a carbon-tracking tool for its own paper checks.

📰 Other News

EBA Clearing, Swift and The Clearing House are running an instant cross-border payments pilot. Akoya became the first RTP provider for tokenized payments. And not to be outdone, The Fed is piloting its own FedNow program.

Mastercard is now getting into open banking.

Goldman offered a bitcoin-backed loan. Santander launched a global blockchain challenge. And two Argentine banks began to offer crypto trading.

The US Labor Department voiced concerns about Fidelity’s bitcoin 401k plans.

Mastercard linked employee bonuses to ESG goals. Commerzbank refocused its innovation unit on sustainability.

The US’ OCC issued proposed rules for stablecoins and the SEC added a team of 20 to help it police crypto markets.

Its failed bitcoin bond deepened the debt crisis in El Salvador.Uganda banned crypto outright.

JP Morgan is getting sued by retailer Ray Ban for failing to stop a $272 million cyber theft.

Oops, a Citigroup trader triggered a European flash crash.

(Source)

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Block (fka Square) launched its loans product in Canada.

Stripe launched Financial Connections, a Plaid competitor that wraps MX and Finicity. Meanwhile, MX partnered with Everywhere to launch real-time pay by text.

MoonPay launched a minting-as-a-service tool and will provide NFT payment processing.

Germany’s Mondu partnered with banking-as-a-service provider Raisin to launch buy-now-pay-later for business payments.

Zai, an embedded fintech orchestration provider, launched a cheaper US x-border money transfer service.

Rapyd launched cross-border virtual accounts.

Motive launched a spend management card. Automated accounting platform Vic.ai debuted a cost optimization tool.

UK neobank Atom launched an instant loan quotes tool.

Australia’s Hay Group launched… hay-as-a-service, which is called Shaype?

📰 Other News

In a broader legal challenge than the ongoing German regulatory challenge to Apple’s walled garden around NFC payments, the European Commission brought antitrust charges against the tech giant for not allowing third-party apps to use its NFC payment features.

Crypto mortgages are the new thing. Defi project Teller facilitated an uncollateralized crypto mortgage loan, and Propy and Abra partnered on crypto-backed mortgages.

Defi lender Goldfinch passed $100 million in loans.

Skyflow and Plaid partnered on data security. Affirm embedded its loans in Fiserv.

Klarna allowed its banks to block gambling sites and will report to credit agencies.

Tricolor issued a Hispanic auto loan bond.

WhatsApp is competing head-on with Google to win Indian payments users through giving cashback rewards. After a rocky domestic app launch, Coinbase is doubling down on its Indian presence. PayPal is also doubling down on its efforts to become the go-to digital wallet.

Payments provider BPC expanded to the Americas and Caribbean. European open banking provider Tink came to the Netherlands, Norway, Estonia, Finland and Latvia. UK buy-now-pay-later provider Zilch is coming to the US. Dutch neobank Bunq came to Ireland.

Crypto firms are pushing back against SEC treasury market policing proposals.

Financial Solutions Lab announced its 2022 Accelerator cohort.

You can now buy alcohol at a vending machine with your veins…

Come meet us in-person at www.fintechhappyhour.com, and join our angel investing syndicate.