Hello Fintech Friends,

We have some exciting announcements to share with readers next week, stay tuned!

Our Chicago and Denver fintech happy hours are both coming up next Thursday, 7/15. Come by and say hi! (Thank you to co-organizers Saira, Peggy, John, and Martin).

For our readers across the pond we’re excited to share that we’ll be hosting a London fintech happy hour in late August - RSVP here.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

💬 Quote of the Week

“We find solace in the market being high. But the market is not a reflection of the economy or progress — it is increasingly driven by a few firms’ ability to arbitrage the gap between the pace of technology and regulation. It’s depressing. What to do? I’ll check my likes, mentions, and stocks.”

• Prof. Scott Galloway (Source)

📖 Read of the Week

It’s pretty fascinating to read a sitting member of Congress publicly defending the right to innovation in decentralized finance. This week, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota lays out a case to avoid overregulation of blockchain and defi in The Hill.

📊 Stat of the Week

Commission-free trading and investing apps are making over $100 million a month in commission on other products. (Financial Times)

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💼 Open Role Spotlight

Banking as a service platform Synctera is hiring across the board in BD, Product, Compliance, and Engineering.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Crown Agents Bank launched a pension with biometric authentication.

Equifax UK partnered with United Utilities to launch an open banking income verification tool for the water industry.

📰 Other News

Wells Fargo is shutting all personal lines of credit to its consumers with no warning, which is expected to negatively impact credit scores across the board.

American Express expanded the information in its digital receipts for Amazon purchases.

The line between fintech and crypto is blurring. 650 US banks will soon be able to offer bitcoin purchases to 24 million consumers through partnerships with NCR and NYDIG. Meanwhile, Mastercard is hiring a crypto product manager, while Visa crypto-backed cardholders spent over $1 billion this year.

Meanwhile, Barclays is banning Binance and UBS wants to ban bitcoin.

Russia’s central bank is piloting a digital ruble.

Chase customers became billionaires overnight due to a glitch.

Deutsche Bank is cutting 450 roles from its Irish offices. Schwab set aside $200 million for SEC fines regarding its roboadvisor.

(Mobile payment app complaints are surging as more Americans go cashless)

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Uruguayan fintech powerhouse dLocal will now issue physical cards across Latin America.

Euphoria.LGBT launched a savings app for gender transitions.

PayPal launched Zettle, a digital point of sale solution for merchants.

Blockfi launched its long-awaited 2% crypto rewards card with Visa. Sygnum Bank will now offer ethereum staking.

KYC and anti-fraud platform Socure launched a user identity solution built specifically for BNPL.

Scandinavian open banking provider Nordigen will let users connect their bank accounts to Google Sheets.

Funding Options launched a UK green finance marketplace.

Australia’s Bluestone launched a digital lending platform. India’s Centime launched a cloud-based cash flow management platform.

Aries Financial launched mobile trading.

📰 Other News

India’s central bank is getting increasingly worried about the presence of large technology providers in financial services.

Booking.com launched an internal fintech unit to build travel financial services.

Amazon’s BNPL product hit 2 million users in India. Google will roll out fintech products in Japan.

Venmo raised its peer-to-peer payment fees for the sale of goods and services.

Wish, the Chinese e-commerce site, was granted a Payments Services License by the Dutch Central Bank, allowing it to process European payments on its platform. Germany’s Solarisbank is coming to France, Italy and Spain.

N26 partnered with crypto exchanges to introduce trading to its platform and published a Female Opportunity Index.

GoCardless and Pennylane partnered to provide automated accounting to small businesses.

Chime is in hot water for closing accounts and not returning customer money.

Instagram is getting in on NFTs.

📜 Policy

In collaboration with Ben White.

• The Bank of International Settlements published a landscape survey on jurisdictions regulating “non-bank payment service providers.”
• To enable more bank innovation, The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network could write rules to add No Action Letters to their supervisory toolkit for AML requirements.
• The SEC and Australia’s Securities and Investment Commission each levied fines against major investment advisors.
• New Zealand announced it will be the next country to establish a Consumer Data Right, following its neighbor Australia which recently celebrated its first anniversary by launching three new pathways for businesses to ingest data.
• Following regulatory actions in the UK, Binance suspended deposits from Europe’s Sepa payments system.
• Six US-based fintech companies sent a letter to the CFPB asking for more guidance on how to manage “disparate impact” of AI/ML decisioning algorithms.
• The European Central Bank lifted its COVID-19 restrictions on bank dividends and share buybacks.
• UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced new climate and technology related goals for Britain’s financial sector.
• US President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders released a detailed set of policy recommendations for a ‘unity’ task force, which called out financial inclusion as a goal.
• The European Commission published a Renewed Sustainable Finance strategy.

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