Hello Fintech Friends,

There is a poignant line at the end of the biopic of 90s rap group NWA:

That is how this week feels.

We’ve begun a new chapter in fintech and banking. It’s time to see what the aftermath of the last week in banking will bring.

If you’re tired of the SVB news cycle, so are we. If you need a break like we do, we plan to spend this issue diving into all the good things happening in banking and fintech.

(And if you’re curious to catch up on the latest in SVB, Signature, and Silvergate news, scroll to the bottom.)

🍸 Let’s kick off with the happy hour we’re co-hosting at Fintech Meetup next Monday with our friends at Alloy Labs and Spinwheel. (Join the waitlist here.)

💂🏼‍♂️ For anyone in London, I’ll be traveling to the UK for Fintech Week on April 20th and would love to see you at our London Fintech Meetup, co-hosted by our TWIF UK & EU Editor Michael Jenkins and our friend Simon Taylor of Fintech Brain Food and sponsored by Element Ventures.

👀 And be on the lookout for a few more events coming soon to NY Fintech Week, SF, and Bogota.

If you’re not yet subscribed, what are you waiting for? Subscribe here to join 60,000+ other fintech enthusiasts!

👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

💼 Fintech Job of the Week

Themis is hiring a Senior Fullstack Engineer.

• 🏙️ New York or Remote
• 🕒 Full-Time
• 📄 Senior

💬 Quote of the Week

“In five years a number of banks will not be around because of blockchain technology.” Joseph DiPaolo, Signature Bank CEO (2018)

📊 Stat of the Week

Around 90% of Chinese citizens use fintech neobanks. (Source)

European digital banking app downloads surged 54% in 2022. (Source)

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

The Bank of Mexico launched its Dimo digital payments product, which allows bank transfers to be made through phone numbers.

Visa and Mercedes Benz partnered to launch in-car payments in Germany.

📰 Other News

The Central Bank of Nigeria approved new open banking regulation and the Nigerian government launched a $672 million fund for startups.

The Central Bank of Egypt released a model for card tokenization on smart devices.

The US Federal Reserve announced that it will launch its long awaited real-time payments system, FedNow, in July and the South African Reserve Bank will soon launch a new cardless payment network.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is under fire for using a productivity app to spy on its employees.

UK bank NatWest imposed a daily limit of £1,000 and a 30-day payment limit of £5,000 on account holder crypto purchases.

The Central Banks of the UAE and India are cooperating on interoperable CBDCs. NAB completed a cross-border multi-currency stablecoin pilot.

UBS and Broadridge Financial Solution expect that this will be the year they roll out the brokerage product that they started co-developing together five years ago.

No stranger to bank stress, Credit Suisse reported material weaknesses in its financial reporting this week, sending its stock plummeting and leading the Swiss National Bank to step in with an offer of loan support (up to $54 billion).

Data: Yahoo! Finance; Chart: Axios Visuals

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

It was impressive to see how quickly fintech startups moved to react to the startup banking shutdowns. Mercury* launched FDIC insurance of up to $3 million in their new Vault product. AngelList launched a new promissory note product to help startups get quick access to capital. Paystand launched smart treasury management solutions for AR.

Zenpli*, the Mexican-based identity decisioning platform for KYC and fraud prevention, launched 7 new use cases for enterprises and startups to seamlessly open digital accounts with greater accuracy.

Coinbase launched a wallet-as-a-service product that companies can use to build crypto wallets into their own apps.

Credit Karma launched a dashboard to help US customers track their net worth.

Construction fintech Kojo launched automated invoice matching.

Treasury Prime launched an instant cross-bank transfer product within its bank network.

Creative Juice* launched Juice Books, tax tools for creators.

Mexican financial service provider Fondedora partnered with issuer-processor Paymentology to launch Apple Pay in Mexico.

Archie launched its open banking payments and financial data platform for small businesses in the UK.

Crypto payments platform Wirex partnered with card issuer Novatti to issue crypto payment cards in Australia.

📰 Other News

Brex announced that it is moving $200 million of its own funds back into Silicon Valley Bank.

ChatGPT and Bing AI will be used as panelists at a fintech conference this week.

Coinbase filed an amicus brief to the OpenSea insider trading case, saying that the SEC needs to provide rules and guidance in crypto.

Facebook parent Meta is exploring launching a decentralized app while winding down its Instagram NFTs, but Amazon is expected to launch an NFT marketplace next month.

Paysafe cut off Binance for fiat deposits and withdrawals in the UK.

Stripe partnered with OpenAI to integrate GPT-4 into Stripe’s product.

Cointracker integrated with H&R Block to offer crypto tax preparation.

French banking aggregation and payment automation platform Numeral expanded to the UK.

Banking-as-a-service provider Swan came to Spain and Worldline opened a shopping mall in the metaverse.

Card issuing platform Apto Payments struck a partnership with fraud platform Sardine.

Square launched a business accelerator for black and latino entrepreneurs.

N26’s top executives wrote an open letter to leadership complaining of its toxic work environment.

Exchange-traded crypto product 21Shares is shuttering some of its funds as demand wanes.

FTX related party and trading firm Alameda is suing Grayscale, Digital Currency Group and CEO Barry Silbert to recover assets, while crypto platform Anchorage cut 20% of its team.

SVB Post-Mortem

There is a saying in finance that when the tide goes out, you’ll know who was swimming naked.

What’s next for banking?

The FDIC is planning another auction of SVB, after taking it over on Sunday and moving into a new bridge bank entity. The regulator also closed New York’s Signature Bank, which had previously maintained a large book of business with the crypto industry.

Crypto investors, meanwhile, cashed out $2 billion of stablecoin USDC after a depeg when it was revealed that reserves were held with SVB.

The FDIC clarified that all counterparties are still required to meet their contract requirements with the SVB and Signature bridge banks.

HSBC purchased SVB’s UK entity for £1.

And First Republic Bank’s stock has taken a tumble alongside many other regional banks as fears of balance sheet mismanagement spread. FRC may look for an acquirer.

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