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Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know! Enjoying TWIF? Tips are always appreciated 🙏)

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💼 Fintech Job of the Week

WiseLayer hiring Applied AI Engineer in New York City Metropolitan Area | LinkedIn

Posted 2:25:37 PM. About WiseLayer:WiseLayer is using AI + ELT to evolve the end-to-end financial flows at companies…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.

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💬 Quote of the Week

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

The remote Argentinian province of La Rioja just created its own currency, the chacho, to try to revive its sagging economy while avoiding the volatility of the peso that has characterized Argentinian currency for the last decade.

Visa released a huge list of new Asian-focused payments products at Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai last week, in partnership with HDFC, Axis Bank, Paytm, and more. You can see the full list here.

Mastercard launched biometric payment passkeys in India.

📰 Other News

Have you ever messed up so badly you forced an entire industry to change? In the unfolding fallout from Synapse's collapse, and the difficulty of reconciling the banking-as-a-service provider's accounts at partner bank Evolve, the FDIC is considering introducing new rules to require banks to more closely monitor the accounts and ledgers maintained by the fintechs they work with.

Hedge fund Citadel is pushing back on the cost of a proposed trading audit and surveillance system, advocated for by the SEC, which has already cost $1 billion to build.

Lloyds Bank will use fintech Cleareye's document processing to automate trade finance onboarding.

A myriad of bank glitches across the UK left customers unable to access payments at multiple banks this week. Meanwhile, the UK's Competition Appeals Tribunal gave the green light to a $4 billion lawsuit that merchants have brought against Visa and Mastercard over their interchange fees.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Revolut is rolling out new virtual cards to Apple and Google Pay that will let users spend with crypto on any purchases.

Cross-border payments provider Atlantic Money launched Portals, a feature to let users to make international transfers directly from their bank account and with the fintech’s network but without needing the fintech’s app.

Investment management software platform Sydecar* launched Syndicates, a platform designed to transform how syndicate leads manage deals and engage investors.

Personal budgeting app Origin launched a raft of new wealth management features, including a 5%+ APY savings account, tax filing, and estate planning.

Crypto infrastructure provider Eco* launched its own Eco Protocol to make stablecoins more liquid and accessible, with cross-chain support and cheap transaction execution.

PayPal introduced rewards and stackable cashback offers.

Synctera partnered with Marqeta to offer a new fleet card-as-a-service solution to help launch their own fleet card and banking products.

Japanese payments firm JCB partnered with fintech Wonder to launch a new corporate card.

Neobank Fingular and payments firm AhaPay launched a new buy-now-pay-later business in Malaysia. 

Banking-as-a-service provider Unit* read the room and launched a tool to let banks enhance their business continuity procedures and reduce disruptions in the event of a fintech partner failure.

In case you didn't know, Money20/20 USA is the world’s greatest, most influential gathering of the ENTIRE global money ecosystem. This is where you come to accelerate deals, build partnerships, make breakthroughs, and raise your profile with top industry leaders. The best part? You can get your pass right now to save before prices increase at the end of today! Don't miss out. 

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

📰 Other News

American payments giant Stripe is adding an AI-driven optimized checkout suite to increase its footprint in Asia, while African payments network Flutterwave expanded to the Ugandan market. (Last year, cross-border payment volume in Asia on Stripe grew more than 30%.)

Buy-now-pay-later provider Klarna's CEO revealed that he plans to cut his workforce by 50% by implementing more AI.

Landian came out of stealth to capitalize on the recent National Association of Realtors lawsuit with a flat fee-based home real estate platform; legacy online brokerages like Redfin are responding with their own flat fee structures.

Indian embedded wealth management and retirement account platform Koshex* passed $100 million in assets under management.

🤝 Partnership Corner

The Bank of London, a clearing, correspondent and wholesale bank operating in the UK, was selected by Malysian fintech Waafi Bank to help it enter the UK's Shariah-compliant banking market.

Payment issuer-processor Paymentology partnered wth Union54 to launch virtual debit cards on ChitChat's social commerce platform.

Cash-flow underwriting and credit score passporting provider Nova Credit partnered with bank consortium open banking platform Akoya to create a credit decisioning data access network.

👎 The Bad News

New York's Community Federal Savings Bank is scaling back its fintech programs due to regulatory warnings and legal issues.

Payments hardware provider McLear is shutting down its wearable NFC payments ring, citing product complexity.

MyMonii, a Danish family-focused financial management app, shut down. Hardbacon, a Canadian budgeting and fintech affiliate marketing app, also shut down.

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