Hi there!
Before we dive into this week’s news overview, I would like to shine a light on the ‘Connecting the Dots in Payments’ newsletter that I launched this week together with my friend and fellow FinTech Geek Wouter de Vries.
Every Thursday we will summarize the latest Global Paytech News of that week for you to stay up to date on all things in digital payments. Sign up for this great newsletter and let me do the heavy lifting for you in sourcing and curating the news.
Many thanks for your support and enjoy this newsletter!
Cheers,
Marcel
REPORT
The 2023 State of Crypto Report by a16z crypto addresses the imbalance between the noise of fleeting price movements. Some key takeaways include:
Web3 is more than a financial movement, it’s an evolution of the internet.
Blockchains are more than ledgers, they are computers.
Crypto isn’t just a new financial system, it’s a new computing platform.
Download the full report through the link below👇
REPORT
Against all odds, FinTech has in the previous years not only continued to thrive. Here are some key takeaways from Barclays and Money2020’s Future of Fintech Report.
The market maturation remains strong and is deepening in new and unexpected ways.
Digital payments are increasingly important in the B2B space, driven by trends such as B2B marketplaces as well as e-invoicing.
The possibilities of Open Banking are becoming more widely recognized.
Read and download the full report through the link below👇
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Visa partners with PayPal and Venmo to pilot Visa+, an innovative service that helps individuals move money quickly and securely between P2P apps. As part of a joint effort to build interoperability across payment platforms, its partners DailyPay, i2c, TabaPay, and Western Union will also integrate Visa+ within their platforms.
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📰 ARTICLE
Crypto could help save people in the US billions of dollars a year in remittance fees. Americans spend over $12 billion a year in fees just to send money to friends and family abroad. Yet the process for international transfers is shockingly slow and expensive, whilst Crypto transfers are significantly faster and over 96% cheaper
📰 ARTICLE
Apple is the latest to enter the growing micro-loan space and joins popular BNPL services such as Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, and PayPal’s “Pay in 4” option. Here’s how Apple Pay Later compares.
💡 INSIGHTS
In the wake of the SVB fallout, Visual Capitalist looks at the 30 U.S. banks with the highest percentage of uninsured deposits, using data from S&P Global.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Current’s ex-Head of Talent Isabelle Mitura sued the $2.2 billion company, alleging racial and sex-based discrimination.
⭐️ Walmart is suing Capital One, seeking to terminate their credit-card partnership.
⭐️ Bluevine and Wise launch an international Bill-Pay solution for U.S. SMBs.
⭐️ Robinhood reached a $10.2 million settlement with state securities regulators regarding operational and technical failures.
⭐️ Twitter will give users the option to buy and sell stocks and other assets from eToro.
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DIGITAL BANKING
Forme Financial raised $12 million in a Series A funding round led by Hudson Structured Capital Management and Breyer Capital.
Union Credit announced a partnership with TransUnion to better serve the evolving credit needs of consumers.
Bankjoy integrated with Fiserv Portico, seeking greater flexibility to deploy Bankjoy’s digital banking tools for their members.
Fiserv will continue to advance the availability of real-time payments in the U.S. as part of the pilot of the Federal Reserve’s real-time payments network FedNowSM.
Monzo Bank customers in the US will now be able to connect their accounts to more than 8000 FinTech apps through Plaid’s network.
Clear Street raised $270 million in a Series B funding round at a $2 billion valuation.
PAYMENTS
Transcard integrated its family of embedded payment solutions SMART Suite, with Mastercard’s innovative commercial offerings Track Business Payment Service.
Mastercard vows to remove first-use PVC plastic from its newly-produced cards by 2028.
Mastercard launches a new suite of solutions dedicated to female business owners in Latin America and the Caribbean.
KeyBank selects Qolo for integrated application programming interface-based payments and virtual accounts.
BNPL
After the launch of Apple Pay Later, Apple is now looking to rival the BNPL sector’s biggest providers and aiming to become an all-in-one payment gateway.
Digital River introduced Afterpay and Clearpay in its payment method offering to address consumer interest in BNPL options.
OPEN BANKING
Plaid adds an instant payout feature to the Plaid Transfer, enabling users to make transactions via the RTP network as well as via automated clearing house payments.
CRYPTO
Binance is struggling to find a bank to handle its customers' cash after the failure of Signature Bank, mainly because of banks’ reluctance due to concerns over regulatory risk.
INVESTMENT
Investipal launched a novel platform to make investing in the stock market easy for everyone. Currently, Investipal's clients are managing over $60 million on the platform.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Wyre announced that Stephen Cheng was appointed as its Chief Executive Officer.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, and maybe I can answer a few.