👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Varo Bank extends partnership with Temenos in the Cloud.
Temenos Banking Cloud enables Varo to scale based on customer demands, deploy new products quickly, and drive down operational costs substantially. This has helped the bank to bring innovative products to market faster and at scale to meet the surge in digital banking.
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📰 ARTICLE
Following Visa’s expansion of its stablecoin settlement capabilities, industry observers believe the company’s efforts with USDC via Solana could catalyze increased adoption in the wider crypto payments realm.
Read the full article here
This summer, the U.S. began an ambitious experiment: a real-time payments system called FedNow. Built by the Federal Reserve, FedNow is designed to accelerate transactions for the digital age, bringing to businesses and banks the fast payments that consumers enjoy through mobile services such as Zelle or Venmo. If FedNow succeeds, it could eventually serve as America’s speedy payments backbone.
Read the full article here
💡INSIGHTS
59% of Black Americans say they ever use the Cash App, which surpasses usage from Hispanic Americans (37%), whites (17%), and Asian Americans (16%).
Cash App and Venmo have become household names in the world of mobile payments, reshaping the way Americans manage their finances. In this article, I’ll dive deep into the latest information and stats to compare CashApp and Venmo:
I highly recommend reading my complete deep dive article with more info, stats, and figures here.
‣ California was the most active US state for FinTech investment with a 26.8% share of all deals in the country.
‣ US FinTech deal activity reached 821 transactions in H1 2023, a 53% drop YoY.
‣ US FinTech companies raised a combined $13.1bn in H1 2023, a 56% drop from H1 2022.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ EToro teams with generative AI company Birdgewise on stock picking.
⭐️ RTP network surpasses one million payments on a single day.
⭐️ FDIC acknowledges ‘too generous’ view of First Republic’s liquidity.
⭐️ Divvy Homes goes from $2B valuation to third round of layoffs in a year.
⭐️ Xbox introduces the no annual fee Xbox Mastercard, issued by Barclays.
⭐️ PayPal, Meta to enable donations on Facebook, Instagram in the US, UK, Australia, Canada.
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DIGITAL BANKING
Bankjoy announced its partnership with Panacea Financial, a digital financial services company designed specifically for the banking needs of doctors.
PAYMENTS
Square says its services are coming back online after a daylong outage left small business owners unable to process payments.
PayPal finally launches Apple Pay support for its credit and debit cards.
Splitit enables AliExpress’ shoppers to ‘Pay After Delivery’ in the US.
BitPay announced it has rolled out PayPal USD (PYUSD) payments for merchants and consumers.
Stax Payments is honing its strategy to build on embedded payments as the company pushes its payment facilitation offering.
Visa has leveraged its acquisition of Currencycloud to launch a new global cross-border money movement service for banks, fintechs, FX brokers, corporates, and other payment institutions.
Episode Six (E6) announced the launch of Business Now, Pay Later.
Intuit unveiled "QuickBooks Money", a new all-in-one payments and banking solution with no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements that gives small businesses complete control of their money from anywhere.
OPEN BANKING
BNY Mellon has teamed up with Trustly to launch an open banking-based service that makes it practical for organisations to support consumer payments directly from bank accounts.
CRYPTO
TaxBit announced its AI-enabled rules engine to empower businesses dealing with cryptocurrencies to streamline their accounting processes.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner Caroline Pham advocated for a limited pilot program for digital asset regulation in the US.
Kresus has just expanded its crypto cashout service to enable customers to withdraw funds of up to $100,000 into their bank accounts, without incurring any transaction fees.
PayPal launches crypto to USD off-ramps. The launch of the new feature follows PayPal's introduction last month of a crypto on-ramp service through MetaMask and Ledger.
INVESTMENT
Cross River provides over $145,000 in critical funds to black businesses in honor of National Black Business Month through Grant Program with the Brooklyn Chamber.
Alza emerges from stealth to offer affordable and inclusive financial tools to immigrants.
Nav launches credit building card to unlock capital for small businesses.
Owners Bank is looking to solve funding challenges facing small businesses. Connecticut fintech launches small business credit card.
M&A´s
Citi announced the acquisition of its SMB lending platform to Foro Holdings, a Charlotte-based commercial lending services provider.
DONE DEAL
Ampla has secured a $258 million credit facility with Goldman Sachs and Atalaya Capital Management.
REGTECH
FRAUD PREVENTION
Solid will accelerate and strengthen the onboarding and monitoring of its fintech clients, in full compliance with Lewis & Clark Bank's rigorous risk and compliance standards.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Dave announced that John Ricci, General Counsel, will retire on September 29, 2023. Joan Aristei has been named Chief Legal Officer, effective September 25, 2023.
Binance.US Chief Executive Officer Brian Shroder left the company and has been replaced on an interim basis by Chief Legal Officer Norman Reed, moves that coincided with another round of job cuts at the struggling crypto platform.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.