👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
New York’s top financial regulator is investigating stablecoin issuer Paxos – and, according to a new report, it was rival stablecoin issuer Circle that sounded an alarm.
Bloomberg reported that Circle tipped off the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) in the fall of 2022, complaining that blockchain data revealed Binance did not have enough reserves to back up the BUSD tokens it had issued through Paxos.
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💡INSIGHTS
Factors contributing to the increasing number of layoffs include the improvement of Artificial Intelligence tools, a shift in business focus, tighter budgets caused by the pandemic or lack of investor funding, restructuring, unsustainable growth, and a merger or acquisition.
🧐 ANALYSIS
US-to-Europe and Europe-to-US are popular corridors for fintech seeking to expand geographically due to:
👉 the huge size of the markets
👉 regulatory uniformity with the region
👉 cultural similarities
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ FIS is planning to pursue a tax-free spin-off of its Merchant Solutions business to strengthen its strategic and operational focus.
⭐️ PayPal CEO Dan Schulman will retire and leave the online payments company at the end of 2023.
⭐️ Open Banking payments transaction values will exceed $330 billion globally by 2027, up from $57 billion in 2023.
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DIGITAL BANKING
Monzo searches for US CEO to double down on expansion.
Fierce emerged from stealth with $10 million in seed funding.
Atomic and DCI partner to offer financial institutions payroll connectivity that seamlessly integrates with DCI’s GoBanking and GoDeposits digital banking solutions.
ModernFi raised $4.5 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz and founders from JPMorgan Chase, AWS, Coinbase, Q2 and BlackRock.
Comun closed a $4.5M seed round led by Costanoa Ventures with participation from South Park Commons and FJ Labs.
Plaid and Okta announced a partnership and integration to help thousands of banks and financial institutions adopt OAuth and APIs for exchanging data with third parties.
PAYMENTS
Newly raised $1.25M in Pre-Seed funding by Tenacity Venture Capital.
Mastercard is finalizing a partnership deal with Xsolla to introduce a more accessible payment experience to players, developers and creators.
PayPal is pausing work on its stablecoin as regulators increase scrutiny of cryptocurrencies.
FTC orders MoneyGram to return $115 million to scam victims.
Microsoft and American Express announced a deal to build solutions that leverage Microsoft Cloud and AI technologies, starting with expense report management.
CRYPTO
Bakkt is sunsetting its consumer app, which let users have access to their crypto and cash on the web.
Alongside closed an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
BLOCKCHAIN / DEFI
Paxos will end its relationship with Binance for the branded stablecoin BUSD.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Global Technology Partners appointed Olaseni Alabede as its new chief technology officer.
Segpay announced that Michael Shea has been appointed as CEO of its European Union headquarters based in Dublin.
FinWise Bank announced the addition of Robert Keil as Senior Vice President and Chief Fintech Officer.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.