Fintech acquisitions show sector strength despite Covid-19 - While the crisis may be causing a down round in terms of new funding in the space, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down mergers and acquisitions. The epidemic may not even register as a blip to future analysts of fintech M&A. Read more
US regulator aims to cut the red tape with payments charters - Brian Brooks, the erstwhile chief legal officer at Coinbase is now the acting head of the US’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates the country’s banks at federal level. Extending the OCC’s reach to fintech regulation has been high on his agenda. He intends to unveil a national payments charter as soon as the autumn. Read more
A financial whodunnit with momentous investment implications for the young and old - The FT explores the fascinating recent paper “The Murder-Suicide of the Rentier” which tries to untangle why risk-free interest rates have collapsed during the past couple of decades, and finds an answer with important implications for investors both young and old. Read more
Goldman says pandemic is giving a boost to digital banking - GS suggests that more than a quarter of customers don’t plan to return to branch offices even after it is safe to do so. Read more
New York bolsters fintech leadership role amid pandemic - The state’s Department of Financial Services is working on three fintech and virtual currency initiatives designed to promote collaborative efforts by regulators and financial technology firms. Read more
Fintech Powerhouse Nubank Buys U.S. Software Firm Cognitect - Nubank bought Durham, North Carolina-based Cognitect commenting that “At our current scale, there’s so much at stake that we thought we needed a different level of access to one of our most important technology partners.” Read more
Retailer Unicomer launches fintech credit, QR payments play - Unicomer Group is rolling out a fintech service, offering QR payments and point of sale credits, and aims to scale it across more than 20 Latin American markets. Read more
Ribbit Capital plans $600m SPAC to target fintech businesses - The plans are coming together as a host of other venture capital firms consider forming SPACs or pushing their start-ups into deals with the shell companies, which have historically suffered from a lack of transparency and associations with short-term investors, such as hedge funds. Read more
Affirm partners with Shopify to exclusively power Shop Pay Installments in the U.S. - At checkout, approved Shop Pay customers will be able to split their total purchase amount into four equal, bi-weekly, interest-free payments. True to Affirm’s long-standing commitment to never charge late or hidden fees, customers will not be charged any additional fees. Read more
Big banks look to the cloud to accelerate digital shift - After years of foot-dragging, many big banks have finally started to outsource their storage of data and high-intensity computing power demand. This week, AWS struck a big new deal with HSBC while Google announced partnerships with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. Read more
Ant Group plans dual IPOs in Shanghai, Hong Kong, bypassing New York - Ant is aiming for a market valuation exceeding $200b and hoping to list later this year. Read more
Ethereum starts its DeFi moon shot - The current DeFi movement is just the beginning of this wave of killer financial apps. As Ethereum powers this ecosystem it will appreciate dramatically as users scramble for the Ethereum “‘gas” to play at the table. Read more
Stripe partners with Notarize to keep notaries working from home - Online notary platform Notarize integrates with Stripe Connect to give notaries tools to service some of the largest lenders, title companies, and financial institutions. Read more
YES Bank deploys AI robot to interact with customers on WhatsApp - India's YES bank offers over 60 financial products through the messaging app using a chatbot interface. The bot uses Microsoft's natural language processing engine Luis to make banking simple. Read more |
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