Robinhood revenue surges on cryptocurrency trades - Nearly 14.2m Robinhood users, or roughly 63% of the company’s customer base with funded accounts, traded digital assets in the second quarter. Robinhood earned $233m in fees from routing customers’ cryptocurrency trades to high-speed trading firms, with dogecoin accounting for nearly two-thirds of the volume. That is up from just $5m a year earlier. Read more
Investing app to teach financial literacy to college athletes - Public, an investing app that doubles as a social network, is launching a new program today called "One Team." The goal: teach financial literacy to college athletes. Now that student athletes can cash in on their name, image and likeness (NIL), it's crucial that they learn money management. This is especially true for future pros, who go broke at an alarming rate. Read more
Bank-averse Taliban leave U.S. struggling for financial edge - The U.S. is grappling with how to exert financial pressure on the Taliban to ensure Afghanistan doesn’t return to its role as a safe harbor for international terrorist groups, but a dearth of formal banking channels is complicating efforts. Read more
The 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index: Worldwide adoption jumps over 880% with P2P platforms driving cryptocurrency usage in emerging markets - Data shows that growing transaction volume for centralized services and the explosive growth of DeFi are driving cryptocurrency usage in the developed world and in countries that already had substantial adoption, while P2P platforms are driving new adoption in emerging markets. Read more
Remittance fintech companies herald a payments revolution - Fintech start-ups are finally getting traction in their mission to disrupt banking. Remittances — defined as smaller cross-border payments between individuals — have been an excellent entry point to financial services for many of them. The steep charges of banks and traditional money agents have encouraged tech-conscious customers to shop around. Convoluted legacy systems are ripe for disruption by app-based services. Read more
Palantir bought $50m in gold bars in August as cash pile grows - While some companies such as Tesla are diversifying into bitcoin, data analytics software company Palantir is betting on gold. The move reflects a growing company stashing cash in an unconventional asset in response to economic uncertainty spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and governments’ response to it. Read more
Bill Ackman’s SPAC gets sued - The case contends that Ackman’s SPAC isn’t an operating company, but is actually an investment company like Ackman’s funds, which should be regulated by the Investment Company Act of 1940. If certain SPACs were regulated as investment companies, much of the industry could be affected because it would make it harder for anyone in the investment business to participate in a SPAC. Read more
Mastercard is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024 - Magnetic stripes were a huge improvement over the flatbed imprinting machines (aka “knuckle-busters”) that cashiers used to have to use to record card details. But in the 1990s the global EMV chip standard was introduced, which paved the way for cardholder details to be held more securely on small integrated circuit chips embedded into cards. Read more
Walmart looks to hire cryptocurrency expert - The retailer posted a job for a digital-currency and cryptocurrency product lead based at its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. The hire would be expected to “commit to a product roadmap and drive the project execution” and serve as an expert on the job’s subject matter, according to the posting. Read more
Cathie Wood says Michael Burry doesn’t understand the innovation space - Star stock picker Cathie Wood defended her investment thesis in a series of tweets this week, calling out “Big Short” hedge-fund manager Michael Burry for betting against her flagship ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund. Read more
Paysafe makes second LatAm acquisition with $441m SafetyPay deal - Paysafe says the acquisition will boost its presence in Latin America, SafetyPay’s majority market. It builds on the firm’s recent deal with Peruvian platform PagoEfectivo. The firm says its double acquisition sets it apart as “the leading open banking and e-cash solutions provider in Latin America”. Read more
Brex buys Weav, a universal API for commerce platforms, for $50m - Fintech company Brex first partnered with Weav last summer and then in March, Brex launched Instant Payouts for Shopify sellers using the startup’s technology. The results were impressive enough that by April, Brex co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi participated in Weav’s $4.3 million seed round as strategic angel investors. Read more
Deepfakes are now making business pitches - Some partners at EY are now testing a new workplace gimmick for the era of artificial intelligence. The firm’s exploration of the technology, provided by UK startup Synthesia, comes as the pandemic has quashed more traditional ways to cement business relationships. Golf and long lunches are tricky or impossible, Zoom calls and PDFs all too routine. Read more
Bitcoin fans are suddenly a political force - A clash over tax rules for digital currencies like bitcoin turned into a political coming-of-age moment for the cryptocurrency industry, galvanizing a usually fractious coalition of investors, exchanges, financiers and social-media influencers. Read more
A progress report on fintech’s record-breaking year - Caution about the lingering impact of the coronavirus pandemic has given way to confidence as economies rebound and capital pours into the sector at record rates, driving up valuations. In the first half of this year, fintech companies raised 24% more venture capital funding than they did through the whole of 2020. Read more
Top banks investing in crypto & blockchain companies - Out of the top 100 banks by assets under management, 55 have invested in cryptocurrency and/or blockchain-related companies - either directly, or through subsidiaries. The most active investors based on the number of investments in blockchain companies are Barclays (19), Citigroup (9), Goldman Sachs (8), J.P. Morgan Chase (7) and BNP Paribas (6). Read more |
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