Another busy news week in fintech saw Genesis filing for bankruptcy, more problems at Goldman Sachs, a profile of the fintech founder who fooled JPMorgan, FTX may restart and, of course, more layoffs. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Crypto lender Genesis files for bankruptcy in latest blow to Barry Silbert’s DCG empire from CNBC – The rumors were flying about Genesis all week and we heard late Thursday that the company was indeed filing for bankruptcy in the latest blow to the crypto industry. Genesis has over 100,000 creditors including Gemini, with whom there has been a war of words on social media.
Goldman to exit personal loans as Marcus reshuffle continues from American Banker – Goldman Sachs has decided that after more than six years it does not want to be in the personal loans business anymore and is shutting that Marcus unit down as it scales back its consumer banking ambitions.
Federal Reserve Probes Goldman’s Consumer Business from The Wall Street Journal – The bad news for Goldman’s consumer business continued as news came out yesterday that the Federal Reserve has started an investigation into whether the company had appropriate safeguards in place as it ramped up personal loans.
‘Fake It ‘Til You Make It’: Meet Charlie Javice, The Startup Founder Who Fooled JP Morgan from Forbes – Interesting profile of the founder of Frank, Charlie Javice, and her history of exaggeration (to say the least) as she worked to grow her business and ultimately sell it to JPMorgan.
New FTX Chief Says Crypto Exchange Could Restart from The Wall Street Journal – In his first public interview since taking the job new FTX CEO, John Ray, said all options are on the table for his company including restarting the crypto exchange.
CEO of SoftBank-Backed Clearco Resigns as Onetime Fintech Darling Cuts Staff from The Information – Another fintech announced layoffs this week but this announcement also came with the departure of the CEO. Michele Romanow is the co-founder of Clearco and one of Canada’s most prominent entrepreneurs and she will now become co-executive chairman as the company looks to lay off another 30% of its workforce.
Fintech Pagaya to lay off 20% of employees from Reuters – Publicly traded fintech Pagaya announced it is laying off nearly 20% of its staff across its offices in the U.S. and Israel. The company went public via SPAC last year and like most fintech companies its stock price is down dramatically since then.
A lot of fintechs ‘have to fix their business models,’ say VCs who invest in fintech from TechCrunch – a group of leading fintech investors said that many fintech companies need to fix their business models as banks have woken up now. They said it is going to be a challenging year for fintech, particularly those in the lending space.
Big Bank Earnings Spotlight Unstoppable Digital Shift from PYMNTS – In good news for fintech the big banks reported that mobile usage continues to rise off an already large base. The largest four banks all saw increases in the number of mobile users between 4% to 10%. And the number of Zelle transactions far exceeded checks.
In ‘major global crypto enforcement,’ DoJ takes down…Bitzlato from Fintech Nexus – This was a bizarre news story from the Department of Justice this week. They trumpeted a “major global crypto enforcement” action and crypto Twitter was awash in speculation. It turned out to be a tiny platform, Bitzlato, that few people had ever heard of and we were left wondering why all the fanfare.
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