Philadelphia Fed president, Patrick Harker, gave a speech titled, "Fintech: Revolution or Evolution?" at the University of Pennsylvania; the speech was part of a lecture series at the School of Engineering and Applied Science; Patrick Harker discussed fintech in the context of technology, business and government noting innovation in cryptocurrency, blockchain, banking and regulation. Source
A new report from Economist Intelligence Unit finds that banks are less fearful of fintech companies and that trends in the market are causing banks' interests to collide with fintechs for greater market partnerships and collaboration; the Economist Intelligence Unit report cites PSD2 as a leading factor for greater banking cooperation with fintechs; the report's Editor Renee Friedman says the research finds that "banks will increasingly have to adapt their culture and digital strategies to their customers' needs if they are to compete, not expect their customers to bend to theirs." Source
Shareholders of PayPal have sued firm directors implying that management falsified statements in quarterly reporting related to Venmo; as a subsidiary of PayPal, Venmo's business activities influence the overall results of the firm; in 2016 Venmo was investigated for unfair and deceptive practices resulting in a fine and ongoing investigations with the FTC; shareholders are arguing that PayPal did not properly disclose and inform shareholders of the implications of the investigations which led to shareholder losses of approximately 15%. Source
Lending Club has hired Santiago Suarez, JPMorgan's head of new technologies; he will join Lending Club as the firm's head of strategy and mergers and acquisitions; at JPMorgan, Suarez was involved with testing blockchain and machine learning; he also worked in the bank's corporate strategy group, focused on managing top strategy issues for the bank. Source
Representative Patrick McHenry says Dodd-Frank reform is not likely to make it to the House of Representatives until June or July; he is confident in major changes for the regulation from the House of Representatives however he foresees opposition from Senate democrats; in an interview with WSJ Pro Financial Regulation he also provided his insight on a range of regulatory aspects which could be integrated into legislation in various ways. Source
Financial inclusion is a factor considered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in all of its banking charters; American Banker discusses how the fintech charter's financial inclusion provisions compare to the Community Reinvestment Act requirements for banks; the new fintech charter would require fintechs to detail how they plan to promote financial inclusion with accountability from the OCC for those goals and more direct OCC enforcement actions for fintech companies. Source
Acorns is a US micro-investing app that invests spare change in ETFs; it has announced the appointment of former Wealthfront CEO, Adam Nash, to its board of directors; the firm also says it is researching behavioral economics as part of its marketing strategy and has added Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, to its board. Source
IBM announced the launch of financial modeling investment app tools with cognitive programming for developers; the development is part of the firm's new IBM Cloud for Financial Services unit; with the announcement, IBM appears to be taking a lead role in supporting investment app development and is also integrating Watson and other cognitive programming. Source
Amazon will now allow customers to add cash to their Amazon accounts through barcode scans at participating retailers throughout the US; funds will be immediately available for use; the firm says the initiative is expected to target underbanked customers; Morgan Stanley says the announcement could decrease the chances of the firm partnering with PayPal for payments which is a deal the market has been potentially anticipating between the two companies. Source
The smart contracts will help facilitate faster commerce agreements and transactions; Arizona is the first state to pass legislation on blockchain smart contracts; it encompasses various uses for blockchain smart contracts including data, electronic signatures and electronic records transmitted and tracked through blockchain operations, making the use of blockchain transactions comparable to previous methods of communication and documentation. Source