The bill is aimed at cracking down on illegal activity around cryptocurrencies and also reduce operational risk for fintech companies; the central bank will be responsible for the new regulations if they are signed into law; the proposed law also encourages open banking through APIs although other details are not known until the secondary laws are unveiled by regulators; Mexico is currently a fast growing market for fintech according to recent data from Deloitte. Source
BBVA has announced their Open Talent competition which is dubbed as the world’s largest fintech competition; the competition is in its tenth year and will focus on banking, data, money management and financial decision-making; the winner will take home $186,000 and finalists will take part in an immersion week which will show them how to work with a big corporate, become a customer of the bank and more. Source.
According to Visa 96 percent of U.S. payment volume took place on chip cards, with the large majority being chip and signature cards; starting next month major card brands will look to move customers to the chip and PIN cards that have been widely adopted across Europe; Merchants will be able to turn cell phones into terminals instead of buying expensive POS terminals with pin pads; wide adoption will take time as smaller retailers might not see the benefits as quickly and large retailers have invested a lot in the current technology. Source.
U.S banks closed more than 1700 branches in the year dated June 2016 to June 2017, one of the largest drops on record; more than half of U.S. customers still prefer opening an account at a a branch, when compared to the UK market which shows more than half of customers would rather open accounts digitally; leading vendors like NCR and Diebold have seen revenues drop with the branch products pointing to a decline in the importance of the branch; while branches are still looked at as important to U.S. banks bottom line the trend still points to less branches and more digital in the coming years. Source.
John Gerspach, Chief Financial Officer of Citigroup stated at an investor conference they are building the foundation which will support the launch of a national digital consumer bank launch in the next three years; the bank currently has around 700 bank branches which is far fewer than the three biggest banks. Source
Venkatesh Bala from Biz2Credit shares new ways that lenders should think about risk management. Source
Kabbage is an online lender in the small business space; today they announced they would not fund “any business that we identify as a seller of firearms or ammunition to individuals under 21 or that sell or manufacture any form of assualt-style weapon.”; according to a written statement signed by the executives, “As parents and leaders of Kabbage we simply cannot imagine the grief of families who too often have been stricken by gun violence like the tragedy in Parkland, Florida. The technology community must work to prevent these horrifying and heartbreaking events from robbing our children of their future.”; Kabbage is also supporting the Parkland survivors’ March 14 walkout and also announced charitable contributions. Source
According to sources Amazon is talking with banks such as JPMorgan Chase to build a checking-account-like product; while it is still early and the product may not see the light of day it shows Amazon’s interest in working with banks to expand into financial services. Source
Grameen America wants banks and social impact investors to help fuel a doubling of their loan portfolio in the next 5 years; most of the new money to lend will come from their inaugural Small Business Fund and the remaining amount is where they will turn to banks and social impact investors; “It's a way to appeal to impact investors who are interested in this kind of concept as opposed to pure philanthropy,” says David Gough, CFO, to American Banker when talking about the company’s shift to impact investors to fuel growth. Source.
Citi thinks startups are missing out on a big opportunity and is inviting startups to disrupt institutional banking; Citi has taken a close look at thousands of fintech startups so far and has taken a position in about 30 so far; “Contrary to the common belief, I think there is more opportunity for collaboration with fintech than disruption,” Naveed Sultan, global head of treasury and trade solutions for Citi said during a fireside chat reported by TechCrunch. “Particularly on the institutional side.” Source.