Peter Thiel has been discussing a bid for California governor with his advisors; Thiel has been active in political campaigns and could find a number of supporters should he run for California governor; as a Republican he speaks frequently with California House Majority Leader and Republican Kevin McCarthy; he also contributed to the Trump campaign and since 2000 has contributed over $8.5 million to federal candidates and political committees. Source
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
Every day the Fintech Nexus news team scours the globe for the most important stories of the day to include in our daily newsletter.
Then every Saturday we bring you our weekly news roundup of the top 10 fintech stories of the week with commentary from Peter Renton.
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Speaking at the Financial Investment Initiative event the former founder of PayPal thinks that bitcoin detractors could be underestimating the currency’s potential; as CoinDesk reports, “underestimating [it] especially because ... it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments."; he has in the past criticized bitcoin and is not bullish on all cryptocurrencies. Source.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Founders Fund has amasses hundreds of millions of dollars or bitcoin recently; the fund started with about $10mn to $15mn worth of bitcoin and has since seen that initial investment skyrocket; while many traditional wall street names have yet to buy into bitcoin the move by Mr. Thiel and his fund point to their confidence in the currency; during an interview in October Mr. Thiel was reported to say, “While I’m skeptical of most of them, I do think people are a little bit underestimating bitcoin, specifically, because it is like a reserve form of money.” Source.
Personal financial management app, Moven, is focusing on helping customers see the bigger picture when it comes to saving; features include savings account balance updates and a wish list timeline which helps keep consumers on track toward their saving goals; other apps such as Digit, Level Money, Chime, Dyme, Qapital and Simple are also providing similar services focused on motivating users to save for longer-term saving goals. Source
U.K. based personal financial management app Emma recently launched in December and has struck data sharing deals with Starling Bank and Monzo; the app also works across 17 banks to screen scrape data as the banks work towards compliance with open banking; Emma is a budgeting app that helps customers avoid overdrafts and sees a big opportunity with the open banking regulations; “We’re building a tech company, and we understand that the data [play] goes beyond just overdrafts — it’s about understanding when certain events happen, money can be saved or invested,” said Emma founder and CEO Edoardo Moreni to TearSheet. Source.
Jonathan Snyder has developed the Philadelphia Capital Consortium to provide increased capital availability to small businesses; Snyder developed a process that allows Philadelphia small businesses to submit a form which is then sent to the Consortium's lenders; Snyder directs the process and interested lenders respond to the inquiry within 10 days; the Consortium has completed four loans and is currently adding new lenders to its network, including online lender Credibility Capital. Source
Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker explained in remarks at the Global Interdependence Center's Payment Systems in the Internet Age conference that increased regulatory oversight of the growing fintech sector is necessary; "Regulation is not just a question of protecting consumers; it's a question of protecting the innovators as well," Harker said. "It's in their best interest to have an established framework in which to operate."; he believes getting ahead of the curve with regulation is the way to go, instead of waiting to respond to the next possible crisis. Source
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
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