The fintech space, and the tech space more broadly, is enamored with company valuations. The term unicorn arose out of that fascination.
Small business lending is more complicated than consumer lending.
Both have term loans and lines of credit but in small business you also have SBA loans, revenue-based financing, merchant cash advances, venture debt, equipment finance, invoice factoring, asset-based financing and more. This leaves a lot of room for unscrupulous lenders to charge hidden fees on some of these products.
We haven't talked about crypto for a while in this newsletter. Coinbase reported earnings yesterday so this provides a perfect opportunity to reflect on the state of crypto.
Today, Google has announced a pilot program with Affirm and Zip to bring BNPL natively into the Google Pay wallet.
Consumers continue to choose BNPL as a payment option and its popularity continues to grow, particularly during the holiday shopping season.
Stripe has, for some time, been one of the leading fintech companies globally when it comes to scale.
But the numbers it revealed today in its annual letter are truly staggering. It processed $1 trillion, around 1% of global GDP, through its platform in 2023. It crossed that milestone just 15 years after it was founded.
It has been a busy last few days for the CFPB and their fintech work. For the third consecutive day this week our lead story concerns actions taken by the CFPB.
This time it is around BNPL. The CFPB is proposing new rules that would essentially lump BNPL in with credit cards when it comes to consumer protections.
Fraud is going to be top of mind for all financial institutions in 2024. Banks and fintechs alike are constant targets of fraud attacks.
It was interesting to read this morning about the experience of Regions Bank when it comes to check fraud.
We are almost one year removed from the banking crisis precipitated by the struggles at Silicon Valley Bank.
Now, another bank is having its own struggles. New York Community Bank (NYCB) has announced a new CEO and discovered "material weaknesses" in some of its internal procedures.
BaaS fintech Synapse is having a rough year. Synapse and its clients need to be removed from Evolve's platform by December 31.
It is a bold or naïve CEO that prefaces a major announcement with the words, "This will shock the world".
New PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said exactly that in his first public interview since becoming CEO. That was a week ago and he was referring to major announcements that would happen at the company's Innovation Day that it conducted yesterday.