Fintech Nexus Newsletter

Yesterday, Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), during which it made several interesting announcements. The most relevant to fintech is the new "Tap to Cash" feature that will be built into iOS18. As it sounds, this will allow users to send and receive Apple Cash simply by holding two iPhones together.

Bloomberg reported on Friday that Chime is planning a 2025 IPO, according to "a person familiar with the matter." Chime is the largest consumer-facing fintech in the country and this blockbuster IPO has been anticipated ever since their massive 2021 funding round that valued the firm at $25 billion.

Zelle has started refunding imposter scam victims, after years of banks questioning their responsibility to do so.

Upgrade continues to break new ground in consumer fintech. When the Upgrade Card launched in 2019, it was the first credit card ever to marry the benefits of a revolving line of credit with a fixed-rate installment loan.

This week marks one year since many fintechs thought their world was ending. Almost every venture-backed fintech company banked with Silicon Valley Bank and for three harrowing days last March, many wondered if all their non-FDIC-insured money sitting at Silicon Valley Bank would be safe.

We learned a couple of weeks back that the former head of Marcus, Swati Bhatia, had taken a job at Santander to lead U.S. consumer and business banking. Yesterday, we learned more details about what this new job is going to entail.

Many people have called Capital One the original fintech.  Founded in 1994 by Richard Fairbanks and Nigel Morris (of QED) Capital One broke new ground as a monoline credit card bank that married technology and data science before that was a thing in banking.

The OpenAI story was eclipsed yesterday by monumental news in the world of crypto. The world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, has agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines to the U.S. government for violating anti-money-laundering requirements.