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.

In a blog post yesterday describing their 2024 plans, we learned that X will be launching peer-to-peer payments later this year. We know that the company has been slowly obtaining money transmitter licenses as it builds out its payments capabilities. But this is the first time we have heard about concrete plans to launch a payments service.

The long-awaited new overdrafts rule from the CFPB was unveiled today. Since Rohit Chopra took over as head of the CFPB in 2021, they have made it clear that they were going after overdraft fees and this proposed rule is the culmination of those efforts.

The Synapse debacle continues.  Former FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams is the court-appointed trustee managing the bankruptcy process. She was appointed on May 24.

For the past two decades, the investment banking ecosystem in fintech has been dominated by one player: Steve McLaughlin's FT Partners. Now, that is not to say that other investments have not done deals. The really big deals are often done by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, or JPMorgan Chase.

It was three ago last week when LendingClub closed its acquisition of Radius Bank. At that time LendingClub entered into an operating agreement with the OCC that imposed capital restraints and growth limits on the fintech pioneer.

Today, a new global report was released from Nasdaq and Oliver Wyman on illicit money flows and the numbers are sobering. The Global Financial Crime Report quantifies the total amount of illicit financial activity and the number is an eye-popping $3.1 trillion. Included in this number is bank fraud covering payments, checks and credit card fraud which is estimated at around $450 billion.

A $200m equity raise at a valuation double the previous round? No you did not wake up in 2021 this morning, it is (checks watch) definitely January 2024. I was just chatting with someone earlier this week about equity raises and I commented that there seems to be much more activity this month than in January 2023. While we are most definitely not back in 2021, VCs seem to be opening up their checkbooks a little more.

BaaS fintech Synapse is having a rough year. Synapse and its clients need to be removed from Evolve's platform by December 31.

For some time Fnality has focused on the development of a wholesale payments system built on blockchain. Today, they closed a funding round to help launch.