Fintech Nexus Newsletter

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.

While check usage has been in decline for years, for many businesses it is still a primary method of payment. According to the Federal Reserve we processed over three billion commercial checks in 2023 valued at over $8 trillion.

Yesterday, in a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional. This is a big deal for financial institutions. Even though the agency has been a thorn in the side of many fintechs and banks, if the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional, it would undo more than a decade of work and could mean chaos for the industry.

Yesterday, the SEC announced that it is suing Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange. This follows similar actions in June against the two largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance.

Marqeta, having already made their mark as a debit card issuing partner, has launched a credit card issuing platform.

The CFPB continues its attack on all kinds of junk fees charged by banks. This time they are targeting credit card late fees.

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.

As the price of bitcoin goes, so goes Coinbase. Bitcoin hit an all-time high in the first quarter, and Coinbase reported its best-ever results. The company made $1.18 billion in net income on total revenue of $1.64 billion. Those are impressive numbers, any way you look at them.

More positive signs for fintech as spend management unicorn Ramp closed another large funding round. The $150 million was officially called a Series D extension, but it comes at a $7.65 billion valuation, a significant improvement over the $300 million raised for the initial Series D, which was at $5.8 billion.

The credit bureaus are becoming fintech companies. In an industry first, Experian is now offering a digital checking account and debit...