Fintech Nexus Newsletter

Back in the go-go days of 2021 the two biggest names in crypto were known just by their initials: SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) and CZ (Changpeng Zhao). They often took to Twitter arguing with each other about where the market was going and whether certain tokens were overvalued. But there were no bigger names than SBF and CZ. They controlled the biggest crypto exchanges, outside of Coinbase: FTX and Binance.

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 Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has indeed decided to move on from Goldman in roughly 12 to 15 months. This will mean both the Apple Card and the savings account (that was rolled out just a few months ago) will need a new banking partn

Much has been written about the looming end to the Apple-Goldman Sachs relationship (we even produced a cartoon about it). And while this is a big deal for Goldman and Apple, the average Apple Card holder likely does not give it a second thought.

BNPL is showing no signs of slowing down. Consumers love this fintech innovation and now everyone seems to want in on the action.

In Congress, anything that helps small businesses typically comes with bipartisan support. But section 1071 of Dodd-Frank is a little complicated.

The US dollar stablecoin market has long been dominated by Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC). Together these stablecoins have a market cap of around $140 billion or so. While others have tried, notably PayPal last year, there is no other stablecoin with a market cap of more than $3 billion.

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.

It was only Thursday of last week when our lead story was about the challenges banks were facing in the Banking-as-a-Service space. Then Friday we learned that Blue Ridge Bank was hit with its second regulatory action in less than 18 months and is now deemed to be in a "troubled condition".

In lieu of a solution that stops the crimes from happening in the first place, bank reimbursement is the only source of protection.