Fintech Nexus Newsletter

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.

Greenlight has been a leader in helping young children and teenagers develop financial skills. Its app is used today by more than six million parents and children. While the company was traditionally focused on a direct-to-consumer model, it is increasingly developing partnerships with large banks to accelerate its growth.

It has been almost two weeks since the SEC approved Bitcoin ETFs and we now have some data on the 10 ETFs that have been trading since then. The two biggest and oldest names in finance are leading the way: BlackRock and Fidelity. Each fund has attracted more than $1 billion in inflows.

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’s almost a year since those fateful few days that toppled the crypto king from his throne, and at last, Sam Bankman Fried’s trial is over.

There is a new report out today that looks at the impact of generative AI on the workforce and what industries will be most impacted. We have heard before that white-collar jobs, those people with college degrees will be most impacted. This report tries to quantify some of this impact.

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".

Forbes is out with its ninth annual Fintech 50 this morning, a subjective list of the hottest startups in fintech. The list is created by Forbes editors, is only open to private companies and it involves analyzing data as well as interviews with company CEOs and industry insiders.

TransUnion, one of the big three credit bureaus, has launched a new data analytics platform called OneTru. The new platform will offer banks and fintechs AI and ML tools for addressing a variety of credit, anti-fraud and marketing needs.

By Isabelle Castro Margaroli McHenry’s “ugly baby” of a stablecoin bill is making some steps forward…albeit at a snail’s pace....