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·Jun. 15, 2020

Amazon/Goldman partnership, TikTok banking license, and Ethereum fintech through the lens of Aggregation Theory & Super Apps

If you are in finance and only looking at banks, you are missing out on the real change agents. Here's some cross-industry action that we will unpack this week.

Amazon selected Goldman Sachs to be the lender of choice for small business loans. TikTok maker ByteDance is working with a Singaporean business family to get a financial license. And small business bank Starling is integrating Slack, energy switching service Bionic, and health insurance provider Equipsme into their marketplace. And we might as well talk about the Plaid Exchange launch, and end on the computational economy of Ethereum.

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Fintech USA

·Jun. 4, 2020

Payday Lenders Taking Advantage of Consumers During Pandemic

Recent research suggests that payday lenders are marketing directly to consumers who are seeking financial help due to the pandemic;...

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augmented reality Metaverse / xR

·May. 25, 2020

Apple’s augmented reality leak, and what Fintech should do for the coming Multiverse

This week, let's dive into the Apple augmented reality glasses leak, the Magic Leap $350 million financing, and the uncanny imagery created by Epic Games' Unreal Engine. We summarize and pull apart the thesis of the Metaverse -- a virtual world as realistic and economically important as our own -- and how media and financial companies should think about the opportunity.

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central bank / CBDC paytech stablecoins

·May. 1, 2020

Libra, Stablecoins, CBDCs and the Need for Digital Money

A digital world needs digital money, and a few influential players are actively working to build it. China's BSN initiative and Facebook's Libra embody the East's public sector led approach to building and owning the internet of value and the West's private sector led (and public sector challenged) attempt at cheaper commerce on the web. While the nature of the approaches may be different, the data and privacy considerations are eerily similar. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome Lex Sokolin.

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Fintech News Roundup USA

·Apr. 17, 2020

Facebook Releases Plans for a Scaled Back Libra After Regulatory Pushback

Facebook has re-released plans for Libra which are scaled back from their original vision after getting significant pushback from global...

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Fintech USA

·Jun. 8, 2020

Digital Currency is the New Space Race

Digital currency is slowly becoming a race for both central banks and the private market; China is about to launch...

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digital lending eCommerce Investing neobank roboadvisor

·May. 29, 2020

Brex Raises Again, Shopify Launches Bank Accounts and M&A Ideas for Goldman

Welcome back to the Fintech Blueprint / Rebank podcast series hosted by Will Beeson and Lex Sokolin. In this episode, we talk through a few recent events that are indicative of the Fintech world right now. Brex raised an additional $150 million at a slightly improved valuation vs. its last round just as Monzo is reportedly looking at a 40% down round. Why? Shopify launched bank accounts for its merchants and announced the Shop app, basically an Amazon competitor plus Klarna, just as it worked with Facebook to support the launch of Facebook Shops and joined the Libra Association. Lots going on. Lastly, we discuss why Goldman’s M&A activity over the past couple years leads to the natural conclusion that they should buy Schwab.

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Fintech News Roundup USA

·May. 19, 2020

Visa’s Digital Dollar Could Help Push Central Bank Digital Currencies

The U.S. Patent Office published a Visa patent application from November that would create a gateway to allow for central...

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Fintech News Roundup USA

·Apr. 20, 2020

Facebook’s Libra Set to Become Another PayPal

When Facebook first launched Libra they laid out a grand plan to help reshape the financial system, that plan is...

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central bank / CBDC decentralized finance enterprise blockchain governance regulation & compliance

·Mar. 9, 2020

Why Facebook’s Libra needs to change course, Ethereum’s Fintech promise, and a look at JP Morgan’s blockchain analysis

I anchor around the issues Libra is seeing in trying to develop a money, and what alternate strategies are available. We also analyze elements of a JP Morgan 2020 blockchain report, which highlights the differences between running a financial products (like a money) and a financial software (like a payments processor). In light of this necessary pivot for the regulated Facebook, we look again at Ethereum's decentralized finance ecosystem and the types of challengers it has created for Jack Henry, Finastra, Envestnet, TradeWeb, and other infrastructure providers.

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