This week saw Plaid announce a new instant payments product, Visa is getting into P2P payments, venture capital funding for Q1, the CFPB director wants changes in bank supervision and we find out more details about Paze. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 fintech news stories of the week.
Plaid Launches New Feature To Speed Up Bank Payments from Forbes – Plaid introduced a new service this week called Plaid Transfer that will allow its users to make instant payouts. It will use RTP where available (60-70% of US bank accounts are part of RTP) or same-day ACH keeping user experience consistent.
Visa partners with PayPal, Venmo and others to power interoperable digital payments from TechCrunch – Visa is entering the P2P payments space. not with a competing product, but with a product called Visa+ that will connect PayPal and Venmo users, as well as Western Union, TabaPay, i2C and DailyPay. No word on Zelle or Cash App but this seems like a smart move on Visa’s part.
US Fintech Startups Accounted for Over 65% of Funds Raised in the Sector Globally: Report from Crowdfund Insider – The first quarter numbers are out for venture capital funding in fintech and while the numbers are down the U.S. did account for more than 65% of all funds raised in the fintech space globally. U.S. fintech startups raised $8.8 billion in Q1, helped by the huge $6.5b Stripe raise, but still 25% lower than Q1 2022.
Chopra calls for “automatic triggers” to curb excessive bank risk from American Banker – The Director of the CFPB, Rohit Chopra, called for regulators to create new tools for monitoring and mitigating risks in the banking system, saying the huge amount of uninsured deposits at SVB should have been addressed.
How the ‘Paze’ Digital Wallet Aims to Win Over Merchants and Consumers from The Financial Brand – We are learning new details about the coming digital wallet called Paze. It does not want to compete directly with Apple and Google Pay wallets, instead, it will be focused 100% on e-commerce. There will be no Paze app or website but all credit cards will be loaded automatically as a payment option for Paze-enabled merchants.
Crypto’s Ethereum Network Completes Key Software Upgrade Without a Hitch from Bloomberg – It was a big week for Ethereum as the network completed its first major upgrade since the Merge last year. The Shanghai or Shapella update enables investors to withdraw their staked ETH. There was some concern that this would lead to a flood of withdrawals but instead, the price of ETH soared past $2,100.
Industry applauds end of SBA SBLC licensing moratorium from Fintech Nexus – For decades the number of non-banks with a license for originating SBA 7(a) loans was stuck at 14. Now, the SBA is looking to add new licenses for the first time and fintech lenders could be the beneficiary.
Twitter partners with eToro to let users trade stocks, crypto as Musk pushes app into finance from CNBC – Twitter is adding finance features as Elon Musk wants it to become the “everything app”. In this partnership with eToro users can get stock price charts inside their feed by using the $ sign and then the stock ticker. Support for crypto tokens is coming soon.
More and more Americans are gaming the deposit-insurance system from The Economist – There have been ways to skirt the $250,000 FDIC deposit limit for many years. IntraFi (formerly Promontory) has partnered with 3,000 banks to manage a system of reciprocal deposits, a system created by former head of the OCC, Eugene Ludwig.
There Was No Crisis for JPMorgan and Its Big-Bank Peers from The Wall Street Journal – JPMorgan reported earnings this week and as expected it was a stellar quarter for the country’s largest bank. Net interest income was up 49% to a record $20.71 billion and deposits increased $50 billion following last month’s bank failures.
Every Thursday at 5pm ET the Fintech Nexus news team and a special guest discuss the news of the week in fintech. Below is the video we posted to YouTube of this week’s show. You can also listen to the show in podcast format.
