Sam Brankman-Fried continued to dominate the news this week as Congress has asked him to testify. Walmart’s One is getting into BNPL, Plaid is laying off 20% of their staff, the Coinbase CEO says revenue is down by half and Circle is no longer going public via SPAC. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Sam Bankman-Fried Agrees to Testify Before House Committee from The New York Times – All week the media was consumed by the question of whether SBF would testify before Congress. He sharedon Twitter that he would testify before the House Financial Services Committee but did not address the request from the Senate Banking Committee.
Walmart-backed fintech startup plans to launch its own buy now, pay later loans from CNBC – The news keeps trickling out about One, Walmart’s fintech initiative. This week we learned that One is gearing up to launch a BNPL service as soon as next year, that customers could use online and in-store at Walmart as well as other stores.
Plaid lays off 20% of staff from TechCrunch – Plaid is the latest fintech company to announce significant layoffs. The company announced this week that it is laying off 260 people, about 20% of its workforce. CEO Zach Perret said in an email that its customers have experienced slower than expected growth.
Coinbase CEO Sees Revenue Falling 50% or More on Crypto Rout from Bloomberg – In an interview with Bloomberg, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said his company will see revenue “roughly half or less” than last year’s number of $7 billion.
Stablecoin Firm Circle Ends SPAC Deal from The Wall Street Journal – In an announcement that surprised absolutely no one stablecoin issued Circle has said its SPAC deal is dead but it still does intend to go public at some point.
Figure-affiliated SPAC plans to merge with mortgage bank from American Banker – Not all SPACs are dead, though. Figure Acquisition Corp 1, the blank check company associated with Mike Cagney’s Figure, has agreed to merge with a warehouse lender and bank holding company. No details on which bank but we do know it has #3 billion to $5 billion in assets.
MercadoLibre in talks with WhatsApp on business messaging payments from Reuters – WhatsApp is ubiquitous in Latin America and now the region’s leading e-commerce company, Mercado Libre, has said it is in talks with Meta to process payments for WhatsApp and they are currently testing the service.
Robinhood Wants Your Retirement Money from The Wall Street Journal – Robinhood wants to manage your retirement money. In an aggressive move the company said it will match 1% of whats users deposit into their traditional or Roth IRAs. Right now there is a waiting list but the service is expected to launch next month.
The Crypto Industry Struggles for a Way Forward from The New York Times – Crypto exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase are distancing themselves from FTX as the fallout from the industry’s largest blowup continues. One commentator argued that crypto is even more centralized than banking, the industry it was designed to replace.
Curve’s $1 billion Credit Suisse loan fuels live rehearsal for ambitious goals from Fintech Nexus – UK-based payments app Curve has closed a $1 billion credit facility from Credit Suisse as it looks to scale across the UK, US and EU.
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