Another busy news week in fintech with Apple causing quite a stir on the BNPL front. We also had big news from PayPal, the U.S. Senate, Custodia Bank, Checkout.com and more. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Apple is turning your iPhone into fintech service taking on PayPal, Affirm and more from CNBC – At their annual developers event this week Apple gave a sneak peak at iOS 16 which will include a new feature for Apple Wallet, the ability to split any purchase into four equal installments. Interestingly. Apple is underwriting and funding this initiative internally.
PayPal is finally allowing users to move their cryptocurrency to other wallets from TechCrunch – Catching up with other fintechs like Robinhood and Coinbase, PayPal users will now be able to transfer crypto to and from their PayPal wallets.
Bipartisan crypto regulatory overhaul would treat most digital assets as commodities under CFTC oversight from CNBC – The crypto regulatory framework we have all been waiting for was released this week. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the “Responsible Financial Innovation Act” that would mostly empower the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with regulatory oversight. Final legislation will likely look very different but this was a positive first step.
Bitcoin Bank Custodia Sues Federal Reserve, Demanding Decision On Master Account from Forbes – Normally a bank application for a master account at the Federal Reserve takes a matter of days. But for crypto bank Custodia it has now been 19 months with no word on their application. So, the bank took the unusual step of suing the Fed for unlawfully delaying their application.
$40 billion payments giant Checkout.com starts accepting stablecoins in major crypto push from CNBC – Millions of merchants use Checkout.com to process online payments. Now, these merchants will be able to receive payments on weekends and holidays as Checkout.com will allow processing through the USDC stablecoin. This is made possible through a partnership between Checkout.com and Fireblocks.
CFPB ends no-action letter with fintech lender Upstart Network from American Banker – When Upstart received the No-Action Letter from the CFPB back in 2017 it was a big deal (we wrote about it her e). Now, both the lender and the CFPB have agreed to terminate the letter. Upstart wanted to update their models with new variables and the current CFPB leadership never really liked the NAL program.
Apple Pay Later: Cutting Through The Hype (And There’s A Lot Of It) from Forbes – Ron Shevlin cuts through the hype of the Apple Pay Later announcement and explains what its real impact will be on the BNPL industry.
Fintech Nexus USA 2022: Ten years in and Chris Britt and Chime are only getting started from Fintech Nexus News – Chime is the largest and most important company in the digital banking space and CEO Chris Britt joined us for the opening keynote at Fintech Nexus USA last month. Here is a summary of what he said including the full video of the interview.
‘The mood is very grim’: Once-hot fintech sector faces IPO delays and consolidation from CNBC – It seems that the mood among fintech CEOs at Money2020 in Amsterdam this week was pretty grim. Stripe co-founder John Collison said his company may no longer be worth $95 billion, Zopa’s CEO said they will delay their planned 2022 IPO, and OpenPayd CEO says raising money has been extremely difficult.
The Fintech 50 2022 from Forbes – Forbes is out with their annual Fintech 50 list celebrating the most innovative fintech startups. Many of the big names you would expect are on there: Brex, Chime, Circle, DriveWealth, OpenSea, Plaid, Stripe, and Upgrade. But there were a few surprises with the younger companies: Ava Labs, Column, Creative Juice, Divvy Homes, Esusu, Grow Credit, and Stronghold.
Every Thursday afternoon, the LendIt Fintech News team and a special guest discuss the news of the week live on LendIt TV, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We have now made the show available in podcast format – click on the audio player below.
