In this short week, there was no shortage of major fintech news. We had Affirm partnering with Stripe, an OpenSea executive getting charged with insider trading, Binance Labs closing a new fund, Ripple and FTX on the hunt for acquisitions, Nav teaming up with Marcus and more. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Affirm teams up with Stripe as the BNPL wars intensify from TechCrunch – Every Stripe merchant, and there are millions of them, will now be able to offer buy now pay later options through Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout. Affirm continues to be aggressive in pursuing these types of partnerships, they already have significant deals with Shopify, Fiserv and Verifone.
Former NFT Marketplace Employee Charged in Insider Trading Scheme from The Wall Street Journal – A former executive at OpenSea has been charged with insider trading as he allegedly profited by investing in NFTs that were about to be displayed on the OpenSea home page, making 2x to 5x on his money each time.
Binance Labs closes $500M fund to focus on web3 and blockchain adoption from TechCrunch – Binance Labs, the venture capital and accelerator arm of crypto exchange Binance, has raised a new $500 million fund to invest in web3 projects. They raised money from DST Global, Breyer Capital and a slew of family offices and corporations.
Top crypto firms go on the hunt for acquisition targets as market crashes from CNBC – Leaders at Ripple and FTX said this week that they are on the lookout for acquisitions as M&A is expected to ramp up this year with many companies struggling to negotiate this crypto winter.
Nav teams up with Marcus to offer SMB credit lines from Fintech Nexus – Small business lending platform Nav is teaming up with Marcus by Goldman Sachs to offer credit lines. The new lines will have fixed rates, no origination fees and a fully digital experience.
Winklevoss-Led Gemini Cuts 10% of Staff, Citing ‘Turbulent’ Crypto Market from CoinDesk – More signs of the crypto winter as Gemini announced this week they will be cutting 10% of their staff citing “turbulent market conditions that are likely to persist for some time.”
Bank Marketers Moving Onto TikTok to Target Gen Z from The Financial Brand – Some banks are starting to experiment with marketing via TikTok as they seek to reach Gen Z and younger millennials.
All together now: Regulators tout benefits of CRA revamp from American Banker – At an event this week leaders of the OCC, FDIC and the Federal Reserve put on a united front touting their rewrite of the Community Reinvestment Act.
With Its IPO On Hold, Chime Should Move Beyond Financial Services from Forbes – In his weekly column, Ron Shevlin provides some advice for Chime based on research conducted by his firm, Cornerstone Advisors. Chime customers are very interested in having the company move beyond financial services, offering products such as roadside assistance, cell phone insurance and identity theft protection.
Responsible Financial Innovation Act: Senator Lummis’ Draft Digital Assets Bill is Now Available from Crowdfund Insider – While not officially being released until June 7, the closely watched bill proposed by Senator Lummis (R-WY) regulating digital assets has been published online. It attempts to clarify regulation for crypto assets with the CFTC taking the primary role.
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.
