It was Groundhog Day at the SEC this week as once again they rejected a bitcoin ETF. Venmo is coming to Amazon checkouts, Robinhood had a data breach and the fintech earnings season hit its peak this week. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
SEC rejects VanEck ETF that sought to track bitcoin directly from CNBC – The SEC announced on Friday that it was again rejecting the VanEck bitcoin ETF, one that held the asset directly and not futures contracts, in the name of protecting investors. Sigh.
Amazon is adding a Venmo checkout option next year from TechCrunch – Starting next year Amazon users will be able to use Venmo (but not PayPal) at checkout in yet another example of new payments options that don’t run on traditional payment rails.
Robinhood says a hacker who tried to extort the company got access to data for 7 million customers from The Verge – In a strange data breach, Robinhood has said that hackers accessed customer data on November 3rd obtaining 5 million email addresses, 2 million people’s full names and 310 with more complete information such as date of birth and zip codes and 10 people had “more extensive account details” stolen.
Q3 Fintech Earnings Week: a Wild Ride from LendIt Fintech News – Earnings, yes we have earnings. This past week was the peak of earnings season for fintech and our own Kevin Travers has the rundown on the 12 fintech companies that reported this week.
Should stablecoin issuance be confined to FDIC-insured banks? from American Banker – This excellent piece from Penny Crosman questions the wisdom of having stablecoins issued by FDIC-insured banks. States such as New York already regulate stablecoin issuers, so there could be a turf war brewing.
Ripple to launch crypto service for financial companies amid legal battle with the SEC from CNBC – Ripple is launching a new product called Liquidity Hub to compete with NYDIG and Gemini in offering financial services firms the ability to trade cryptocurrencies.
Identity verification startup Socure raises $450M at $4.5B valuation, adding Tiger Global as new investor from TechCrunch – The largest funding round of the week goes to Socure, in the hot identity verification space, with a $450 million Series E.
Fintech unicorn Nubank expects twin public listings next month, invites app users to become partners from The Block – Nubank is offerings its tens of millions of customers the opportunity to participate in their IPO by giving away 1/6 of a share, through a program called NuSócios, with a 12-month vesting period.
Fintech claims 88% of US consumers versus 95% by traditional banking: new Plaid report from Tearsheet – A new report from Plaid, called The Fintech Effect, shows the results of a survey of 2,000 adults in the US and the UK, focusing on the adoption of fintech and the value it brings for users.
‘Britcoin’ consultation to begin next year – but no launch before 2025, says Bank of England from SkyNews – The Bank of England is starting to get serious about developing its own CBDC, known colloquially as Britcoin, conducting a study next year.
Every Thursday 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 – just click on the audio player below.
