Goldman Sachs leads off the news this week with some bad news and some good news. Step raised a huge debt round (eschewing equity), BNY Mellon is getting into crypto, which makes Custodia Bank very unhappy. And of course, there were plenty of crypto stories to round out the news. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Under Pressure, Goldman CEO Ditches Dream of Consumer Domination from Bloomberg – This bombshell came out last weekend with the Goldman Sachs CEO, David Solomon, basically throwing in the towel on their consumer bank, Marcus, after more than six years and billions of dollars spent. They are not shutting it down per se, but rather just scaling back their ambitions here.
Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders from TechCrunch – It wasn’t all bad news for Goldman this week. Apple is introducing a high-yield savings account, in partnership with Goldman Sachs, where Apple Card customers can grow their Daily Cash rewards as well as transfer in new money. No word on the interest rate yet.
Charli D’Amelio-endorsed fintech Step borrows $300M to bring crypto to teens from TechCrunch – Teen-focused fintech Step has raised $300 million, not in equity but in debt, in a sign of the changing environment for fintech valuations. They have also enabled crypto investing, with the parent’s permission, and will be bringing more financial literacy tools for both teens and parents.
America’s Oldest Bank, BNY Mellon, Will Hold That Crypto Now from The Wall Street Journal – BNY Mellon becomes the first large bank to provide crypto custody services. After receiving the requisite approvals from the Fed and the New York Department of Financial Services the bank will be receiving select customers’ bitcoin starting this week.
Digital Asset Bank Custodia Files Petition in US Court Over BNY Mellon’s Crypto Approval from CoinDesk – This approval was not received well by Custodia Bank which applied to the Fed almost two years ago for a master account that would enable it to deposit funds with the Fed and in effect provide crypto custody. They have filed a petition in a U.S. court in Wyoming protesting the approval of BNY Mellon.
‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Is Still a Credit-Score Blind Spot from The Wall Street Journal – While there has been some movement on the credit reporting front when it comes to BNPL, we still don’t have a formal system that adjusts for the unusual nature of its credit lines. The data is all out there but it is not helping consumers yet.
OCC wants more data on banks’ crypto-related activities from BankingDive – In a speech this week, the acting head of the OCC, Michael Hsu, said that he needs more information regarding the crypto activities of banks, specifically “a structured and recurring gathering of quantitative data focused on the nexus between banks and crypto”.
October Becomes Worst Month for Crypto Hacks With Two Weeks to Go from CoinDesk – The hacks keep coming for crypto and this article, reported on October 13, shared that over $718 million has been stolen from DeFi protocols in the first two weeks of this month alone.
Crypto Broker NYDIG Lays Off One-Third of Staff to Narrow Focus from The Wall Street Journal – NYDIG, one of the leaders in bringing crypto to banks, laid off one-third of its staff, or 110 people last month. This follows the announcement from early this month that both the company’s CEO and President had stepped down.
Morgan Stanley Says Crypto Ecosystem Is Becoming Less Decentralized from CoinDesk – We are now one month past the long-awaited Ethererum Merge and Morgan Stanley is reporting that the blockchain is a lot less decentralized than it was pre-Merge with 60% of validators now managed by just four companies.
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