The news was led by Goldman Sachs again this week as we learned the details of their restructuring. Mastercard is getting deeper into crypto, the CFPB is in turmoil, Voyager Digital customers may get 72% of their assets back and Chase is looking to move into small business payments. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Goldman Sachs Restructures Its Divisions, Elevating Tech Offerings as Profit Falls from The New York Times – Goldman Sachs reported earnings this week and also announced their restructuring that surfaced last week. Goldman will have three divisions now: Investment banking and trading, asset and wealth management (where Marcus will sit), and transaction banking/platform solutions where there Apple and GM partnerships will sit as well as GreenSky.
Mastercard will help banks offer cryptocurrency trading from CNBC – Despite the crypto winter, there is still a great deal of interest in this nascent asset class. And consumers are interested in their bank offering crypto trading. Mastercard, in this new partnership with Paxos, is looking to help banks do just that.
Appeals Court Ruling Casts Shadow Over CFPB Activities from The Wall Street Journal – An appellate court ruling this week could have far ranging implications for fintech and banking. If upheld is it going to wreak havoc inside the CFPB as all past and future actions would be drawn into question.
Voyager crypto customers may recover 72% from bankruptcy sale from American Banker – Customers of bankrupt crypto exchange Voyager Digital may get as much as 72% of their assets back. FTX won the auction but the judge has said that competing bids could be accepted if they result in a higher recovery for customers.
Chase’s Playbook to Beat PayPal and Square in Digital Payments from The Financial Brand – The small business digital payments space has been dominated by Square, Stripe and PayPal for years. Now, Chase is looking to compete, believing that small business owners will like to have payments, analytics and banking all under one roof.
Connecting crypto wallets is scary. Plaid wants to change that. from Protocol – Plaid has become the standard tool for connecting any application to a bank account and now they are looking to do a similar thing for crypto. Their Wallet Onboard tool will plug into 300 different Ethereum wallets including the big ones such as Metamask, Coinbase and Ledger. This will make it easier for developers, so they can make just one connection rather than deal with each individual wallet.
Brazil’s Largest Digital Lender Nubank to Roll Out Own Token to 70M Users in 2023 from CoinDesk – The world’s largest digital bank (outside of China) is launching its own token. Nucoin, as it will be called, will be rolled out next year for the 70 million Nubank customers to “recognize customer loyalty and encourage engagement with Nubank products.”
SBA wants to add fintechs to its biggest lending program from American Banker – For the last 40 years there has been a cap on the number of non-bank lenders that can issue SBA-backed 7(a) loans. But the SBA is proposing new rules to change that in what will be a big win for fintech lenders such as Funding Circle who has long advocated for changes here.
A New Framework for Crypto Regulation from The Wall Street Journal – An op-ed by former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt and fintech pioneer Ram Ahluwalia gives a call to action for crypto regulation. It calls on the industry to encourage sensible regulation and for regulators to not rule by enforcement but to create new rules for the industry. Then the U.S. can become a global leader in the space.
Digital innovators ‘at war’: Wintermeyer from Fintech Nexus – The Fintech Nexus team was in London this week for our Merge event that was kicked off by former Innovate Finance chairman Lawrence Wintermeyer. In a feisty fireside chat he called on the industry to collaborate with regulators with an urgency not expressed before.
