Fintech Nexus Newsletter

While AI seems to be everywhere these days, one place it is getting real traction is in the compliance space. There is a lot of manual, repetitive work in the compliance teams at large banks and fintechs. Hummingbird is looking to ease that burden with the launch of a new AI-based compliance tool.

Yesterday, the OCC issued new guidance for banks, addressing the risks of buy now pay later lending. The guidance focused on the popular "pay in 4" segment of BNPL.  Not surprisingly, the national bank regulator recommended tight oversight of third-party servicers, the importance of transparent loan terms and fraud mitigation.

Last month, it was Chase, this month, it is PayPal launching a new ad business. PayPal has hired Uber's former head of advertising to run PayPal Ads, the new division that will be selling targeted ads based on its customer data.

The SEC has not had a great track record in court cases against crypto firms in the last few months. And another important case is playing out right now in a New York federal courtroom. Back in June of last year the SEC sued Coinbase arguing that it was operating illegally and that it should register as an exchange and be overseen by the SEC.

Yesterday, the official legislation was issued to make the long-awaited adjustment to the CRA, accounting for the digital landscape. 

Those of you following along closely will know that Fintech Nexus sold its event business to Fintech Meetup in June of last year. We have been focused on digital media since then.

With the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried in the spotlight last month it is easy to forget that there is still the massive FTX bankruptcy that has to be sorted out. The next step in that process has now been revealed in the form of a proposal. At this stage, it is just a proposal that must be approved by creditors before it can go to the bankruptcy judge. But the major creditor and consumer groups have agreed to the plan outline.

By Peter Renton Since Visa announced late Monday their new $100 million fund focused on generative AI startups much has been written....

Back in the go-go days of 2021 the two biggest names in crypto were known just by their initials: SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) and CZ (Changpeng Zhao). They often took to Twitter arguing with each other about where the market was going and whether certain tokens were overvalued. But there were no bigger names than SBF and CZ. They controlled the biggest crypto exchanges, outside of Coinbase: FTX and Binance.

There are big changes coming to the world of interchange. Today, in a historic settlement, Visa and Mastercard have agreed to cap card interchange fees as they seek to end a legal fight that has spanned almost two decades.