We start across the pond this week with the big news that the CEO of one of the most successful digital banks will be stepping down after nearly a decade at the helm. We also learned about Klarna’s solid quarter, JPMorgan had an investor day, Fifth Third is acquiring a fintech and Venmo is launching a teen bank account. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 fintech news stories of the week.
Anne Boden, founder of UK’s Starling Bank, steps down as CEO from TechCrunch – Starling Bank, one of the leading UK digital banks, posted their annual results this year and it was another very solid year. But the great results were overshadowed by the announcement that founder and CEO Anne Boden would be stepping down from the CEO position on June 30. She is leaving the company in a great position after making record profits of £195 million last year.
Fintech firm Klarna halves net loss in first quarter as it races toward profitability from CNBC – Klarna reported on their Q1 earnings this week and they showed good progress. They still made a net loss but it was half the loss of last year while net operating income was up 22% year over year. The company is on track to return to profitability by the end of the year.
JPMorgan added roughly 600,000 checking accounts through April from Banking Dive – JPMorgan held its investor day on Monday and we learned that the company added 600,000 new checking accounts in the January through April period. With the acquisition of First Republic net interest income is expected to grow from $81 billion to $84 billion. And Jamie Dimon confirmed he still loves his job and will be staying put for some time.
Fifth Third targets payments expansion with Rize Money acquisition from American Banker – Fintech M&A continues with Fifth Third Bank announcing their acquisition of embedded payments platform Rize Money. The fintech company provides a single API to handle ACH, wire and real time payments. Terms of the deal were not disclosed so we are left to wonder if this was a win for all parties.
Venmo will soon have accounts for teenagers, with no-fee debit card and ATM access from Engadget – Venmo becomes the latest company to offer bank accounts for teenagers. The Venmo Teen Account is targeted at minors aged 13 to 17 and includes a debit card as well as controls for parents to monitor transactions and privacy.
Banks, credit unions outraged by CFPB’s $8 credit card late fee plan from American Banker – It is not news that CFPB Director Rohit Chopra does not like bank fees. But their recent proposal to cap credit card late fees is drawing strong reactions. They have received almost 58,000 comments as well as bank organizations threatening to sue.
Crypto giant Binance commingled customer funds and company revenue, former insiders say from Reuters – According to three different sources, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, commingled customer funds with company revenue in 2020 and 2021. This is the same thing that FTX was found to be doing and it is obviously illegal. If proven to be true this is yet another self-inflicted wound by the crypto community.
Daylight, the LGBTQ+ neobank, calls it quits from TechCrunch – Another niche neobank bites the dust. Daylight focused on the LGBTQ community and had raised $20 million from investors such as Anthemis Group and Citi Ventures. The company was never able to get to scale and was not helped by a scandal involving its CEO that was made public earlier this year.
Plastiq files for bankruptcy; agrees acquisition deal with Priority from Finextra – Once high flying fintech Plastiq has come back down to earth, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and agreeing to an asset sale to Priory Technology. This comes less than a year after an announced SPAC deal that would have taken the company public at a valuation of $480 million.
Generative AI enhances alternative data lending opportunity from Fintech Nexus – While AI has been used in lending for more than a decade we are now entering a new age with generative AI taking center stage. Ocrolus works with many digital lenders on document automation and they recently announced they are integrating OpenAI’s GPT into their software.
