A variety of fintech news this week with FTX reportedly raising $1 billion, Stash announcing they have built their own core, bidding for Voyager assets, Nasdaq launching crypto custody, Adyen partnering with Cash App and more. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
FTX in talks to raise up to $1 billion at valuation of about $32 billion, in-line with prior round from CNBC – Sam Bankman-Fried has become the king of crypto this year as he has worked to bail out many of the struggling firms in the industry. His company, FTX, has become a world leader and is now looking to raise $1 billion at a $32 billion valuation which would be a flat round from their previous raise in January. Meanwhile, Coinbase is down more than 70% this year…
Stash debuts its own core system from American Banker – Core banking systems are not something that fintech neobanks develop in-house. With very few exceptions they rely on their bank partner’s core or one of the big three core providers. But Stash has gone to the trouble and expense of developing Stash Core, giving them more “flexibility and ownership of every customer touchpoint.”
Binance and FTX Make Top Bids for Bankrupt Lender Voyager from The Wall Street Journal – Voyager Digital was worth $3.9 billion in 2021 and now the bankrupt crypto lender will sell its assets for around $50 million with Binance and FTX being the top bidders.
Nasdaq Makes First Big Crypto Push to Lure Institutional Clients from Bloomberg – The technology-centric stock exchange is making its first big push into crypto with the launch of Nasdaq Digital Assets. They will offer custody services for Bitcoin and Ethereum to institutional investors and have hired a crypto veteran to run the business.
Adyen Selected as Fintech Platform to Introduce Cash App Pay Outside Square Ecosystem from Crowdfund Insider – Cash App has 80 million active users but until now they have only been able to interact within the Block ecosystem. With this partnership with Adyen we should start seeing Cash App as a payment option more widely, both online and offline.
CFPB to Unleash BNPL Rules that Would Also Impact Data Mining from The Financial Brand – The CFPB obtained data from the top five BNPL lenders in late 2021 and have been analyzing this data as it prepares new rules for the space. The bureau will be bringing non-bank BNPL providers under its oversight through regulations or other actions.
Sardine raises $51.5M led by a16z to sniff out fishy fintech transactions from TechCrunch – One of the largest funding rounds of the week was for Sardine, a fraud detection startup. The $51.5 million Series B was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from a number of other big names in the space. No word on a valuation.
Digital Bank Marcus, Part of Goldman Sachs, Being Queried by Federal Reserve: Report from Crowdfund Insider – While Goldman Sachs receives scrutiny from the Federal Reserve on a regular basis this is the first time we have heard that their consumer banking division, Marcus, is being reviewed by the Fed.
Synctera launches first BaaS line of credit from Fintech Nexus – Embedded finance startup Synctera has launched a new banking-as-a-service product for lines of credit. This will enable fintechs and banks to embed lending services into their existing offerings. While we have seen others offer term loans for many years, there has not been as much for lines of credit.
A Strava co-founder races into a lucrative market – lending against life insurance from TechCrunch – Fintech has come for just about every niche in financial services but this is the first I have heard of a fintech tackling lending against whole life insurance policies. It is a $150 billion market today that has mostly been utilized by the wealthy. The new company, called Incline, will be democratizing the space with lower rates on refinancing.
Every Thursday afternoon, the Fintech Nexus 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 – click on the audio player below.
