What Wave’s future means for payments challengers

What Wave’s future means for payments challengers

Wave, a payments platform in Senegal, is in a price war with incumbent platform Orange Money. Wave offers a 1% fee on money transfers, while Orange Money has dropped its rates from 5% to 0.8%.

Read More

Through acquisition, JPMorgan competes with Stripe, Block, and itself

Through acquisition, JPMorgan competes with Stripe, Block, and itself

JPMorgan announced that it’s acquiring cloud-native payments startup Renovite. The California-based startup will become part of JPMorgan Payments.

Read More

Why Bank of America is training high schoolers

Why Bank of America is training high schoolers

Bank of America has partnered with the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, to launch educational programs in local high schools. Students who complete the course will be extended job offers for positions related to emerging technologies by Bank of America.

Read More

Home equity loans are back on the rise

Home equity loans are back on the rise

Lenders originated more than $100B in home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) in the first five months of 2022. This represents a 50% increase over the same period in 2021.

Read More

Learning from Three Arrows Capital's collapse

Learning from Three Arrows Capital's collapse

Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a Singapore-based crypto hedge fund, filed for bankruptcy in July 2022. It owed more than $2.8B to creditors at the time it went bust, and is widely blamed for fueling the collapse of the crypto ecosystem.

Read More

Making sense of UBS’s cancelled Wealthfront acquisition

Making sense of UBS’s cancelled Wealthfront acquisition

On Friday, UBS announced that it had called off its acquisition of Wealthfront. UBS had been slated to purchase the robo-adviser for $1.4B.

Read More

Bank branch closings are slowing down. What does that mean for fintech?

Bank branch closings are slowing down. What does that mean for fintech?

US banks have closed 1,261 branches during the first six months of 2022. If closures continue at the same pace over the rest of the year, then this rate will represent a 15% decline compared to 2021.

Read More

Making sense of Texas’ war on ESG

Making sense of Texas’ war on ESG

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced a list of ten financial firms that are now banned from doing business with state entities in Texas. Hegar said those firms, which include BlackRock, Credit Suisse, UBS, and BNP Paribas, “boycott” the fossil fuel sector, which is illegal under a 2021 Texas state law.

Read More

Goldman’s not at peak performance. What does that mean for fintechs?

Goldman’s not at peak performance. What does that mean for fintechs?

Reporting by the Financial Times suggests Goldman Sachs is lagging behind its main competitor, Morgan Stanley. Shares in Goldman trade at 1.1 times book value, compared to 1.7 times for Morgan Stanley.

Read More

Did SoFi’s scattered acquisition strategy pay off?

Did SoFi’s scattered acquisition strategy pay off?

Shares in SoFi surged 8% on Tuesday after the personal-finance giant shared news of “durable growth and profitability.” Revenue rose from $231M to $362M, while analysts had expected $344M.

Read More

How diversified lending can buoy Black-owned banks

How diversified lending can buoy Black-owned banks

According to a June 30 filing, three Black-owned US banks—Industrial Bank, First Independence Bank, and Mechanics and Farmers Bank—joined eighteen other banks, including Citigroup, in a $1.23B syndicated corporate loan. The loan was provided to Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), which offers IT services to the US government.

Read More

Banking platform aims to close racial gaps in business

Banking platform aims to close racial gaps in business

Guava, a banking platform for Black business owners, announced a $2.4M pre-seed round led by Heron Rock. Guava will officially launch in 2023.

Read More

Starling scraps European banking plans

Starling scraps European banking plans

Starling, the UK-based challenger bank, withdrew its application for a European banking license four years after its initial application to the Irish Central Bank. The bank is now eyeing growth through its banking software subsidiary, Engine, and by expanding its lending initiatives.

Read More

Building a financial ecosystem for SMBs with ForwardAI

Building a financial ecosystem for SMBs with ForwardAI

In an interview with The Financial Revolutionist, Co-Founder and CEO of ForwardAI Nick Chandi outlines the market need ForwardAI addresses, describes the competitive dynamic between accounting platforms and banks, and envisions the future of SMB financial advisory services.

Read More

Voyager’s misleading marketing in regulators’ crosshairs

Voyager’s misleading marketing in regulators’ crosshairs

Crypto firm Voyager Digital, which filed for bankruptcy last week, previously told customers that their deposits were FDIC insured through a partnership with Metropolitan Commercial Bank. However, customer funds are only protected if Metropolitan Bank fails, not if Voyager fails; the FDIC is now investigating Voyager’s false claims.

Read More