Home equity loans are back on the rise
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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.
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Fintech News Stories
Learning from Three Arrows Capital's collapse
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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 MoreMaking sense of UBS’s cancelled Wealthfront acquisition
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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 MoreBank branch closings are slowing down. What does that mean for fintech?
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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 MoreMaking sense of Texas’ war on ESG
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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 MoreEl Salvador’s consumers demand better banking, not crypto
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In early July, El Salvador-based payments startup n1co raised $12M in a pre-seed round. The fintech spinoff of super-app Hugo, n1co launched as its own company in early 2022.
Read MoreHow much is crypto really worth?
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Reporting by Bloomberg suggests the crypto sectors’ peak market cap of $3T may have been misleading. Crypto’s value now hovers around $1T.
Read MoreWith supply-chain struggles, nearshoring demand booms
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Corporate bankers have reported greater interest among business clients to move their supply chains closer to where their consumers are located. Clients are interested in both “onshoring,” which involves returning previously offshored activities to the business’ home country, as well as “near-shoring,” which moves those activities to nearby countries.
Read MoreWhat Big Tech’s stock surge means for smaller fintechs
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Since the beginning of July, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Tesla have added $1.3T to their combined market value. This has helped the Nasdaq Composite rise by 14.8% over that same time period.
Read MoreHow inequality may worsen stagflation
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Although job growth accelerated in July, the Census Bureau reported that 12% of households were facing food insecurity, up from 10% at the beginning of 2022. The wealthiest 40% of households represent 60% of economic spending, while the poorest 40% represent 22% of spending.
Read MoreHow Big Tech layoffs may help small businesses
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Over 30,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in the latest round of tech layoffs. Across industries, unemployment claims have reached an eight-month high.
Read MoreWhy hasn’t the crypto winter affected the larger economy?
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In an interview with CoinDesk, Antonio Garcia Pascual, Deputy Chief of the Global Market Analysis Division at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said crypto’s nosedive hasn’t caused a similar downturn in the “real economy.” The crypto sector’s market cap has slid from $3T to $873B since November 2021.
Read MoreBanking platform aims to close racial gaps in business
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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 MoreTech giants may trigger economic fears across sectors
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Google announced that it paused hiring for two weeks, stating the need “to enable teams to prioritize their roles.” Other major tech companies have also announced layoffs; Netflix, for example, has fired more than 450 employees since May.
Read MoreZillow faces another lawsuit for botched house-flipping business
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Last week, investors in Zillow filed a lawsuit against the Seattle-based proptech giant on the grounds that it made “false and misleading statements” about Zillow Offers, its house-flipping project. This is the sixth investor lawsuit filed since Zillow shuttered the unprofitable initiative.
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