After interviewing the Episode Six founding team in 2020, The Financial Revolutionist sat down with CEO John Mitchell, revisiting Episode Six’s strategies and predictions for the future. Mitchell outlines the company’s steady course, shares the vision behind their business model, and hints at the future of hybridized, digital payments ecosystems.
Read MoreConsumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra said that Big Tech’s expansion into the BNPL space raises privacy and antitrust issues. To date, Apple is the only tech giant to launch a BNPL product, which is called Apple Pay Later.
Read MoreIn a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, Democratic lawmakers asked Chopra to clarify whether consumers who are defrauded into making a financial transfer on peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps like Zelle are “errors” or “unauthorized electronic fund transfers.” This shift could make financial institutions liable for repaying consumers who have fallen victim to fraud on P2P platforms.
Read MoreIn an interview with The Financial Revolutionist, Ubiquity COO and Co-Founder Sagar Rajgopal describes the bidirectional benefits of outsourcing, provides examples of the insights customer-experience experts can offer fintechs, and outlines the future of outsourcing in the face of volatility.
Read MoreCryptocurrency trading firms Celsius and Voyager Digital crashed earlier this month, trapping clients' funds within their platforms. Voyager’s financials are unknown, but Celsius has $167M in cash on hand to repay over $4.7B in customer deposits.
Read MoreStarling, 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 MoreOn July 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that bans the use of digital assets like NFTs and cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services within the country. It is still legal to trade, buy, and sell those assets.
Read MoreThe European Union General Court ruled that Brussels has the authority to regulate the merger between US biotech groups Illumina and Grail. Grail has no commercial presence in Europe and its operations are primarily in the US.
Read MoreGoldman Sachs announced a $233M loan to Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre. Similarly, Citigroup lent $375M to them last year.
Read MoreERCOT, which operates Texas’s power grid, has requested that bitcoin miners suspend operations during the state’s current heat wave, which has caused a surge in residential and commercial energy demand. Bitcoin miners complied, freeing up to 1,000 megawatts by turning off their machines.
Read MoreCrypto 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 MoreThe National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the public-private payments incubator operating within the country’s central bank, announced plans to build international digital payments infrastructure for the country’s 32 million expats. The NPCI previously built India’s domestic digital payments rails, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
Read MoreThe US Supreme Court ruled last week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), limiting its powers to interpret or enforce laws without explicit Congressional authority. Two top Republican lawmakers told the Financial Times that the ruling will soon affect financial regulators as well.
Read MoreLast week, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, banned loading pre-paid payment instruments using credit lines. The regulatory shift effectively outlaws the business strategy of major BNPL providers in the country.
Read MoreSpecial Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) once seemed like the future of public launches. But, where there were more than 300 SPAC IPOs in Q1 2021, less than 70 took place a year later.
Read MoreThe Financial Revolutionist is weekly newsletter and blog focused on the torrid pace of financial innovation. Today, thanks to the exponential rate of technological change, explosion in global trade and new regulations ushered in by the Great Financial Crisis, a new financial revolution is under way. In this battle, virtually every aspect of the greater financial services sector is subject to rigorous challenge. With the Financial Revolutionist, we are aspiring to create a boots-on-the-ground and highly opinionated assessment of important financial innovation developments in the past week.
