Apple grabbed headlines again this week as Bloomberg announced they were bringing more of their fintech work in-house. Visa also launching NFT program, Cross River with huge Series D, Blockchain.com with another big funding round, Crypto Talent War and more. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Apple is working to bring more financial services in-house from Bloomberg – Apple is the world’s most valuable company with a huge cash war chest and it continues to make strides in financial services. The company is looking to replace fintech partners as it brings more capabilities in-house in a project internally dubbed “Breakout.”
Visa launches NFT program as it sees digital art as a new form of e-commerce from TechCrunch – Visa was early in NFT and they continue to be a leader here. They announced the Visa Creator Program this week which will bring together a global cohort of artists to help them grow their NFT businesses.
Cross River Raises $620M Series D From LendIt Fintech News – The biggest funding announcement of the week belongs to fintech pioneer Cross River Bank. Their $620 million Series D, co-led by Andressen Horowitz and Eldridge Capital, values the company at over $3 billion.
Blockchain.com Raises New Funding at Bloomberg’s $14 Billion Valuation – While we don’t know how much Blockchain.com raised, we do know that Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and Baillie Gifford & Co also led the round. participated. And the fact that the company is now worth $14 billion. There is no slowdown in funding for crypto companies.
As Wall Street banks embrace crypto, high-flying start-ups seek to attract CNBC red ribbon finance’s top talent.
CFPB’s Chopra vows to crack down on repeat American Banker offenders – In a speech this week, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said the Bureau will get tougher on repeat offenders and he even named names: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, American Express and Discover. These companies have been cited repeatedly for repeated violations and he wants enforcement to go beyond simple fines.
SEC Tells Exchanges to Treat Client Crypto Holdings as Wall Street Journal Liabilities – The SEC released guidelines for cryptocurrency exchanges this week. Publicly traded exchanges like Coinbase will need to record the digital assets they hold as assets on their balance sheet and their obligations to customers as liabilities.
Wells Fargo Partners with Bilt Rewards to Launch Credit Card for LendIt Renters Fintech News – This week a new rewards credit card was launched, but this one was a little different. It was designed for renters, allowing anyone who pays rent via ACH or even check to use the Bilt Rewards credit card. They are able to do this through a unique partnership with Mastercard and Wells Fargo.
Alviere, Coinbase enter into Coinbase Prime partnership to allow brands to offer crypto exchange from Crowdfund Insider – Alviere offers integrated funding solutions such as bank accounts, debit cards and money transfers for non-banks and with this partnership with Coinbase, they will have a crypto trading offer now.
Hackers Steal $540 Million in Crypto From The Wall Street Journal’s ‘Axie Infinity’ Game – A popular online game called Axie Infinity has suffered the second-largest hack in crypto history. Over $500 million worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen, not because of a technical fault, but through social engineering.
Every Thursday, the LendIt Fintech News team and a special guest discuss the week’s news live on LendIt TV, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. We have now made the show available in podcast format – click on the audio player below.
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Peter Renton is President and Co-Founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest fintech-focused digital media and events company. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, Financial Times and dozens of other publications.