GreenSky, the point of sale lender went public today, raising $874 million; the company is profitable, has high margins and...
Alibaba's fintech arm, Ant Financial, is looking to increase their Asian market share before taking on more expansion plans worldwide; while at an event in Thailand to launch a partnership with payment firm Ascend, senior company officials explained the current focus is on 370 million people in Asia without bank accounts; in addition to the Thailand partnership, the company partnered with India's PayTM last year and has secured licenses to operate in Hong Kong; according to Senior Vice President, Douglas Feagin, there were no set plans or venue for a potential initial public offering, though there were benefits to going public. Source
Bo Brustkern sat down with Liz Mathew, Head of Partnerships at the Web3 wallet market leader, Consensys Institutional, to talk DeFi adoption.
"We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products," Facebook said in its first public comment on Twitter. "We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
Opposition to the OCC's fintech charter continues with a new lawsuit filed by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors which says the OCC does not have the legal authority to issue the fintech charter that it has proposed; the lawsuit says the OCC will need "specific congressional approval" for the charter and that nondepository companies are not considered to be engaged in the business of banking; preemption of state consumer protection laws has evoked strong opposition to the OCC's fintech charter and the lawsuit by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors is the first court action taken by an opposing party; the OCC's financial inclusion provisions, lack of clarity on state mandated requirements such as interest rate caps, default rate limitations and underwriting standards, and lack of detail on business factors including capital requirements and other balance sheet measures have caused decreasing support for the charter overall. Source
Plaid, the data network powering major fintech websites and apps, has added read-only support for crypto exchanges including Binance, Kraken, and Gemini.
When China’s Aggressive Debt Collectors Come Knocking: ‘You Committed a Sin’ After being acquired by SoFi, Galileo’s Clay Wilkes looks...
The Cosun Group has issued notice that it would be defaulting on its high yield debt products equal to $45 million; Cosun raised $166 million through the Ant Financial platform and is now unable to meet obligations on a portion of that amount; this leaves investors asking when they will be repaid; Ant Financial is pressing to ensure repayments are made and has stated they would help pay legal bills if investors decide to sue; the fintech giant does not share the blame as they view themselves as a platform for investors to allocate capital, but they also understand the Ant Financial name carries weight and want to help make sure there is a resolution. Source
OakNorth Bank has taken the top spot on the FT’s annual list of the 1,000 fastest growing companies in Europe;...
In episode 38 I talk with Sumita Pandit of dLocal powering local payments connecting merchants with billions of consumers through one API.