Fintech Nexus Newsletter

While AI chatbots have been around for several years, with the rapid AI advances of the past 18 months, they are reaching a new level of usefulness.

We are moving to a world of instant payments but how we get there is still uncertain. A blockchain-based payments system designed for central banks has just completed its first live transactions with the Bank of England. Created by Fnality, the system processed live payments from member banks, Lloyds, Santander and UBS.

Being a direct-to-consumer fintech can be expensive and difficult. The path to profitability is often a long and winding one, so we have seen several companies pivot to B2B in the last year or so.

Banking as a Service (BaaS) continues to be in the crosshairs of the federal government. The latest banks to be hit with consent orders from the FDIC are Sutton Bank and Piermont Bank.

In June of last year, Robinhood announced it was acquiring the credit card startup X1. Today, we learned about the fruits of that transaction: a new Gold Card from Robinhood.

In May of last year, Petal announced it had raised a new funding round and was spinning off its infrastructure unit, Prism Data. But then we heard in November that Petal was struggling and looking for a buyer.

In Congress, anything that helps small businesses typically comes with bipartisan support. But section 1071 of Dodd-Frank is a little complicated.

The fintech space, and the tech space more broadly, is enamored with company valuations. The term unicorn arose out of that fascination.

Bloomberg reported on Friday that Chime is planning a 2025 IPO, according to "a person familiar with the matter." Chime is the largest consumer-facing fintech in the country and this blockbuster IPO has been anticipated ever since their massive 2021 funding round that valued the firm at $25 billion.

Upstart has been a trailblazer when it comes to using AI in lending. They were the first fintech lender to make it a core part of their offering.