Fintech Nexus Newsletter

It is a bold or naïve CEO that prefaces a major announcement with the words, "This will shock the world". New PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said exactly that in his first public interview since becoming CEO. That was a week ago and he was referring to major announcements that would happen at the company's Innovation Day that it conducted yesterday.

Every quarter TransUnion releases its Credit Industry Insights Report. Their latest issue, released earlier this month, has some very interesting data.

We are almost one year removed from the banking crisis precipitated by the struggles at Silicon Valley Bank. Now, another bank is having its own struggles. New York Community Bank (NYCB) has announced a new CEO and discovered "material weaknesses" in some of its internal procedures.

When the CFPB released their long-awaited proposal on open banking rules in October there was cautious optimism from both banking and fintech groups. Fast forward two and a half months, when everyone has had a chance to fully digest the 299-page proposed rulemaking, there are many suggestions for improvement. With the 60-day comment period ending this week, the CFPB has received over 11,000 comments.

The buy-now-pay-later industry continues to grow in popularity. And part of the reason is consumers are starting to understand that most of BNPL stands outside the traditional credit scoring system.

While check usage has been in decline for years, for many businesses it is still a primary method of payment. According to the Federal Reserve we processed over three billion commercial checks in 2023 valued at over $8 trillion.

It has finally happened. More than a decade after receiving the first spot bitcoin ETF application the SEC gave its approval yesterday. While this was widely expected, it wasn't a slam dunk as demonstrated by the tight vote: 3-2 in favor with SEC Chair Gary Gensler providing the deciding vote.

Much has been written about the looming end to the Apple-Goldman Sachs relationship (we even produced a cartoon about it). And while this is a big deal for Goldman and Apple, the average Apple Card holder likely does not give it a second thought.

It was three ago last week when LendingClub closed its acquisition of Radius Bank. At that time LendingClub entered into an operating agreement with the OCC that imposed capital restraints and growth limits on the fintech pioneer.

We had an update from the Federal Reserve on FedNow this week. There are now 400 banks participating in the instant payments network as either a sender or receiver. They launched last July with 35 institutions and have been growing steadily since then. The last public statement that I have heard was when FedNow chief, Mark Gould, spoke at the American Fintech Council's Policy Summit in November when they had 200 banks on the platform.