The regulators dominated the news again this week with the Fed announcing proposed new (reduced) fees for debit card transactions. And then we had the Fed, OCC and FDIC finally issuing new rules for the Community Reinvestment Act. Both of these announcement could have a dramatic impact on both banks and fintechs.
Here are the top five news stories in fintech this week:
- Visa, Mastercard Face Lower Cap on Swipe Fees Under Fed Plan from Bloomberg – The Federal Reserve has put forth their proposal to lower debit card interchange and it is a 28% reduction to 14.4 cents per transaction plus 0.04% of the transaction value. There is a 90-day comment period but already there has been some contention with Fed Governor Michelle Bowman coming out against the changes her employer put forward.
- Marqeta updates platform to support credit issuing, embedded finance from American Banker – While it is a lot easier to launch a new credit card than ever before Marqeta is now making it even easier. The leading fintech that made a name for itself in debit cards has launched Power Finance, a new credit card management program targeted at brands. Marqeta will not only power the technology they will help find the appropriate bank partner.
- Banks Face Shake-Up of Low-Income Lending Rules from The Wall Street Journal – We have talking about CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) modernization for over a decade and we finally have a final version of the new rules put forth by the Fed, OCC and FDIC. Now, instead of having rules based on a branch network it is now based on where their borrowers actually live, taking into account a bank’s online lending operation.
- Against The Clock: Synapse Has Two Months To Find New Bank Partner from Forbes – It has been a rough few weeks, make that months, for Synapse. After losing their largest client and in the midst of a squabble with Evolve Bank & Trust, according to Forbes, Synapse now has to move an estimated 40 clients to a new bank partner before the end of the year.
- US Bank Debuts Avvance Installment Payment Tool from PYMNTS – US Bank is throwing its hat into the merchant-facing BNPL game with the announcement of Avvance. Calling it an “embedded, multi-channel point-of-sale lending solution” for businesses it will allow the standard BNPL offerings. The ace up US Bank’s sleeve is its Elavon subsidiary that does payments processing for 1.3 million businesses. That will the initial target market I expect as Avvance does not seem to have any unique features beyond what Klarna and Afterpay offers.
Podcasts This Week
Fintech One-on-One – Todd Schwartz, CEO and Founder of OppFi.
Fintech Coffee Break – Andrew Jamison, CEO and Co-Founder of Extend
Fintech Blueprint – Matt Canopy, CEO and Founder of Canopy.
