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Crypto eCommerce paytech

·Mar. 1, 2021

The Federal Reserve Payment Processor, its $100B of revenue, and whether blockchains and L2s can match the value it settles

Let’s do some math homework. It’s good for you:

The Federal Reserve money movement system broke for several hours. We look deeply into its volumes and transactions, and value it like a Fintech unicorn.
The Ethereum ecosystem is throwing around as much volume in settlement as the Fed check processing system. We explore scalability barriers and solutions.
Can eCommerce fit into our emerging infrastructure? We anchor to the market numbers in China and the United States.

Things break.

Sometimes the things that break are the US Federal Reserve ACH service, Check 21, FedCash, Fedwire, and the national settlement service. They were down for a few hours — discovered at 11AM on Feb 24th and still in trouble at 3PM that day. Everything is now up and running again.

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big tech Crypto enterprise blockchain paytech stablecoins

·May. 6, 2019

Facebook and Bitfinex both want $1 Billion for Crypto Stablecoins

There is poetry in the symmetry of this situation. Bitfinex is looking to raise $1 billion in capital to support the most popular stablecoin Tether, which it controls. Facebook is reportedly looking to raise $1 billion in capital from First Data, Visa and Mastercard and other payments companies to shore up its own stablecoin asset. Poetry is where the similarities end, and all these devils are in the details.

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central bank / CBDC digital transformation paytech stablecoins

·Dec. 1, 2021

What will Stripe do in crypto?

In this discussion, we explore ways that Stripe — arguably the best American fintech company full-stop, although who would want to mess with Square — could be entering the crypto space. We consider approaches similar to the payment onramps, then discuss the underlying market structure powering those experiences, and highlight more generally the role of gateways relative to protocols. We touch on the role of custodians, banks, and wallets, as well as Square’s attempt, the tbDEX, where KYC/AML comes down to forms of opt-in identity. Finally, we address questions about Circle and USDC, and how stablecoins differ from the rails on which they travel.

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Embedded Finance neobank Open Banking paytech

·Nov. 10, 2021

Plaid’s payments ecosystem & Affirm’s decoupled debit card reveal embedded finance Trojan Horse

In this analysis, we want to update the discussion of card networks, money movement, and the potential existential threat — or perhaps evolution — to existing infrastructure. It continues the thread on articles like Is Plaid cheap at $5.3 billion for $500 billion Visa? and Marqeta's $300MM of revenue & Ethereum's $20B in ann. transaction fees highlight opportunity and industry structure, and Who are the customers of Embedded Finance, and what do they reveal about Stripe, Affirm, DriveWealth, and Green Dot?, and more generally in this research section. We map Plaid’s progress in building out a payments ecosystem, and highlight Affirm’s debit card product powered in a novel manner through open banking. The analysis visualizes a likely evolution of the space with the introduction of Web3, and highlights a couple of early symptoms.

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central bank / CBDC China paytech super app

·Oct. 22, 2021

How China is winning the race in Fintech, Payments, and CBDCs, with Fintech expert Richard Turrin

In this conversation, we chat with Richard Turrin – an award-winning executive, previously heading FinTech teams at IBM, following a twenty-year career, heading trading teams at global investment banks. He’s also the author of the number one international bestseller, Innovation Lab Excellence. One of his books is Cashless: China’s Digital Currency Revolution, which brings the story of China’s incredible new central bank digital currency to the west. He lives in Shanghai, China, where he’s had the privilege of living in China’s cashless revolution firsthand.

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central bank / CBDC energy paytech

·Jan. 27, 2020

How are Central Bank Digital Currencies like Lithium-ion Batteries, and how do you build a CBDC today?

I examine the rising relevance of Central Bank Digital Currencies. We look at the World Economic Forum policy guide to understand different versions of CBDCs and their relative systemic scale, and the ConsenSys technical architecture guide to understand how one could be implemented today. For context, we also dive into a very different topic -- Lithium ion batteries -- and show how a change in the cost of a fundamental component part (e.g, 85% cost reduction in energy, or financial infrastructure) opens up a massive creative space for entrepreneurs.

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digital lending entrepreneurship neobank paytech

·Jun. 19, 2020

How to Build a $3.5B Profitable Digital Bank with Tinkoff

Oliver Hughes is the CEO of Tinkoff Group, one of the world’s most successful digital banking groups with over 10 million customers. This is one our most interesting conversation to date, full of fantastic operating advice.

Tinkoff is publicly listed with a $3.8 billion market capitalization, which brings clarity to its operating model in a time when many noteworthy consumer digital banks are pursuing customer acquisition at the expense of profitability.

Oliver has led Tinkoff through three financial crises, and brings experience and perspective to the current COVID crisis. This is a fascinating discussion about unit economics in digital banking and winning business models with a CEO with thirteen years of experience in this space.

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eCommerce neobank paytech

·Jun. 5, 2020

Cash App, Venmo, Digital Wallets and Challenger Banks with ARK Invest

Welcome back to the Fintech Blueprint / Rebank podcast series hosted by Will Beeson and Lex Sokolin. Max Friedrich is a fintech analyst a ARK Invest, a public markets investment manager focused on disruptive technologies including autonomous tech, robotics, fintech, genomics and next generation internet. Max recently published a report on digital wallets, including Venmo and Square’s Cash App, which is available for download on ARK’s website. In this conversation, we explain why Cash App has seen exponential growth.

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Embedded Finance neobank paytech

·Jun. 12, 2020

Varo’s $240M and Marqeta’s $150M Rounds, Should Digital Banks Lend? and Fintech Gets Meta

Today, we talk through a few recent events that are indicative of what’s important in fintech right now.

Varo raised $241 million in preparation to start operating under its own banking license later this year. Is a banking license an asset or a liability if you’re a digital bank?

Marqeta is reportedly now valued at $4.3 billion, as banking-as-a-service continues its mature.

And LA-based fintech Stackin’ raised $13 million to scale its messaging-based offering designed to help Gen Z find the right fintech. What should we make of this?

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Embedded Finance monetization / commercial paytech venture capital

·Jan. 18, 2021

Explaining ~100x revenue multiples for Affirm, Checkout, Rapyd, and other fintech companies using systems theory

This week, we look at:

Over $1 billion in raises announced last week, and over $10 billion in Fintech company value creation: Checkout.com with $450 million at a $15 billion valuation, Affirm more than doubling after its IPO to $30 billion, lending enabler Blend raising $300 million, and payments enabler Rapyd raising $300 million.
A systems theory framework that explains the stocks and flows of goods and services, and what monetization strategies are available to fintechs
How transactional models are thriving and creating 50-100x revenue multiples

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