Lots of crypto stories again this week but probably the biggest story, particularly for fintech lenders, was the vote in the Senate to repeal the True Lender rule. We have more SPAC news and Figure getting approval for their new alternative trading system (that could be big). Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Senate votes to repeal OCC ‘true lender’ rule from The Hill – Demonstrating a misunderstanding of the OCC true lender rule the Senate voted to repeal it in the name of consumer protection. Fintech lenders have more work to do here to educate Congress on this issue.
Mortgage Lender Better to Go Public in SPAC Deal from The Wall Street Journal – Better has been one of the many fintech success stories of the pandemic with a quintupling of loan volume last year to $24 billion. They will be going public via a SPAC at a $6.9 billion valuation.
Figure Obtains Regulatory Green Light For Alternative Trading System from PYMNTS.com – Figure Securities Inc. has received approval to become a broker-dealer and a registered Alternative Trading System for securities held on the Provenance blockchain. Mike Cagney and his team continue to break new ground.
Thiel-Backed Block.one Injects Billions in Crypto Exchange from Bloomberg – A new crypto exchange called Bullish is launching, part of Block.one, with a staggering $10 billion in initial capital.
JPMorgan, Others Plan to Issue Credit Cards to People With No Credit Scores from The Wall Street Journal – For years now at LendIt Fintech we have been featuring innovative ways for lenders to provide credit to the un-scored population. Great to see the big banks finally getting with the program.
Facebook-backed Diem withdraws FINMA application, shifts to US from Banking Dive – Diem is almost unrecognizable now from the original Libra project but it is still focused on digital currency, has moved from Switzerland to the US and is looking to register as a money services business here.
If Chime Isn’t A Bank, Then What Is It? from Forbes – Great piece by Ron Shevlin on the Chime Bank/Not a Bank fiasco. As he points out Chime’s customers don’t care as long as their money is FDIC-insured (it is, of course). So, where does this leave all the other neobanks? We need a new word…
Lili, a neobank aimed at freelancers, raises $55M as it passes 200K users from TechCrunch – With an estimated 40% of workers today being freelancers Lili has a big target market and now is well capitalized to go after this space.
MoneyGram to let cryptocurrency holders cash in their investments from CNBC – MoneyGram may not strike you as a crypto innovator but it has teamed up with bitcoin exchange and ATM operator Coinme to allow its customers to buy and sell crypto at thousands of MoneyGram locations throughout the US.
LendingClub Chooses Alto as Their New IRA Provider from LendIt Fintech News – With LendingClub’s retail investor marketplace shutdown, thousands of IRA investors are seeing their cash build up. They can now seamlessly move that money to Alto, a leading alternative investment custodian.
