Despite filing a lawsuit stating that Bolt failed to deliver effective technology, ABG has joined the company’s shareholders and dropped its case.

Covid moved financial services forward very rapidly, and showed that with cloud, it could handle tech change much faster than it had thought

Banks that rely on: 1) branches to attract and sell; 2) geography to determine who to sell to; and 3) customer experience to differentiate won’t produce acceptable levels of growth and return on assets. Banks need to choose between an embedded finance and embedded fintech strategy to drive profits.

I think it is possible to believe that tokenisation will be huge and that defi protocols will have a serious role to play in the next generation of financial services while simultaneously being sceptical that cryptocurrencies will have a major role.

Silicon Valley prosecutor says her office has been flooded with with reports of similar scams, in which cybercriminals use dating sites to meet romantic partners they later entice to invest in fake crypto companies.

Flawed projects built on unsound economic models, led by hubristic messiahs, often fail and help to pave the way for new and safer consumer friendly sustainable projects and products. As history is often a reliable indicator, many of these new projects will sprout in South Korea.

Recent launches from companies including Apple, NatWest, Santander and Zopa, as well as new offerings from those already in the space, including PayPal, show that there are still major opportunities in BNPL. However, one area that remains significantly under-explored is cross-border BNPL.

The growth in new payment types and channels offers criminals a bigger attack surface than ever. While technology has become a vector for novel criminal activity, it also has the potential to stop crime in its tracks. However, a new approach is needed.

Apple Pay Later doesn’t cannibalize the Apple Card and “sideline” Goldman Sachs—it’s a stepping stone to a credit card relationship that benefits both Apple and Goldman Sachs.

The news comes just over a month after FTX’s billionaire founder, Bankman-Fried, disclosed a sizable stake in Robinhood.

Just as it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor (according to Blutarski in the movie Animal House, at least), the fintech revolution isn’t over just because the valuation of two companies (Klarna and Robinhood) has declined.

A detailed study by the Asian Development Bank found that an increase in the fintech development level has a significant association with decrease in crime because fintech reduces cash holdings (and, rather interestingly, providing more job opportunities).

When it secured a banking charter and raised a half-billion dollars last year, Varo promised growth and profitability. But an abrupt fintech downturn and high spending have left it with no choice but to slam on the brakes. In the first quarter, it laid off 8% of staff.

Last year, as the pandemic continued to push more buying and banking online and the price of both bitcoin and tech stocks climbed, venture capitalists poured money into fintech— a total of $133 billion globally, almost three times the year before.

Neobanks may have won the first battle with incumbent banks, but a new wave of competition is coming from the likes of Square, PayPal, and Apple. It’s hard to imagine that venture capitalists will continue to fund new neobank startups.

Bitcoin lost more than 70% of its value since November highs, and Celsius, a lending platform, announced that it would be pausing a significant portion of its activity.

If this crypto crash is like the tulip bubble then that is a very good thing, because the new regulatory environment that will support tokens, digital currencies and decentralised finance will be the crucial factor in creating a new golden age whether Bitcoin goes to zero or $100K next year.