This week was mostly about Coinbase. The leading crypto exchange went public via a direct listing and provided a seminal moment in the history of crypto. And we had lots of big news from the big banks. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Coinbase’s Public Listing Is a Cryptocurrency Coming-Out Party from The New York Times – With Coinbase now a public company it brings bitcoin and crypto into the mainstream.
The World Is Watching as Coinbase Goes Public from Coindesk – There are other companies waiting in the wings to see how the Coinbase listing plays out.
How Payment Processor Stripe Became Silicon Valley’s Hottest Startup from The Wall Street Journal – This number says it all: more than 500,000 businesses became Stripe customers during the pandemic as business migrated online.
Buy bank stocks after Citi, Goldman Sachs, BoA and JPMorgan earnings wowed, says this research group from MarketWatch – The big banks kicked off earnings season this week with some record numbers.
PNC’s ‘low cash mode’ gives users 24-hour overdraft buffer from Banking Dive – This is one of the first products I have seen from a big bank that actively tries to reduce the amount of overdraft fees charged to their customers.
JPMorgan Chase poached a top Marcus exec along with key hires from Wells Fargo and Google to support a ‘huge agenda’ for digital banking from Business Insider – Yet another senior exec has jumped ship from Marcus and JPMorgan is the beneficiary this time as they look to beef up their digital banking efforts.
Trustly CEO Hints at Dual U.S. Listing After Stockholm IPO from Bloomberg – Another fintech unicorn is going public as Swedish digital payments firm is looking to go public soon at a $9 billion valuation.
ConsenSys raises $65M from JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS to build infrastructure for DeFi from TechCrunch – Blockchain tech leader ConsenSys has raised $65 million from some of the leaders in traditional finance.
Latin America’s Fintech Boom from Andreessen Horowitz – Great rundown by the leading fintech VC on why Latin America is probably the most exciting region in the world right now for fintech.
How Fintechs Are Rewriting the Rules Of Credit from Forbes – A look at how one new fintech company, Esusu, is helping bring credit to underserved communities.
