Happy Friday!!!
It’s hard to believe this is already the last Friday in February! Here is the Uncle Sean Update for 2/24/23:
- Huge shoutout to AeroVision as the latest innovative firm to join the BaaS Association!!!
- “Guiding AeroVision’s banking partners to success with their Fintech Programs will be their number one goal that helps increase the momentum of an industry that has the potential to grow at a much faster rate.” OUSTANDING!!!!
- ICYMI – Bankers Helping Bankers announced the first close of funding and the beginning of capital deployment of the BHB Fund with the investment emphasis of this first close towards “early-stage companies that solve ‘here and now’ opportunity and challenges facing community banks.” Yep – making a difference and loving it!!!! 😊
- Changed, the CUSO that helps members pay off student loans (they are a Mark Cuban and Shark Tank backed fintech – how cool is that!!!), announced they are expanding to include mortgage, auto, and personal loans as well as credit scores in one centralized dashboard application helping members with their financial health – VERY NICE!!!!!
- DCI (Data Center Inc.) is making headlines again this week announcing a partnership with Hawthorn River offering DCI customers an end-to-end digital LOS platform for a variety of loan types. Check them out at hawthornriver.com.
- Choice Bank (FDIC 9423) and Cloudcase US, Inc. announced the launch of the banks new end-to-end digital agriculture supplier financing platform.
- Uncle Sean loves this intersection of AgTech and FinTech – and to see it being done with a leading BaaS Bank is icing on the cake to me!!!
- MoneyLion announced a partnership with Column Tax to offer eligible MoneyLion RoarMoney℠ Banking customers a free embedded tax filing service.
- CoreLogic® announced they have acquired Roostify’s digital mortgage tech platform.
- Stripe launches Enhanced Issuer Network with major US issuers including Capital One and Discover to “help businesses reduce fraud and boost authorization rates” via the Stripe Radar fraud scoring/prevention solution.
- Helix by Q2 (NYSE:QTWO) announced a partnership with Unit21 to provide fintech customers with Unit21’s fraud detection and investigation infrastructure.
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched a new Office of Technology to “keep pace with technological challenges in the digital marketplace…”
- Certainly worth keeping an eye on as Uncle Sean can’t help but notice this directly coincides with other very recent regulatory initiatives, such as:
- FDIC – FDITECH Office of Innovation
- OCC – Office of Financial Technology
- CFPB – Office of Competition and Innovation
- Certainly worth keeping an eye on as Uncle Sean can’t help but notice this directly coincides with other very recent regulatory initiatives, such as:
- Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ) beefs up their compliance and executive team by announcing the hiring of Crystal Sumner as Chief Legal Officer to oversee Marqeta’s global legal and regulatory affairs. Sumner was most recently the Head of Legal, Compliance, and Risk at Blend; and before that served as an Enforcement Attorney at the CFPB.
- Uncle Sean sees this as a very strategic addition to the executive team as Marqeta continues to add functionality to their platform; AND the continued regulatory/compliance emphasis in the banking sector with a focus on BaaS.
- The trifecta speaks to liquidity risks in crypto-industry related deposits…. The FDIC, Federal Reserve, and OCC issued a joint statement on liquidity risks resulting from crypto-asset-related entities specifically regarding volatility of deposit inflows and outflows. The statement reminds banking organizations to apply existing risk management principles; it does not create new risk management principles.
- Not entirely surprised to see a cautionary warning from the regulators after witnessing Silvergate’s recent $8.1B (68%) deposit runoff in 4Q2022 as crypto contagion spread to the regulated banking industry.
- And another bad week for Binance… Binance.US $1B bankruptcy bid to purchase Voyager Digital is facing formal regulatory opposition from the SEC and NYDFS…
- Also this week, the FTC filed a formal objection to the sale citing an investigation into Voyager regarding “deceptive and unfair marketing of cryptocurrency to the public” and the potential of the proposed bankruptcy sale to Binance.US to release Voyager and its employees from financial claims and wrongdoing.
- FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is also having a bad week with a new superseding indictment charging him with four new criminal charges including commodities fraud and unlawful political contributions which, if convicted, could pose an additional 40 years in prison…. 😲
- Notable FinTech funding for the week:
- Finch (API for payroll, benefits, and HRIS) raised $40M in Series B funding round citing 12x revenue growth since their Series A last June.
- Green Check Verified (compliant cannabis solutions for financial institutions) raised $6M in Series A round.
Random Uncle Sean Stuff:
- This is awesome – As former President Jimmy Carter enters hospice care at home this week, the Habitat for Humanity recognized President Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter as humanitarian champions and tireless advocates and dedicated hands-on Habitat volunteers for almost 4 decades of continued service. According to Habitat.org, President and Mrs. Carter have worked alongside 104,000 volunteers in 14 countries on 4,390 homes.
- President Carter’s humble life is well represented in this CNBC article stating that the two bedroom 1961 house that he still lives in is assessed at $167,000 which is “less than the value of the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside.”
- Check out this timeline of Carter Work Project pics throughout the years!
- This is by far my favorite pic (showing up to volunteer in 2019 after a fall with 14 stitches and a black eye) that captures the quiet and humble spirit and determination of President Carter in his service to others:
- What do I think about ChatGPT and AI??? Well, I kind of look at it like not needing to learn how to spell very well because of autocorrect – to which I am eternally grapefruit. 😝
Have a GREAT weekend and please stay safe!!!
Uncle Sean
