Now an exercise in extinguishing multiple fires

Fed's Hope of A Soft Landing Dashed

Private Equity Carried Interest Provision Lives On

Banks everywhere are ratcheting up their credit card marketing activities greatly increasing marketing expenses. Credit-card issuers are staying aggressive and shrugging off potential liquidity issues from consumers, despite rising interest rates and potential recession.  

Big Banks Keep Pushing Credit Cards to Consumers

BankerAdvisor's Ongoing Series of How Fintech is Making Lives Better

Remitting it Forward

Bank stocks are often perceived to be a harbinger of broader economic trends so BankerAdvisor wheeled around some of the big banks’ reported second quarter earnings to spot broad movements

Tea Leaves and Emerging Economic Trends

Run on digital assets leads platforms to freeze user accounts, including withdrawals. Bankruptcy looms. 

The Big Chill in Crypto

Rising interest rates should ostensibly benefit all banks taking deposits. But, while large consumer institutions benefit, higher-risk banks have been hammered down

Lending Profits Differ Greatly by Bank

Firm to combine asset, wealth and consumer banking into one unit

Goldman Sachs Reorganization 

Germany, Europe’s New ‘Problem Child,’ Has a Series of Self-Inflicted Issues

Is German Deindustrialization Underway?

Coinbase, Google Cloud, MinePlex among deals

Crypto Still Has Fans...And Deals

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401(k) provider Fidelity aid it would give 23,000 employers the option to have employees add bitcoin and other crypto assets to their retirement savings.

Redefining Risk: Crypto and Retirement Savings

Surveys report investors, institutions and Wealth Managers are warming to holding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in their portfolios, but limitations remain.

Have Cryptocurrencies Become a Mainstream Asset Class?

Wealth management giant Envestnet has acquired business intelligence provider Truelytics, the company announced today. Truelytics offers a software as a service (SaaS) digital platform based on performance data and proprietary banking and investment formulas.

Envestnet acquires business intelligence firm Truelytics

Swiss provider of banking software Temenos has launched ESG Investing-as-a-service, helping banks and wealth managers make use of sustainable investing. 

Temenos launches ESG Investing-as-a-Service

Younger banking customers are making a decided move away from megabanks like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo for digital banks and fintech like Chime, PayPal, and Square, according to research done by Cornerstone Advisors.

Market Share is Moving to FinTechs and Digital Banks

A fast growing sector of investing helps identify companies that are careful and fastidious about their environmental, social and corporate governance issues and the SEC aims to require more information about ETFs and funds that market their holdings as ESG friendly.

ESG: Heaven or Hell?

CrossFirst Bankshares in Leawood, Kansas, has agreed to pay $75 million in cash to acquire the $567.5 million-asset Farmers and Stockmens Bank in Clayton, New Mexico.

CrossFirst Acquires Farmers and Stockmens Bank

The Canadian online loan provider VersaBank has agreed to pay Stearns Financial Services $13.5 million for a single-branch bank in Holdingford, Minnesota.

The acquisition of the St. Cloud, Minnesota, company's Stearns Bank Holdingford, which has a federal charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, would mark VersaBank’s official entrance into the U.S. market, according to a spokesperson for the digital-only bank.

VersaBank Enters US Market 

Crypto lender Voyager filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a week after halting withdrawals and two weeks after getting a $485 million bailout from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s firm Alameda Research.

Alameda Research now stands as Voyager’s biggest creditor with an outstanding loan of $75 million, according to multiple reports on Wednesday (July 6).

Voyager and its two affiliates, Voyager Digital LLC and Voyager Digital Holdings, filed Chapter 11 voluntarily in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York to restructure and “create a path” to resume operations and “return value to customers,” according to a press release. 

Crypto Lender Voyager Seeks Chapter 11 Protection

The co-founders of failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital appear to be on the run from creditors, according to court documents recently filed in New York.

Founders of Bankrupt Crypto Hedge Fund Three Arrows Capital Go Missing

Celsius Network, a large cryptocurrency lender filed for bankruptcy after freezing customer assets that led to increased customer redemptions following a decline in cryptocurrency values.

Crypto Lender Celsius Files for Bankruptcy 

Forsage claimed to be a decentralized smart contract platform built on the Ethereum, Tron, and Binance blockchains allowing retail investors to earn profits by recruiting other investors.

SEC charges 11 people in alleged $300 million crypto Ponzi scheme

Global Payments announced plans to acquire EVO Payments today. EVO Payments provides payment technology and acquiring services solutions. 

Global Payments to buy EVO Payments for $4 billion 

TD Bank Group  and Cowen Inc. today announced a definitive agreement for TD to acquire Cowen in an all-cash transaction valued at US$1.3 billion.

TD to Expand its U.S. Investment Banking Business and Capabilities with Acquisition of Cowen Inc.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the company will reduce its headcount by about 23%. The layoffs will be primarily in operations, marketing and program management. Tenev blamed “deterioration of the macro environment, with inflation at 40-year highs accompanied by a broad crypto market crash.”

Robinhood cutting about 23% of jobs, releases second-quarter earnings

Protego Trust Bank named Ron Totaro chief executive officer as the bank continues its push to serve institutional clients in crypto and digital assets. Totaro’s most recent role was CEO at Tassat Group, a blockchain-based tech firm focused on digital payments. In 2021, Protego raised $70 million in a Series A with investors including crypto exchanges Coinbase (COIN) and FTX as well as Digital Currency Group, the parent company of CoinDesk.

Digital Asset-Focused Bank Protego Trust Names Ron Totaro as CEO

Over the past week, the bitcoin price soared 4.9%, at one point hitting a high of just over $22,500. Most major altcoins are recovering too. Rumor has it bitcoin will soon take yet another step to mainstream adoption. People familiar with the matter told Wall Street Journal that Fidelity, the world's fourth largest asset manager overseeing $4.3 trillion in assets, is planning to let individual investors trade bitcoin.



‘Coming To 34 Million Accounts’ 

Fintechs like Chime, Current, N26, Level, Step, Varo and Moven are partnering with banks in an effort to make younger consumers comfortable doing all their banking online

Most Fintechs Partner with Banks

Last week, 1,668 retailers and more than 200 trade organizations urged the US Congress to pass the The Credit Card Competition Act, which gives merchants a choice in the routing of credit card transactions to networks other than Visa or Mastercard.

Breaking Visa and Mastercard Dominance in US

Nasdaq Digital Assets will begin by developing a cryptocurrency custody solution that will bring together the “best attributes of hot and cold crypto wallets”

Nasdaq to Launch Crypto Custody Service

But how far will the industry consolidate, and how many banks will the U.S. ultimately end up with? Is there something that will prevent America's financial system from shrinking until it resembles something like the Canadian banking system (about 80 banks operate in that country) or the airline industry (roughly 60 providers)?



Are there too many banks?

The macroeconomic outlook in Europe is bleak as supply disruptions and the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on energy and food prices continue to stifle growth

HSBC warns investors to avoid European stocks

According to Crunchbase data, M&A activity targeting VC-backed crypto startups hit an all-time high in the first quarter of the year when 16 were announced. However, deal pace has reverted to barely a trickle, with just seven deals in the last nearly two full quarters.

Crypto M&A Slows to a Crawl

JPMorgan is piloting a platform it created for property owners and managers that automates the invoicing and receipt of online rent payments.  The majority of rent payments are still paid with checks.  JPMorgan sees the opportunity to leverage data and analytics for customers with rent rates, investments, and tenant screening.

JPMorgan Chase wants to disrupt the rent check with its payments platform for landlords and tenants

Banks looking to boost their digital capabilities reportedly may be taking a closer look at acquisitions of FinTechs as the valuations of FinTechs have fallen 70% this year.  The decline in FinTech valuations has been driven by the economic downturn, rising interest rates, and lower investor confidence after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In addition, banks earnings have increased as their lending business benefits from rising interest rates, and it’s easier for banks to buy FinTechs than to merge with other banks because the latter involves more regulatory scrutiny.

FinTech Winter May Lead Banks to Increase Acquisitions 

Small to midsized businesses (SMBs) are investing in new tools, including payment solutions to explore the size and scale of the opportunity for SMB retail and how merchants can drive growth with new payment technologies. Retailers are chasing of seamless payment experiences including buy now, pay later and considering new payment options for payment technologies that can streamline payment experience and help achieve scale for their businesses.  

Small Business Survival May Hinge on Digital Payment Features

Shares of Silvergate declined 42.7% on Thursday after the crypto-focused bank released preliminary fourth-quarter results that showed massive customer withdrawals. Total deposits from digital asset customers declined to $3.8 billion from $11.9 billion at the end of the third quarter, a decline of roughly 68% as crypto exchange FTX, a Silvergate customer, collapsed in scandal, raising questions about the stability of the digital asset industry. At the end of December, $150 million of the bank’s deposits were held by customers who had filed bankruptcy, Silvergate said.

Silvergate Capital tanks more than 40% after crypto bank discloses massive fourth-quarter withdrawals

Moneyhub, founded in 2014, creates software for open banking, open finance, and open data applications announced it received an additional $18.2 million (£15 million) investment from savings and retirement business Phoenix Group. The funding round is a follow-on to the recent $48.6 million (£40 million) Moneyhub received in October 2022 which was led by Legal & General and Lloyds Banking Group led that round, contributing $42.4 million (£35 million), and Shawbrook Bank. Moneyhub’s total funding now adds up to $81.6 million.. 

Moneyhub Raises $18.2 Million, Completing $66.8 Million Funding Round

The legendary co-founder of Boston-based investment firm GMO argued in a Tuesday paper, that “the first and easiest leg of the bursting of the bubble we called for a year ago is complete.” While the downturn has wiped the most “extreme froth” off the market, valuations remain well above long-term averages, he said, noting that in the past they have tended to overcorrect, falling below their long-term trend line as fundamentals deteriorate. Grantham estimated the trend line value of the S&P 500 index, adjusted upward for trend line growth and expected inflation, will be around 3,200 by the end of 2023 - roughly a 17% fall for the year.

Jeremy Grantham says ‘easiest leg’ of stock-market bubble burst is over. Here’s what’s next. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a new rule to ban excessive credit card late fees. Congress banned excessive fees in 2009, but the Federal Reserve Board of Governors issued actions to circumvent the law, the CFPB said.  The CFPB rule proposed Wednesday would lower the amount consumers can owe for late fees under the immunity provision to $8 from as much as $41, end the automatic annual inflation adjustment for the provision and cap late fees at 25% of the minimum payment owed by the cardholder. The new rule could potentially reduce excessive late fees by as much as $9 billion per year.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau targets excessive credit card fees in new rule proposal

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