Tough Sledding … Without a Sled!
#1: Tough Sledding … Without a Sled! What happened? A fintech infrastructure startup emerged from stealth after raising $6 million without a product: CapStack, a startup formed by Pipe co-founder Michal Cieplinski, has raised $6 million toward its effort to build an integrated operating system for banks. In simpler terms, Cieplinski described CapStack as the…
Read MoreThe Next Evolution of Prescreen
The first piece of fintech content that I ever wrote was a white paper – Operational Excellence: The Prescreen Revolution. I was working as an intern in the marketing department at Zoot Enterprises, which is a fintech infrastructure company specializing in automated credit decisioning. It was my first job, of any kind, and I didn’t…
Read MoreWhoops!
3 Fintech News Stories #1: Enabling Discernment Without Permitting Discrimination What happened? A group of 20 banks and credit unions are collaborating on ways to increase access to credit for marginalized borrowers: The collaboration, Underwriting for Racial Justice, aims to create new lending criteria for lower-income U.S. borrowers who have historically faced higher barriers…
Read MoreGoldman Sachs Was The Sucker
3 Fintech News Stories #1: Consortiums are Cool! What happened? First, this from Sardine: Sardine today announced the formation of SardineX, an industry-wide, independent consortium to curtail payment fraud by bringing together established financial institutions and emerging fintech organizations to establish trust across multiple payment rails. Founding members include Chesapeake Bank, Visa, Airbase, Blockchain.com, Alloy…
Read MoreApple Needs to Clean Out its Wallet
What’s the difference between a wallet and a passbook? We all know what a wallet is – a place to store currency and other credentials (payment cards, IDs, tickets, etc.) that help you facilitate transactions. Passbooks aren’t as well known these days, but before the advent of direct banking in the 1990s, passbooks were one…
Read MoreDid Robinhood Get a Good Deal?
#1: Did Robinhood Get a Good Deal? What happened? Robinhood made an acquisition: Robinhood announced on Thursday that it was acquiring X1, a no-fee credit card startup, for $95 million in cash. X1, which offers an income-based credit card with rewards, raised a total of $62 million in venture-backed funding from investors like Soma Capital,…
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