Uncle Sean's Update - 1/5/24

Happy Friday!!!
 
Welcome to 2023 – oops, I mean 2024!!! 😊 Hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season!  It was a relatively light week for news as it was a short week; and many folks may have spent a few extra days trying to recover from self-induced New Years brain fog (ahem, cough, cough🍾🥂🎉😁).  Here is the Uncle Sean Update for 1/5/24:
 

• To kick us off this week, the December Jobs Report came out and it was a doozy with 216,000 jobs added 🚀 and unemployment at 3.7% (consensus estimates were 170,000 and 3.8% versus November’s downwardly revised 173,000 from original actual of 199,000).

 

• ThreatAdvice launches a new fraud consortium called Fraud Xchange to address the ever-present and increasingly persistent problem of check fraud in the US.  In addition to providing a platform for FI’s to share information, strategies, and insights related to fraud prevention, FraudXchange “provides financial institutions with near-instantaneous reporting of fraudulent transactions between member banks and credit unions, empowering them to act swiftly and decisively.”  Nice work!!!! 👏🏼

 

• 🎯 I know I mentioned this a few weeks back before the Holidays, but it’s certainly worth mentioning again as AML continues to be THE #1 hot topic in BaaS.  Don’t forget to sign up here - https://lnkd.in/gB8E-CU7 to join The BaaS Association (part of the BHB Network) free webinar with AML Expert Sarah Beth Felix titled "AML and The BaaS Ultimatum" coming next week January 10, 2024.  This is gonna’ be great!!! 🤠

 

• Kindcard, a provider of alternative closed-loop payments solutions to businesses, announced that it will acquire OpenTransact (Acepay, Inc.), a self-serve banking platform for high-risk businesses.

 

• FP Omni Technologies, Inc. (fpomnitech.com) announced they will wind down its operations (cannabis transaction processing) and continue its $500M lawsuit against TSYS stating that the wind-down “arises out of its inability to continue with the payment processing services promised to FP Omni by TSYS Acquiring Solutions, LLC. ("TSYS" or "TAS"), a subsidiary of Global Payments, Inc.”

 

• The St. Louis Fed names Alberto G. Musalem as its Next President and CEO effective April 2, 2024.

 

• Lane Health launched the Healthcare Spending Card (Visa credit card) powered by modern payment card issuing company, CorServ, via their Payment Cards as a Service API (PCaaSA).
  • What makes this unique is the “Healthcare Spending Card is a highly customizable and flexible card payment solution that controls user spending based on merchant category codes. With this payment card solution, customers can use one card for their healthcare bills by simply swiping it when they have a qualified healthcare expense – medical, dental, prescriptions, or vision. If consumers link their health savings account (HSA), available pre-tax funds in that account will be applied as a form of repayment. Lane Health then provides consumers with convenient repayment options over time, up to 12 months.”  The Healthcare Spending Card and the line of credit are issued by WebBank.
    • Very cool to link this all into a single card platform for consumers! 😊

 

• Talus Pay rings in the New Year with a pair of acquisitions as they announce they have acquired Clarus Merchant Services (B2B payments) and Jobox.ai (job matching, scheduling, and payments for home-service professionals) in separate transactions.

 

• 👀 For my banking and counterparty risk superfreaks out there (like me)…  Uncle Sean is hoping for the best 🙏🏻, but keeping an eye on this geopolitical situation that has material supply chain implications….  Shipping giant Maersk diverts all container vessels away from the Red Sea to the southern tip of Africa “for the foreseeable future” due to continued attacks; and warns of significant disruptions to supply chains and material cost implications.  CNBC has a good summary.
  • This comes after the US and Allies issued a final warning this week to Houthi Rebels to stop attacking international ships in the Red Sea.
  • The White House has also warned this week that shipping diversions from the Red Sea turmoil could impact the US economy and felt by American consumers and businesses alike (credit to my friend Shawn Moore for originally bringing this to my attention on LinkedIn).

 

• Brian Hamilton joins the Board of Directors for Coastal Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CCB and bank holding company for Coastal Community Bank).  Of particular interest, Mr. Hamilton was most recently the co-founder and CEO of ONE (One Finance Inc.), which was acquired by a Walmart in 2022 – to which Coastal Community Bank is the BaaS Sponsor Bank for ONE.

 

• Rocket Companies (NYSE: RKT) appoints Jonathan Mildenhall as its first ever Chief Marketing Officer covering all brands.

 

• Check out Crew (family banking app space) that raised $2.5M in Pre-seed funding round - #Utah!

 
 
Random Uncle Sean stuff:

• 🏈 It’s set – congratulations to the Washington Huskies and the Michigan Wolverines for making it to the College Football Playoff National Championship where they’ll face off in Houston, TX on January 8 at 6:30PM CST.
  • Tough heart break for the Texas Longhorns and the Alabama Crimson Tide who both had great seasons, but lost in the semifinals.  Certainly worth mentioning is that both semifinal games came down to the very last play as time expired.  Pretty remarkable and very exciting to watch!!!
• Prepare for the next target marketing generation – Gen Alpha.  Yep, move over Millennials and Gen Z – y’all are now just as irrelevant as the rest of us old timers!  BWAHAHAHA!!! 😁
  • Generation Alpha is defined as those born between 2010 and 2024 and is expected to be the largest generation in history at more than 2 billion people globally (credit McCrindle Research).  Comprised mostly of “children of millennials” (and sometimes referred to as the Covid Generation), Harvard Business Review already has a Business Case for Understanding Generation Alpha.
• Yep, here they are – Dad / Bad Jokes to close out the first week of 2024:
  • Random Uncle Sean thought…  Does it take longer for giraffes to throw up??? 🦒🤔
  • Life beyond 50 is very enlightening…  For instance, when you are younger no one tells you that rigor mortis starts while you are still alive!!!!  LOL!!!!
  • What did the Pirate say when he turned 80?  “AYE MATEY!!!!”  Oh C’MON – you know that was a good one!!!!  🤣😂
  • And last but not least - I’ll never forget my Grandfather’s last words…  “Stop shaking the ladder, dammit!” 😲😆

 
 
Have a GREAT weekend and please stay safe!!!
 
Uncle Sean
 
 
Sometimes known as Sean Mayo – contact me directly for scope and pricing of custom reports / analysis projects at [email protected] | 214-604-6961 – or you can contact FedFis Sales Team at 512-960-0911 | [email protected] #FedFisHasTheData FedFis
 
FedFis, LLC disclaimer – The views and opinions of Uncle Sean are of his own and may not necessarily represent the views, endorsements, and/or opinions of FedFis, LLC – we all know he’s a little bit different; but that’s why we love him.