Uncle Sean's Update - 6/25/21

Happy Friday!!!
 
Here is the Uncle Sean Update for 6/25/21:

• The House voted 218-208 to overturn the “True Lender” rule (following the same vote from the Senate back in May) and now heads to President Biden’s desk where he is expected to sign it into law.  Bloomberg Law has a good summary here; and The Hill also has a good write-up covering both sides of the issue.

 

• Wyoming Deposit & Transfer Corporation (WDT) is the latest institution to receive a Special Purpose Depository Institution charter (SPDI) - custodial services for tokenized assets and digital currencies.  This is the third institution to receive the Wyoming SPDI charter following Kraken and Avanti.

 

• Walmart announced that they are converting the Walmart MoneyCard from a prepaid GPR to a normal debit card (still issued by Green Dot)…  Yes, I am just as confused as you are; and maybe this is by design – to keep us all scratching our heads until they reveal “the world’s greatest super app…”  Let’s recap recent events…  Recall back in January when Walmart announced they had partnered with Ribbit Capital to create a new fintech startup.  Then came the poaching of strategic banking leadership from Goldman Sachs.  Don’t forget the trademark filing for the name Hazel offering a full suite of banking services.  Not to mention the Walton family ties from Arvest Bank.  Adding in to the mix the existing services / relationships with Woodforest Bank, American Express, NetSpend, PayPal, MoneyGram, and many others….  It definitely makes Uncle Sean wonder if this is organized chaos by design, or just a complete damn mess???  LOL!!!

 

• Zelle continues to make headlines as Syracuse Fire Department Employees FCU becomes the 1,000th institution to offer Zelle.

 

• Fifth Third announced the acquisition of Provide, a fintech serving healthcare practices nationally.  Provide originally granted loans to enable providers to start, buy or expand healthcare practices, and it has since grown to offer bank accounts and payments services.  Looks like Fifth Third now has a Direct Bank (i.e. digital branch / digital brand) in competition with the likes of BankMD (TransPecos Banks) and Laurel Road (KeyBank).

 

• Wealth management fintech Stash announced their acquisition of PayGrade, a financial literacy platform for K-12 students to develop money management skills (a very worthy concept that gets two thumbs up from Uncle Sean).

 

• Cross River Bank makes headlines again this week by acquiring PeerIQ, an end-to-end platform for marketplace lending in the consumer credit sector.  Check them out at PeerIQ.

 

• Here is an update that is really cool for all my blockchain superfreaks out there (you know who you are 😊; and Uncle Sean loves all of you) – Goldman Sachs began trading on JPMorgan's repo blockchain last week.  GS swapped a tokenized version of a United States Treasury bond for JPM Coin, JPMorgan’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.  Mathew McDermott, global head of digital assets for Goldman Sachs’ global markets division, went on to state that smart contracts on the blockchain enable the collateral and cash to interchange simultaneously and immediately, and this is a big step up for the repo market, specifically “We pay interest per the minute. We firmly think this will change the nature of the intraday marketplace.”

 

• Fiserv has partnered with NYDIG and California-based First Foundation Bank to allow financial institutions of all sizes to enable their customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin through their bank accounts.  American Banker said 100 small banks have already signed up.

 

• Bakkt (digital wallet and crypto trading app) is now offering a fully virtual Bakkt Visa Debit Card allowing users to “spend bitcoin and cash (USD) funds from their Bakkt App account right away, without having to first convert their bitcoin or wait for a bank transfer from a separate Bitcoin wallet to their bank.”

 

• Funding remains crazy strong:
  • VC firm, Andreessen Horwitz announced the launch of their massive $2.2B Crypto Fund targeting capital deployments across blockchain and digital asset start-ups.
  • Lendbuzz (AI based auto finance platform) raised $360M investment including $60M Series C.
  • Lower (home finance platform including a high yield savings account through Evolve Bank & Trust) raised  $100M in Series A funding.
  • Donut (high yield savings with DeFi) raised $2M funding round.
  • Securitize (digital assets securities firm) raised $48M in Series B funding.
  • Majority (neo immigrant challenger) raised $19M in Seed funding.
  • Ivella (couples banking app) raised $475K pre-seed funding.
  • MOCA Financial (next-gen card-based payment platform) raised $3M in Series B funding round.
  • Atom Finance (investment platform) $28M in Series B funding round.
  • SmartAsset (marketplace advisor matching service) raised $110M in Series D funding bringing their total valuation to just over $1B.
  • Deserve (digital credit card and rewards) raised $50M in Series D round.

 
 
Random Uncle Sean Stuff:

• Headed over to Tanner’s this weekend to look at a new business intelligence tool we are playing around with – but more importantly performing a test run with guns, fireworks, and fishing poles as a primer for next weekend’s 4th of July festivities.  Ahhhhh, life is good!!!!

 
 
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 smayo@fedfis.com | 214-604-6961 – or you can contact FedFis Sales Team at 512-960-0911 | info@fedfis.com #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.
​