Uncle Sean's Update - 7/7/23

Happy Friday!!!
 
It was a pretty light week for market research updates due to the 4th of July falling on Tuesday (which also means that Walmart will be putting out their Christmas decorations any day now - 🎄🎅 LOL)….  Here is the Uncle Sean Update for 7/7/23:
 

• Done deal….  Widely rumored since last week, FIS has announced a majority (55%) sale of Worldpay to GTCR at a $17.5B valuation that includes an additional $1B if certain performance metrics are hit.  For more detail, check out their investor deck.

 

• The BLS Jobs Report for June came in at 209,000 new jobs (below expectation of 240,000 and below May revised number of 306,000) with unemployment slightly lower at 3.6% versus 3.7% in May.
  • Make no mistake – adding 209,000 jobs is still a strong number (and paves the way for more FOMC rate hikes), but the data is continuing to soften ever so slightly as we still hope for a soft landing.  CNBC has a good summary.

 

• Meanwhile, the CSBS Community Bank Sentiment Index for 2Q23 dropped 10 points from the previous quarter to 73 – the lowest recorded level since the survey began in 2019.

 

• Bangor Savings Bank (FDIC 18408; Total Assets $7.4B) is launching their first credit card suite named everblue.  The business CC is already available with the personal CC set to launch soon.  You can check out the everblue™ Business Rewards Plus Mastercard® Credit Card here.

 

• Well you don’t see this every day….  Three Credit Unions in Michigan have announced their intent to merge together pending regulatory approval.
  • Chippewa County Credit Union (Charter 61416; Total Assets $38M) and Federal Employees of Chippewa County Credit Union (Charter 62105; Total Assets $17M) are seeking to merge into U.P. State Credit Union (Charter 62085; Total Assets $145M). 

 

• Cheqly (neobank for SME startups) launches in the US using Mbanq's BaaS platform.

 

• Affirm (BNPL) to shutter Returnly after acquiring them in June 2021 for $300M; and is focusing its return management with Loop Returns per the companies blog post.

 

• 👀 Rumor mill….  Uncle Sean typically tries to stay away from reporting on rumors, but this caught my attention and is worth following to see if it actually comes to fruition.
  • Goldman Sachs has been receiving a lot of attention lately regarding their Apple partnership to which rumors are abound that they may be looking to exit the Apple partnership.
  • If this is true, then it would be a stark reversal of their position over the last few months.  In fact they just renewed their partnership last Oct per this WSJ article (apologies for the paywall) through 2029, launched the savings account in April 2023, and is also behind the Apple BNPL platform.  I guess we will have to see how this plays out.

 

• This next update is also a little bit odd, but bear with me….
  • Meta (f/k/a Facebook) launched Threads this week as a competitor to Twitter and has already exploded to 70M sign-ups per a post by Mark Zuckerberg…
    • This comes at a time when Twitter’s advertising revenues are down nearly 60% - and may add more fuel to the possible Musk vs Zuck cage fight (I can’t even make this stuff up)! 🥊
      • Recall where Zuckerberg won Gold and Silver in his first ever jiu-jitsu tournament in May….
    • All kidding aside, as bankers this is another social media channel that we need to monitor (reference SVB being labeled as the world’s first social media fueled bank run); and let’s not forget Twitter's payment platform interests as well as Facebook (err Meta).

 

• Notable FinTech funding for the week:
  • Topkey (expense management platform incl. card issuance for property managers) raised $5.2M in Seed funding.
  • Clair (EWA) raised $175M in funding consisting of $25M in equity financing plus $150M as part of a new consumer lending program from partner bank Pathward.

 
 
Random Uncle Sean stuff:

• The annual Running of the Bulls kicks off this week from July 7th – 14th in in Pamplona, Spain.  Yeah – I’m not doing that!!!! LOL!!!! 🐂
• Bit of a scare this week as the White House was briefly locked down after the discovery of a suspicious white powdery substance in the West Wing (an area commonly open to tourists)…  But all is well, turns out it was just cocaine…  Wait, WHAT?!?!?!?  😬😮😆
• And here they are….  😊
  • If a turkey runs away, does that make it a chicken???
  • Well, at least it’s not snowing….  It’d be miserable having to shovel snow in this heat…  🤣
  • I said, “Hey Aunt Patty – what rhymes with orange???”  And she said, “no it doesn’t!!!”  Ah – touche, Aunt Patty!  LOL

 
 
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.