Uncle Sean's Update - 9/27/24

​Happy Friday!!!
 
It’s the first official week of Fall - the temps here in Texas are finally starting to come down and feel more like football weather (at least in the mornings anyway)!!! 🏈🍂  Here is the Uncle Sean Update for 9/27/24:
 

• 🙏 Keeping our friends in FL, GA, and surrounding areas in our thoughts and prayers as Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane bringing significant flooding, widespread power outages, and wind damage to the area.  Hang tough and stay safe!

 

• Pathward, N.A.  (FDIC 30776; Total Assets $7.5B) is renaming its BaaS business line to "Partner Solutions" highlighting Pathward’s dedication to partnership and collaboration on solutions with partners.
  • The bank is taking a step further with a renewed emphasis on their core differentiators such as experience, operational excellence, and mature risk / compliance infrastructure. Very cool marketing strategy; and one I suspect we will see more of from Sponsor Banks that are doing BaaS / embedded finance well.  I love it!!! 😎👍

 

• 👀 And another CU acquisition of a bank…  This week we have ESL Federal Credit Union (Charter 24563; Total Assets $9.3B) to acquire Generations Bank (FDIC 16040; Total Assets $401M) for $26.2M.
  • Keeping score…  This ties the record from 2022 with 16 announced acquisition of a bank by a credit union thus far in 2024 (compared to 11 in 2023, 16 in 2022, 13 in 2021, 7 in 2020, and 16 in 2019) – source: FedFis.

 

• DailyPay crosses the pond with their first international expansion into the United Kingdom.  Congrats! 🎉

 

• PNC Bank (FDIC 6384; Total Assets $553B) enters into data access agreement with Plaid to allow PNC customers to “securely connect and share financial data to their chosen financial applications through Plaid” applications.

 

• BankNewport (FDIC 18129; Total Asset $2.8B) is live on the nCino platform utilizing Commercial Lending, Marine Lending, Deposit Account Opening, and Portfolio Analytics; and is reporting up to 90% accelerated digital account opening process in some cases – just three weeks post-implementation.  Nice!!! 🚀

 

• No doubt in response to successful fintech innovation, Bank of America to launch family banking solution being developed internally.  Banking Dive has a good summary.

 

• Cross River Bank to power Forward's embedded payments solution to SaaS providers.

 

• iWallet announced that it is the first company to enable Zelle® invoicing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) via iWallet’s “patent-pending P2B (person-to-business) notification system that allows SMEs to send and track invoices efficiently, thereby saving them time and money.”

 

• MANTL announces Business Deposit Origination for credit unions – yes, streamlined business NAO at credit unions.  Check it out at www.mantl.com/business-deposit-origination-cu/.

 

• Nasdaq Verafin announces enhancements to its AI based Targeted Typology Analytics to help banks continue to enhance their AML/CFT strategies.  Definitely a hot topic these days!!! 😉

 

• Visa to acquire Featurespace real-time AI-based fraud and financial crime prevention platform serving the financial services industry.

 

• Galileo launches Secured Credit with Dynamic Funding allowing banks, fintechs, and other businesses to target underbanked consumers with secured credit offerings managed through a single “available to spend” balance in a single account via automated movement of funds between debit and credit accounts.  

 

• Found selects Marqeta to power their existing business debit card that is focused on SMB’s and self-employed professionals. 

 

• Swaystack (onboarding and engagement platform) announced integration with Q2 Digital Banking Platform.

 

• Rumor Mill:
  • 👀 Bloomberg is reporting that Chime has hired Morgan Stanley to lead its proposed (no official confirmation) IPO…  PYMNTS has a good summary article.

 

• A few personnel moves:
  • Marqeta announced Fouzi Husaini as Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer.
  • Thread Bank picks up Michael Farrell as Chief Financial Officer.

 

• Notable FinTech funding for the week:
  • Mesa (homeowner membership platform) emerged from stealth this week with $9.2M in Capital consisting of $7.2M Seed Round and $2M in venture debt.  Mesa’s first products are the Mesa Mortgage Marketplace (origination rewards) and the Mesa Homeowners Card visa open-loop credit card.

 
 
Random Uncle Sean stuff:

• So we have a lot of bugs here in East Texas…  I mean A LOT OF BUGS!!!  Consequently, we have quite a few toads and frogs that visit our house every night.  One little toad fellow in particular has been hanging around for several months now.  You might ask, how can you tell one toad frog from the next???  Well, let’s just say this little fella is unique in the fact that he is only about half grown and might have an eating disorder as he is the fattest little toad I think I have ever seen - I mean he is an absolute chunky-chunk!!!  In fact, he doesn’t even hop – he just waddles out of the way. 🤣  Aunt Patty and I affectionately refer to him as “Fat Boy” and he hangs out on our porch almost every night.  It has become a nightly ritual before bedtime for us to check outside to see if Fat Boy is there; and he almost never disappoints. 🐸😊
• And here they are…  Some Dad / Bad Jokes to wrap up the week:
  • I’m not “old” per se…  But there are days where I feel like I’m aging like a fine banana! 😅
  • Technically speaking….  A “butt load” of underwear is exactly one pair… 🙄😁
  • If a word was misspelled in the dictionary, how would we know??? 🤷‍♂️🤔
  • Shout out to Bruce Lee.  A man who studied art, philosophy, and poetry and decided the most beautiful form of self-expression is to punch someone in the face! 😮😂🤣
  • I gave Aunt Patty an apple and she told me she preferred pears…  So I gave her another apple…  🤠
    • Not really a Dad Joke, but more of some Dad wisdom…  As the saying goes - sometimes in the middle of nowhere is where you find the center of everything… 😊❤️

 
 
Have a GREAT weekend, go outside and play, 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.