Would you rather pay with Binance or Solana? (TWIF 8/25)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Over 100 people registered for our CDMX Fintech Trek! We're putting out the last call - apply here to join us in October.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

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Atmos Financial lets you leverage bank deposits to provide low-cost loans for clean energy and electrification, and they’re looking to hire a Full-Stack Software Developer (Remote)!

“As a Mid-Level Software Developer, you will play a vital role in our team responsible for enhancing and maintaining our cutting-edge banking service platform. You will work closely with a talented group of engineers and collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop and deploy scalable, secure, and high-performance software solutions. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will contribute to the continuous improvement of our systems, ensuring seamless operations, and delivering exceptional user experiences.”

Mastercard launched their central bank digital currency partner program, in collaboration with ecosystem providers like Ripple and Consensys.

The Reserve Bank of India is launching a public technology platform for credit transactions, to give India's credit market a more digital-based infrastructure and to mitigate the processing friction in the credit market that has resulted from the data needed to make credit assessments being spread across several siloed systems as opposed to one digital database.

JP Morgan rolled out support for its US merchants to leverage Apple’s iPhone tap-to-pay.

New Jersey is siding with the credit cards, passing a law to limit the surcharge that merchants can charge their customers to pay with card.

India and Singapore’s central banks are planning to enable interoperable QR codes for payments between the two regions.

Wall Street is increasingly turning to AI tools to help solve its compliance headaches from employees texting and WhatsApping with each other and clients…. Just as Morgan Stanley is hit with a £5.4 million fine for energy traders using WhatsApp, and two JP Morgan metals traders were jailed over a market manipulation scheme.

The SEC voted to require private equity, venture capital and hedge funds to provide investors with detailed quarterly reports on performance and increased disclosure on expenses.

Cash flow management platform Settle released a new purchasing and procurement suite for e-commerce businesses.

ID verification provider Trulioo launched new Workflow Studio capabilities to accelerate person matching worldwide.

Hadley launched a mobile app to increase access to its college 529 savings plans.

South African small business lending provider Lula (formerly Lulalend) launched a new suite of business banking tools.

UK buy-now-pay-later provider Zorrz and its Swedish counterpart Sileon partnered to launch a BNPL card.

Retail investment platform Lightyear launched a business investment account.

Know-your-business (KYB) verification company TrueBiz* launched its Smart Blocklist and Merchant Risk Sharing Network are designed to protect FIs from known fraudulent merchants and repeat offenders. 

More and more fintechs are withdrawing their applications with the OCC to become banks, as they look for survival options. Relatedly, East West Bank is now California’s biggest bank after the fall of SVB, First Republic, and PacWest. Will it be ok?

Binance Pay went live in Brazil.

Turkish fintech Colendi secured regulatory approval to launch Turkey’s first digital bank.

Zolve, a neobank for immigrants to the US, launched its own branded mobile phone plan service.

B2B payments provider TreviPay launched a new capability to support cross-currency sales between businesses.

Zopa narrowed its losses after tax from £34 million to £26 million - predicting a profitable 2023 (interest income!)

Global66 launched an… interesting ad campaign focused on bank fees:

Private credit dealmaking platform Tradable launched a new partnership with Victory Park Capital and Spring Labs to support the development and launch of its platform

Shopify integrated Solana Pay as a new decentralized payment option.

CoinLedger integrated its embedded crypto tax solution in crypto platform Base.

Cross River Bank and neobank Current announced the launch of a new credit building product together.

UAE spend management provider Qashio partnered with Mastercard on new corporate cards.

Selfbook partnered with Affirm to add buy-now-pay-later payment options for hotel bookings.

Plaid partnered up with Pinwheel to enable direct deposit services.

BaaS provider Treasury Prime partnered with Liberty Bank to create new channels for end users to consume its suite of financial services.

The SEC charged fintech investment advisor Titan Global Capital Management with misstating its performance metrics, which Matt Levine covered brilliantly here.

Adyen’s first half-of-year results sent its stock tumbling 28%, wiping €12 billion off its market cap.

Payments provider giant Checkout is no longer servicing crypto exchange Binance, which is considering legal action in response.

Prolific fintech investor Fin Capital, it was revealed, was the victim of phishing attacks.

African payments app Payday is in hot water after reportedly losing customers’ funds. “We lost our startup capital on the Payday app, partly due to a phishing attack and partly due to security and ethical flaws on Payday.”.