Fintech Focus For May 4, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.

Source: Allen Saunders

One Big Thing In Fintech: Affirm, a leader in payments, recently announced it would acquire Returnly, a return and post-purchase payments solution, for $300 million.

Benzinga spoke with Laura González-Estéfani, the founder and CEO of Miami-based TheVentureCity, on her firm’s role in bolstering Returnly growth initiatives and steps going forward.

Source: Benzinga

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Fasset, NEC tokenize Tesla charger.
• Ireland’s bank landscape changing.
• Inside the open banking hype bubble.
• Robinhood hit back at Buffett claims.
• Amber Group platform hit $1B AUM.
• Qredo raises $11M in seed funding.
• PayPal held talks on new stablecoin.
• Mastercard adds Start Path startups.
• Marquee helped Qolo.io raise seed.
• Wealthsimple value could hit $3.5B.
• CryptoPunks maker adds new project.
• Citi innovation team eyes payments.
• Umbrella Network moves to Binance.
• Veem, Freightos have partnered up.

Watch Out For This: Startup founders from certain countries face stricter barriers to entering the United States because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But immigration experts say a series of developments, including a recent policy reversal by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, has made it easier for immigrants already in the country to stay.

Source: Crunchbase

Interesting Reads:

• Sony partnered, invested in Discord.
• Bill, Melinda Gates planning divorce.
• The first new US airline in a decade.
• Ford, BMW lead Solid Power round.
• ‘Long-term solvency’ is a real issue.

Market Moving Headline: Historically speaking, the period spanning May to October is generally weak. On average, the S&P 500 is up as high as +2% during this six-month period.

“Stocks are up more than 87% from the March lows, suggesting a well-deserved pullback during these troublesome months is quite possible,” LPL Financial Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick said in a recent blog post. “But with an accommodative Fed, fiscal and monetary policy, along with an economy that is opening faster than nearly anyone expected, we’d use any weakness as an opportunity to add to positions.”

Adding, trends are changing, though; stocks have been higher during these so-called weak months 8 out of the past 10 years, according to LPL Research.

Source: Physik Invest