Fintech Focus For May 12, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”

Source: Coco Chanel

One Big Thing In Fintech: To sustain the growth of a successful fintech startup you need to very quickly define your growth strategy. Decide who the user is that you want to win, then create advocates of your product who will drive growth and adoption at low acquisition costs. This is the only way to grow at scale and at a level of profitability that meets the high expectations of today’s market.

Source: Sifted

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Cathie Wood, Pomp join 21Shares.
• A closer look at the EU’s ETH bond.
• Lili neobank raises $55M for growth.
• Mayweather will release NFTs soon.
• TransUnion led Spring Labs round.
• Cboe kicks Fidelity-linked BTC ETF.
• Better will go public in a SPAC deal.
• JPM taps algos for staff placement.
• eBay opened platform to NFT sales.
• Balancer Labs added Balancer V2.
• Acuant teamed up with Chainalysis.
• Coinbase reaches #1 on App Store.
• Tackling crypto identify fraud issues.
• Circle adds a Chief Finance Officer.

Watch Out For This: Merriam-Webster today announced it is auctioning the NFT (non-fungible token) of its definition of "NFT." The definition was added to the publisher's iconic dictionary this morning.

Source: Merriam-Webster

Interesting Reads:

• E-commerce and the future of retail.
• Uber, Lyft give rides to vaccinations.
• YouTube intros $100M creator fund.

Market Moving Headline: St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard acknowledged the progress the economy has made but said Tuesday it’s still not time to ease back the throttle on policy.

In an interview on CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” the central bank official said fiscal and monetary policy help as well as aggressive vaccination efforts have helped keep growth going since the Covid-19 pandemic began in March 2020.

But he added that even with rising inflation ahead, the Fed should stay accommodative in its policy stance until there are clearer signs that the virus no longer poses as major a threat. That includes keeping short-term borrowing rates anchored near zero and continuing to buy at least $120 billion a month even as markets wonder when the Fed will start pulling back on those purchases.

Source: CNBC