Fintech Focus For June 17, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Source: Lao Tzu

One Big Thing In Fintech: Outside of perhaps China, right now the big use case for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) seems to be just talking about them. Crypto is cool right now and people are interested in digital money, so government and central bank officials are also spending a lot of time talking about their visions of how fiat currencies could be brought into this new realm.

Source: Bloomberg

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Checkout.com has acquired Icefire.
• Small Exchange added pot futures.
• Fox throws $100M on NFT project.
• ClearEstate raises seed for growth.
• SEC seeks comments on BTC ETF.
• A16z backs DeFi project Goldfinch.
• The state of open source in finance.
• Investment Metrics launching tech.
• PayPal vets launch payments tech.
• 2021 already record year for fintech.
• Honey launches with $15.5M AUD.
• Maxine Waters honing in on crypto.
• SocGen to overhaul bank business.
• Upflow secures $15M from 9yards.
• NAFCU added Upstart as a partner.
• Cboe extends global trading hours.
• SMB startup Novo closes Series A.
• 10x looks toward growth post-raise.
• FamPay fintech raises $38M round.
• Libro Credit Union teamed with MX.
• BitDAO adds $230M for large DAO.

Watch Out For This: When you create a culture based on value-driven, intrinsic motivation, you’ll have a happy, loyal, and inspired team.

Source: Forbes

Interesting Reads:

• You should add an affiliate program.
• Using an iPhone as ID at the airport.
• Andreessen: Tech saving the world.
• China adding to market intervention.
• Yellen still floating capital gains hike.
• Prior COVID infections and immunity.
• Biden talks response to ransomware.

Market Moving Headline: Federal Reserve officials sped up their expected pace of policy tightening amid optimism about the labor market and heightened concerns for inflation.

Source: Bloomberg