Fintech Focus For July 2, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: “I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a one size fits all standard for happiness.”

Source: Kanye West

One Big Thing In Fintech: Six fintechs — PayPal, Square, Varo, Affirm, LendingClub and Oportun — asked the [CFPB] in a letter Tuesday to give more guidance on how it will apply the theory of disparate impact when artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and alternative credit data are used to make lending decisions.

Source: Banking Dive

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• OurBanc adds MX for bank tech.
• Spotlight turns to M&A for SPACs.
• Tiger Global to back fintech Yap.
• Mintable raises $13M in funding.
• Karat raises for creator finances.
• Northern Trust digitizes servicing.
• TP ICAP, Liquidnet: Growth deal.
• Calaxy secures $7.5M in funding.
• Robinhood details a crypto surge.
• Swarm launches regulated DeFi.
• The Top 250 Fintech Companies.
• BNP signed FIS tech agreement.
• Codat adds $40M funding round.
• Covario added METACO custody.
• Carro fintech arm eyes financing.
• SoftBank funds Mercado Bitcoin.
• Apollo is staking Motive Partners.
• Mastercard, FDIC eye inclusion.
• Charlie adds DirectPay to toolkit.
• dxFeed, Small Exch. add product.
• Rapyd is acquiring Valitor fintech.
• Bison Trails has added networks.

Watch Out For This: The basis trade, where crypto investors … profit from discrepancies between spot and future prices, had become a reliable double-digit annual return generator until it was upended in May. The dramatic sell-off saw a number of leveraged positions, mostly held by retail investors, flushed out.

Source: Bloomberg

Interesting Reads:

• Tenant eviction deadline looming.
• Stock markets need short sellers.
• Pandemic pushes housing stress.
• Ford Bronco factory to shut down.
• Analysis: Innovation cycle history.
• A California town is without water.

Market Moving Headline: “The delta variant should not have significant repercussions for the pandemic situation in developed markets (e.g. Europe and North America, which have [made] strong progress in vaccinations) due to the level of population immunity.”

Source: JPMorgan