Fintech Focus For January 5, 2022

One Big Thing In Fintech: Among the more than 200 electronic money institutions licensed in the U.K. are ones with executives or shareholders tied to alleged financial wrongdoing.

Source: Bloomberg

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• LSEG, STT expand relationship. STT LNSTY
• Pine Labs added an investment.
• Tier1 Financial adds investment. 
• WonderFi eyes Bitbuy purchase. WONDF
• Cion Digital raises a $12M seed.
• Metrospaces intros MetroCrowd.
• Worldline completes acquisition.
• Clear Capital adds appraisal tool.
• Pine Labs added an investment.
• BUX adding fractional investing.
• POP taps Crosskey as a partner.
• Pico to acquire Redline Trading. 
• WeLab eyes digital bank launch.
• Visa, Mastercard eye unbanked. V MA
• CFTC to unify crypto regulations.
• TradeStation adds crypto bonus. 
• Lloyds to invest in a loyalty app. LYG
• China’s digital yuan wallet is live.
• Metaversal adds $50M Series A.
• Jack Henry automating lending. JKHY
• Judopay works with Mastercard.
• Coinbase, Enfusion connecting. COIN ENFN
• Nationwide getting hit by delays. NFS

Watch Out For This: “Rarely has a market delivered three consecutive years of double-digit returns, as we have seen from 2019-2021. With the Federal Reserve set to accelerate tightening and a fairly valued stock market, we anticipate more muted returns for the S&P next year but still expect equities to remain attractive versus other liquid asset classes.”

Source: Bel Air Investment Advisors

Interesting Reads:

• TikTok testing retweet-type tool.
• 4.5M left their jobs in November.
• North Korean escapee returned.
• Fanatics buys Topps for $500M.

Market Moving Headline: Five reasons why JPM JPM equity strategists see further upside.

• Post the activity deceleration seen in summer, the pace of growth is likely to stabilize into 2022.
• Fed is unlikely to keep moving further and further into hawkish territory in the 1H of ‘22, at least relative to what is priced in currently. This holds for ECB too.
• Continue to see gains for earnings, and believe that consensus projections for 2022 will again prove too low.
• In absolute terms, P/E multiples are elevated, but not equity yields vs credit & bond yields. Notably, there was some multiple compression last year.
• The overall technical picture is favorable, with equities typically performing well at the start of the year.

Source: The Market Ear