Fintech Focus For December 22, 2020

Quote To Start The Day: Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.

Source: Maya Angelou

One Big Thing In Fintech: Instead of focusing on growth at all costs, fintech startups have been drawing a path to profitability. It doesn’t mean that they’ll have a positive bottom line at the end of 2020. But they’ve laid out the core products that will secure those startups over the long term.

Source: TechCrunch

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• tastyworks adds Order-Chains tool.
• Insurtech Oscar is planning to IPO.
• Tradefeedr taps $3M for trade tech.
• Scaramucci will start a bitcoin fund.
• GoCardless nearing unicorn status.
• GoDaddy has agreed to buy Poynt.
• Rent-A-Center is acquiring a fintech.
• JPM taps Citi veteran for payments.
• QuantConnect added cloud service.

Watch Out For This: The US Justice Department unsealed new charges against a third Libyan man in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, including 190 Americans.

Source: Al Jazeera

Interesting Reads:

• O’Shares ETF passes 100% return.
• IBM nears cloud tech breakthrough.
• Personal Capital looks to lift spirits.
• Peloton looks to commercial growth.
• EU regulator okays COVID vaccine.
• Movie studio MGM looks into a sale.
• WHO says new strain under control.

Market Moving Headline: We anticipate a fairly benign inflation backdrop longer term. There are powerful structural reasons for our confidence in this view, and chief among them is the continued profound disinflationary influence of technological innovation. The ability for companies to achieve greater productivity at scale globally is one of the greatest commercial revolutions in history, which has been accelerated by the COVID pandemic and its impact on future reality.

Source: BlackRock