Fintech Focus For December 17, 2020

Quote To Start The Day: Pricing an IPO is more of an art than a science.

Source: Ran Ben-Tzur

One Big Thing In Fintech: A massive delta exists between public and private assets.

That’s according to Solomon Tesfaye, the vice president of business development and capital markets at tZero Group Inc, a subsidiary of Medici Ventures, the venture capital arm of Overstock.com Inc.

After spending a career in investment banking, venture capital, and operations within the technology and health care industry, Tesfaye told Benzinga he joined tZero to bring high-quality assets onto the firm’s private secondary market platform and to form strategic partnerships.

“Really, at tZero, we’re digitizing all or a subset of the equity in a particular asset, and allowing that to trade on our platform,” Tesfaye said.

The experience is similar to trading on platforms like Robinhood, E-Trade and Charles Schwab Corporation, he said.

“You have the ongoing trading ecosystem that offers true liquidity, as opposed to fragmented liquidity, or one-off capital raises, and then the transaction is over.”

Source: Benzinga

• Other Key Fintech Developments:
• 2020s the decade of customization.
• 280 CapMarkets eyes tech growth.
• Introducing trading desk sales bots.
• Cosaic adds option, sentiment tech.
• Canada’s Neo closes new Series A.
• Plaid announces Curv partnership.
• Trading growth is positive for Pico.
• ED&F Man teams with Vela on tech.
• Fiserv introduces Ondot acquisition.
• Republic releases iOS phone app.
• Ally addresses digital, 2021 vision.
• Cloud adoption is good for Torstone.
• CME plans launch of Ether futures.
• $27M to help Salary Finance grow.
• Instinet to clear for IntelligentCross.
• Cboe, CoinRoutes team on crypto.
• iComply improves KYC technology.
• African fintech sees massive boom.
• Massachusetts: Robinhood is bad.
• Uncommon adds InvestCloud tech.

Watch Out For This: The pandemic devastated the global economy, forcing businesses and content providers to rethink their marketing and communications strategies.

In unpacking how the biggest personalities and organizations like Lionsgate, DreamWorks, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc, Facebook Inc, and others are capitalizing on pandemic disruptions and scaling reach, Benzinga chatted with Craig Greiwe, the chief strategy officer at Los Angeles-based marketing and communications agency Rogers & Cowan PMK, a division of Interpublic Group of Companies Inc.

Source: Benzinga

Interesting Reads:

• Growth of London’s finance center.
• US lost about 4,400 bank branches.
• Trump’s loss cemented, focus shifts.
• Google is facing ad tactics lawsuits.
• McConnell tied deal to Georgia run.
• US: Pfizer vaccine face challenges.
• Powell warns of challenging months.
• Vaccine hits snag, first allergic case.
• Finance firms ramp up staff spying.
• Spy chief disputes China meddling.
• Japan’s SBI adds digital asset desk.

Market Moving Headline: The Federal Reserve dialed up its economic expectations slightly for the end of this year as well as for 2021, according to the central bank’s Summary of Economic Projections released on Wednesday.

The central bank now expects real gross domestic product to fall just 2.4% in 2020, compared to a decline of 3.7% predicted in September. The Fed also upped its 2021 real GDP forecast to 4.2% from 4.0% expected previously.

Source: CNBC