Fintech Focus For April 15, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: "We’re seeing customers habituated into digital banking, in a way that would have likely happened, but may have taken longer. These trends … will continue to accelerate."

Source: Allison Beer

One Big Thing In Fintech: For Coinbase the road ahead is interesting. The company is richly capitalized and posted monster profits in its most recent quarter. However, Coinbase has yet to chart a future sufficiently delinked from the impacts of cryptocurrency price levels and resulting trading volume to be immune to a potential setback in growth and income if the value of bitcoin, et al. dropped.

Source: TechCrunch

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Zero Hash partnered up with GMO.
• BNY is selected by Charles Schwab.
• VanEck launches digital-asset ETF.
• Quant Data improves options tech.
• SAP sets up dedicated finance unit.
• One Finance CEO talks disruption.
• FactSet expands portfolio analytics.
• PwC unveiled a fintech marketplace.
• Zeta in talks with SoftBank on raise.
• Fundbox announces new directors.
• Goldman CEO talks crypto in a call.
• StepLadder seeking crowdfunding.
• Canoe, Holland Mountain team-up.
• Coinbase eyes business expansion.

Watch Out For This: The Biden administration is poised to take action against Russian individuals and entities in retaliation for alleged misconduct including the SolarWinds hack and efforts to disrupt the U.S. election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Source: Bloomberg

Interesting Reads:

• Ford takes aim at autonomous tech.
• Minnesota officer charged on killing.
• Consumer credit surging to highest.
• Ways the PPP program has evolved.
• U.S. companies oppose voting curbs.
• Goldman to hike pay by nearly 90%.
• Banks pivot from pandemic to boom.
• Peak inside Fontinalis, a Detroit VC.

Market Moving Headline: The Federal Reserve will likely scale back its bond purchases before considering raising interest rates, Chairman Jerome Powell said, hardening expectations on the sequence of its eventual exit from aggressive policy support.

“We will reach the time at which we will taper asset purchases when we’ve made substantial further progress toward our goals from last December, when we announced that guidance,” Powell said Wednesday in a virtual event hosted by the Economic Club of Washington. “That would in all likelihood be before -- well before -- the time we consider raising interest rates. We haven’t voted on that order but that is the sense of the guidance.”

Source: Bloomberg