Featured Headlines

January 20, 2022 @ 3:35 pm By JD Alois  |  

The US Federal Reserve has published a discussion paper on central bank digital currencies or CBDCs. The consultation paper has long been anticipated from the central bank. The discussion paper summarizes the current state of the domestic payments system and discusses the different types of… Read More

January 19, 2022 @ 4:05 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

  Like many Fintech entrepreneurs, Tokeny CEO Luc Falempin, was immediately excited when he read the Bitcoin whitepaper, so much that he devoted his career to using blockchain technology to make financial markets available to everyone. A few years later, Falempin is well on his… Read More

January 18, 2022 @ 5:52 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has conditionally approved  SoFi’s (NASDAQ:SOFI) application to operate a bank. According to the OCC, SoFi Bank National Association (SoFi Bank, N.A.), may operate as a full-service national bank headquartered in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. As part of… Read More

January 18, 2022 @ 11:58 am By Sarah Touzani  |  

Surging global inflation is the number one concern for many households in 2022. With living costs continuing to rise much faster than wages, household budgets are increasingly stretched. Let’s take a closer look at how inflation is changing the game. In the UK, inflation has… Read More

January 17, 2022 @ 4:23 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

We recently connected with Valentin Mihov, Co-founder, and Chief Investment Officer at Finexify, a boutique investment company that offers an opportunity to gain exposure to the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. The team at Finexify thinks that limited access to DeFi means “extraordinary” alpha with limited… Read More

January 17, 2022 @ 10:29 am By JD Alois  |  

Towards the end of 2021, Amazon UK distributed an email to its customers stating it would stop accepting Visa cards for purchases beginning January 19, 2022. Today, it is being widely reported that Amazon has backed away from that decision. According to AP, Amazon has… Read More

January 16, 2022 @ 2:59 pm By Xu Gao  |  

Tencent Releases Metaverse-Rate Scoring System On January 12th, Tencent News and the School of Journalism, Fudan University jointly released the “2021-2022 Metaverse Annual Report”. For the first time, the report proposed the concept of “Metaverse-Rate” which will become the scoring standard for the development of… Read More

January 12, 2022 @ 12:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell spent much of yesterday testifying in front of the US Senate Banking Committee as part of his nomination process. It is anticipated that Powell will easily be approved by the Committee as well as the full Senate for… Read More

January 12, 2022 @ 11:05 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

ADDX, a Singapore-based firm, is making private market investing available to many wealthy investors who were previously excluded from the opportunity. There is strong demand for the service, Oi-Yee Choo ADDX chief commercial officer said. Choo brings two decades of capital raising and mergers and… Read More

January 12, 2022 @ 10:32 am By Omar Faridi  |  

We recently connected with Ben Waterman, COO and Co-founder, Strabo App, a cloud-based platform that helps you link multiple accounts from around the world in one dashboard. The Strabo App reportedly tracks all the money you own and owe, while providing you with a holistic… Read More

January 12, 2022 @ 9:37 am By JD Alois  |  

Seedrs, a leading UK-based securities crowdfunding platform that is merging with Republic, has provided a retrospective of 2021 performance. According to Seedrs, 2021 was a year that delivered record-level funding. The top-line numbers are as follows: £696 million invested into securities offerings 310 funded deals… Read More

January 10, 2022 @ 9:41 am By JD Alois  |  

At least one former enforcement executive from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is predicting the demise of crypto – or at least a significant setback for digital assets. John Reed Stark, former head of the SEC’s Internet Enforcement team says that new rules from… Read More

January 9, 2022 @ 7:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Doug Ellenoff of Ellenoff, Grossman and Schole Shares Insight into Booming SPAC Market. Special purpose Acquisition Companies or SPACs had a blowout year in 2021.  While the financing vehicle has been around for decades, in recent years SPACs have rocketed in popularity. SPACs are an… Read More

January 7, 2022 @ 6:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

The UK Parliament has created a cross-party group of MPs and Lords for “Crypto and Digital Assets.” The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) aims to act as a forum for parliamentarians, policymakers and the UK crypto sector to discuss policy and regulation of the industry. According… Read More

January 7, 2022 @ 9:13 am By JD Alois  |  

Piper Sandler, a financial services firm based in Minneapolis, has surveyed teens for more than 20 years. The company researches trends regarding brand purchases and activities that may aid in discerning the rising or declining popularity of the firms that provide these products. CI recently… Read More

January 5, 2022 @ 7:52 pm By Timothy Li  |  

6 years is an eternity in Fintech and this is my 6th annual Top 10 Fintech Predictions for 2022. 2021 was a great year for Fintech, billion-dollar IPOs, Crypto, NFTs, and the evolution of blockchain technology has taken over the globe. BigTech are all basically… Read More

January 5, 2022 @ 6:41 pm By JD Alois  |  

Ian Miles Cheong, an independent journalist who is active on Twitter and writes for the Post Millennial, has been banned by PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), allegedly due to his political beliefs. Cheong currently has almost 300,000 Twitter followers and frequently comments on current events in the political… Read More

January 5, 2022 @ 8:57 am By Omar Faridi  |  

James Butterfill, Investment Strategist at London-based CoinShares, a digital asset manager focused on expanding access to the cryptocurrency ecosystem while serving as a “trusted partner” for its clients, notes that for the week ending December 31, 2021, the firm saw yearly inflows of “US$9.3bn in… Read More

January 3, 2022 @ 2:54 pm By JD Alois  |  

Periodically, CI takes a tally of the Reg CF (Regulation Crowdfunding) sector to capture a measure of both platforms and activity. The last time we reviewed FINRA regulated funding portals was mid-2021 and as you can understand things have changed since then. At that time,… Read More

January 2, 2022 @ 3:38 pm By JD Alois  |  

Zelle is a peer-to-peer payments service that is now utilized by over 1000 banking apps across the US. As services like Venmo gained in popularity, traditional banks were compelled to compete and Zelle has emerged as a viable alternative for real-time transfers. Originally founded by… Read More