General News

January 29, 2021 @ 1:14 pm By JD Alois  |  

On January 26th, S3 Partners reported that GameStop (NYSE:GME) short-sellers were down around $5 billion. In just a few days, that amount may have grown a bit larger. According to the blog post by S3: “GME short interest is $5.51 billion; 71.79 million shares shorted;… Read More

January 29, 2021 @ 11:25 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

  Barclays announced on Thursday the New York Class of 2021 for the Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars. According to Barclays, the 13-week program is designed to fast-track the next generation of fintechs. “Participating companies will collaborate with a team of Barclays executives, the Techstars… Read More

January 29, 2021 @ 9:18 am By JD Alois  |  

Robinhood CEO and founder Vlad Tenev visited with CNBC last night professing that actions taken to mitigate trading in GameStop (NYSE:GME) was to protect Robinhood as well as its users. Tenev’s decision to shut down purchases of GME was joined by outrage, not just by… Read More

January 29, 2021 @ 8:20 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Cordelia Kafetz, who was responsible for helping to launch Bank of England’s (BoE) Fintech hub in 2018 and has also served in key roles as part of the Payments Policy Team, has reportedly decided to join UK’s digital bank Starling. Starling Bank has confirmed that… Read More

January 29, 2021 @ 8:15 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Germany-based lending company Commerzbank has announced that it will be cutting around 10,000 jobs and will permanently shut down 340 branches by 2024. The company confirmed that it plans to focus more on its digital transformation strategy so that it can lower operational costs and… Read More

January 28, 2021 @ 10:46 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Regtech Working Group, formed by the Steering Committee of Australia’s National Blockchain Roadmap, is currently undertaking a consultation in order to gain a better understanding of the wide-ranging views and perspectives regarding the use and adoption of distributed ledger technologies (DLT). The consultation is… Read More

January 28, 2021 @ 9:47 am By JD Alois  |  

Robinhood, a top investment platform for the next generation, has restricted trading certain shares of firms that have been targeted by trading forums on Reddit. Members of certain forums like Wallstreetbets, with 4.5 million members, have targeted listed firms that are highly shorted by hedge… Read More

January 27, 2021 @ 11:30 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

BNP Paribas (EPA: BNP), a French international banking group that’s ranked as the 8th largest bank in the world in terms of total assets (appr. €2 trillion), will be providing its Visa Premier cardholders the opportunity to update to a contactless fingerprint option for a… Read More

January 27, 2021 @ 2:47 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

U.S. fintech Galileo announced on  Wednesday it has appointed Archana (Archie) Puri as its new Chief Product Officer. According to Galileo, Puri has more than 20 years of experience in technology products with a “strong domain” context in payments.  Prior to joining Galileo, Puri spent… Read More

January 27, 2021 @ 11:30 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

  Vlad Tenev, the CEO of modern trading platform Robinhood, sat down with Andrew Ross Sorkin to discuss how he thinks markets will be affected post the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion notably happened amid retail investors piling into equities at a rapid rate in the… Read More

January 27, 2021 @ 10:53 am By JD Alois  |  

A week ago, GameStop (NYSE:GME) was trading at around $37/share. Today, GameStop is trading at around $277  $334 a share – jumping by over 80%  120% today alone. If you thought the ICO rave was crazy, think again. More mundane traditionally regulated markets may be… Read More

January 27, 2021 @ 8:51 am By JD Alois  |  

Squeezed somewhere between “cancel culture” and “gig worker” the term crowdfunding has been added to the august Merriam-Webster dictionary. Although crowdfunding has been in use for more than a decade (unlike cancel culture which is more recent), it appears that the etymologists at Merriam-Webster have… Read More

January 27, 2021 @ 7:46 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Banco Sabadell (BME:SAB), a Spanish multinational financial services company headquartered in Alicante and Barcelona, Spain, has reportedly invested €2.5 million in Nomo, an inhouse incubated initiative that spun out from the banking institution. The startup offers various business management tools for SMEs and sole traders…. Read More

January 26, 2021 @ 11:37 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

  FinTech Scotland and FinTech Wales announced on Tuesday have released a report proposing increased Research and Innovation (R&I) to drive acceleration in fintech development across the UK, nationally and regionally to support growth and new jobs. The report, entitled “Research and Innovation for UK FinTech” jointly authored… Read More

January 26, 2021 @ 9:32 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

  MPOWER Financing, a U.S.-based fintech platform for educational loans to international and DACA students, announced on Tuesday it received a $25 million investment from Tiden Park Capital Management. The latest investment comes less than a year after MPOWER raised $9 million. As previously reported, … Read More

January 26, 2021 @ 8:03 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital-only banking platform N26 has appointed a new Chief Financial Officer as Maximilian Tayenthal becomes the Fintech firm’s co-CEO. Dr. Jan Kemper is N26’s latest executive hire. Berlin-headquartered neobank N26 confirmed that it promoted company co-founder Maximilian Tayenthal to serve as co-CEO along with current… Read More

January 25, 2021 @ 10:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

Dr. Janet Yellen was unanimously voted out of committee the Senate Finance Committee on January 22nd and approved by the Senate today in a vote of 84 for the nomination and 15 against (and one not voting). In being approved, Yellen became the first female… Read More

January 25, 2021 @ 3:29 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Paysend, a UK-based global payments platform, announced on Monday it has appointed Alexander Nicolaus as its new Chief People Officer. According to Paysend, Nicolaus has an “impressive” global and international career to date in Europe, China, and across Asia. He previously helped large corporates (Willis,… Read More

January 25, 2021 @ 2:41 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

        dv01, a platform that connects online lenders and investors with data management, announced on Monday it has launched its Auto Benchmark Datasets to provide investors with transparency on automotive asset-backed securities.  According to dv01, the new benchmarks pull Reg AB data… Read More

January 25, 2021 @ 8:36 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Lendahand, a Netherlands-based for-profit crowdfunding platform for impact investing, announced over the weekend that it has agreed to provide Singapore-based Funding Societies with an up to €5 million debt facility to invest in underserved SMEs, predominantly in Indonesia, but also including Singapore and Malaysia. Lendahand reported… Read More