Global

February 13, 2021 @ 9:41 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Last year was a very transformative year for many Fintechs including PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL). There was a dramatic surge in digital commerce activity and a record number of new users began using PayPal’s online services (over 72 million). There was also a considerable increase in… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 8:45 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Blockchain startup FQX will be expanding its board with an experienced corporate finance professional. The Zurich-headquartered Fintech firm will be appointing James Courtenay to its board. Courtenay previously served as head of international corporates at Standard Chartered’s investment bank. Based in Singapore, Courtenay has also… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 7:44 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The World Wide Public Sector (at Amazon) team is reportedly looking to recruit an experienced Principal Technical Program Manager (TPM) – Digital Currency to serve as the technology “enabler” for “innovating” their customer solutions in support of their goal of promoting economic development and inclusion,… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 6:35 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The team at UK challenger bank Starling notes that it may be argued that “financial anxiety” is a by-product of the way that we respond to a particular situation, and not necessarily a result of the actual situation. Starling says that focusing more on what… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 2:41 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Thrasio, a company that acquires and then aims to quickly grow third-party sellers on Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has finalized $750 million in new funding, raising the firm’s valuation to around $3 billion to $4 billion. The investment round was led by current investors Advent and… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 2:35 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Croatian peer to peer lender Robo.cash has revealed that it’s offering new interest rates “up to 12.7%” and has also updated its secondary market. The Robo.cash team confirmed that they’re offering a new product line with rates “ranging from 11% to 12.7%.” The P2P platform’s… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 2:31 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Big Four auditing company KPMG recently published its annual selection of China’s top Fintech firms. This year, the China Fintech 50 report was updated to include 100 companies to showcase the financial technology industry’s rapid growth and fast-evolving landscape. The 2020 China Fintech 50 list,… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 9:50 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Consumer sentiment regarding Bitcoin (BTC) as a legitimate payment method has changed significantly following the historic crypto market bull run, which is truly unprecedented. With BTC prices reaching all-time highs (briefly hitting $49,000) on the heels of Elon Musk’s tech firm Tesla’s announcement that they’ve… Read More

February 13, 2021 @ 9:40 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed on Friday (February 12, 2021) that he has teamed up with legendary billionaire hip-hop artist and businessman Jay-Z to finance and support projects in Africa and India with Bitcoin (BTC). Money lessons from one of the greatest rappers of… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 5:56 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

A Nigerian crypto trader is claiming that they sold off all their coins (crypto-assets) following the government’s directives regarding cryptocurrencies. The trader also noted that they’ve now withdrawn all their proceeds, but they haven’t “seen a dime” in their bank account and it’s been more… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 4:11 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) has reportedly stated that they won’t be purchasing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), the payments giant’s CFO John Rainey told CNBC on Thursday (February 11, 2021). Rainey clarified that PayPal would not be investing corporate cash (probably) “in sort of financial assets… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 2:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Crypto pioneer and early Bitcoin thought-leader Diana Biggs has reportedly decided to join Switzerland-headquartered firm  which allows investors to easily acquire digital assets through their banking provider or brokerage firms.  Biggs will lead the company’s expansion, following the recent launch of Bitcoin Zero, Valour’s Bitcoin… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 1:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Tiger Global is reportedly leading a $200 million investment round in Public.com, a Robinhood competitor. at around a $1.2 billion valuation (quadrupling the firm’s value in only 2 months). Public.com’s management noted that their massive $200 million round would give the firm a $1 billion… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 10:28 am By Omar Faridi  |  

CapitalRise, a UK-based prime property lending platform, has reportedly advanced a £6.7 million loan to local property developer Elleric. The loan was provided for the acquisition and development of an office building into eight luxury residential apartments located at Breams Buildings in Holborn (in central… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 10:17 am By Omar Faridi  |  

It’s been over a year since the COVID-19 outbreak brought the world to a halt, and we’re now may be just beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, due to the increasing availability of testing facilities and the vaccine rollout. However,… Read More

February 11, 2021 @ 10:35 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

DeFi architect Andre Cronje notes that Yearn.Finance has “blazed the path for community run and developer first open collectives that acted as Badgers blueprint.” Badger is a Bitcoin-on-Ethereum yield vault initiative. As explained on its website, users are able to deposit tokenized Bitcoin in Sett… Read More

February 11, 2021 @ 7:32 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

We’ve been trusting robots to manage money more than we “trust” ourselves, according to a recent study from Oracle and personal finance specialist Farnoosh Torabi. The global survey of over 9,000 individuals across 14 different countries revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has “increased finance-related stress… Read More

February 11, 2021 @ 10:01 am By JD Alois  |  

Monzo, a UK based digital bank that recently raised £50 million as part of a Series G extension, has appointed a new CEO for the United States, according to a report. Monzo has been going through a period of transition as founder Tom Blomfield fully… Read More

February 11, 2021 @ 9:36 am By JD Alois  |  

illimity, a digital bank that claims the title of the first in Italy, is reporting €31 million in net profit for 2020. In 2019, illimity reported a €16.1 million net loss. Corrado Passera, illimity’s CEO, said illimity has fully met the results for the year… Read More

February 11, 2021 @ 8:47 am By JD Alois  |  

FinecoBank (BI:FBK), a digital bank operating in the UK but based in Italy, says that the number of current accounts jumped by 70% during 2020 while the ratio between active accounts and total current accounts increased by 63% (from 15% in 2019). FinecoBank entered the UK… Read More