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☆ U.S. lawmakers say some fintechs failed to prevent 'obvious' pandemic fraud
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 1 (Reuters) - Several fintech companies that facilitated high volumes of pandemic-related loans to businesses in 2020 had inadequate processes to detect fraud, according to a new report from the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The program closed to borrowers in May 2021 after lending about $800 billion. The report found internal systems to detect fraud were often lacking. Meanwhile, the committee observed that Bluevine’s lending partner, Celtic Bank, conducted oversight of Bluevine’s anti-fraud controls and prompted the fintech to introduce manual review processes, after which it observed a steep decline in fraud. Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Stephen CoatesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Peter Thiel's VC fund backs TreeCard, a fintech that plants trees when you spend
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

TreeCard offers users a spending and money management platform tied to a debit card made from wood. TreeCardTreeCard, a climate-conscious digital money app, raised $23 million from investors in a new financing round. Though based in the U.K., TreeCard chose the U.S. as its launch market. The TreeCard app includes a game that lets users visualize how many trees their activity has helped produce. TreeCard offers clients up to 3% of annualized interest on their deposits, a feature it offers through third-party vendors.

☆ Private equity is starting to bet big on the cloud. Here's why firms like Blackstone are making the move.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Like other Wall Street firms upended by the technology, PE firms' motivation to make the move is tied to harnessing the copious amounts of data they manage. GFT works with more than 20 private-equity firms for digital transformation, including a handful of tier-one PE companies, he said. Some PE firms have tried to leverage their scale for pricing discounts among cloud providers, Mahenthiran said. Major cloud providers, like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, have been hungry for more Wall Street market share. That hasn't stopped PE firms from trying to hire out data-science and cloud teams to help front-office researchers find new opportunities and oversee internal cloud infrastructure, Vyas said.

☆ From Python to Rust, these are the top coding languages for landing a gig on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Bianca Chan | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Coding languages are a foundational element of any tech job, but not all are made equal. Coding languages, like Python and Java, are how humans can communicate with computers by providing a set of instructions for a system to execute. As it turns out, not all programming languages are made equal and some are more relevant to certain corners of Wall Street than others. Insider spoke with recruiters, Wall Street tech execs, and industry insiders, and analyzed job postings to get the low down on in-demand skill sets. Here are the top coding languages to know to land a tech job on Wall Street.

☆ Access to alternative investments have never been easier, but some VCs don't think that's a good thing
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Insider's Asia Martin spoke to some VCs who were skeptical about startups broadening access into these risky, illiquid assets. It's a common dilemma in fintech, as Asia pointed out to me, as access often takes precedence over education. Click here to read more about opening up access to alternatives and why some VCs are questioning it. From political donations to sports teams, this is everything the FTX founder spent money on. We asked top VCs to identify the best startups that help developers build apps for the cloud.

☆ Fintechs are opening up access to alternative investments previously reserved for sophisticated investors, but some VCs question if that's a good thing
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

But some don't think retail investors are ready for the level of risk in the asset class. Alternative investments, as the name suggests, is an asset outside of traditional investments like stocks, bonds, and cash. Investors choose from private-equity funds, venture capital, hedge funds, real estate, and art, among other areas. Such returns have attracted state pension funds, university endowments, and, most recently, individual investors from the ultra-high-net-worth to the Joe Schmoes. Companies like iCapital, Allocate, RealBlocks and CAIS (pronounced case) launched to help wealth-management firms usher their clients into sought-after private market funds.

☆ Brazil to allow credit fintechs to initiate payment transactions
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BRASILIA, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Brazil's National Monetary Council on Friday decided to allow credit fintechs to initiate payment transactions, the central bank said, a move that will in practice clear them to provide payment services to consumers and business establishments. Payment initiators, the central bank said in a statement, "initiate a transaction ordered by the final user but never manage the payment account, nor hold the funds of the transactions". Reporting by Isabel Versiani; Editing by Steven GrattanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ JPMorgan expects to keep growing in Latin America with improved outlook
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Tatiana Bautzer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SAO PAULO, Nov 23 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) will keep growing in Latin America over the next few years as it expects the region's geopolitical outlook to improve, said Alfonso Eyzaguirre, the bank's chief executive for Latin America and Canada. He expects Latin America to profit from the changes. Latin America also stands to receive a large portion of private investment to tackle climate change, Eyzaguirre added. JPMorgan has been adding headcount and new services for corporate clients in Latin America. Brazil and Britain are the only countries apart from the United States where JPMorgan has retail banking activities.

☆ Wall Street's love language is coding. Here are the ones you need to know.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Insider's Bianca Chan and Carter Johnson dug into the most sought-after coding languages across Wall Street. C++, which was created in 1983, is still a mainstay despite being older than a good chunk of the people using it on Wall Street (and the person writing this newsletter). While that's certainly true, plenty of programming languages have sticking power. Perhaps the best example is COBOL, a 63-year-old programming language still being used today. But what would be a smart decision is reading this story mapping out the top programming languages for a variety of roles and industries across Wall Street.

☆ Cloud financing lender Efficient Capital Labs raises $3.5 million from 645 Ventures to connect India-based startups to US lenders and expand operations to other countries
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Efficient Capital Labs lends capital from US firms to software companies in India. 645 Ventures led its seed round, and it got $100 million debt from Community Investment Management. Kaustav Das, a cofounder of the cloud financing platform Efficient Capital Labs, wanted to start a company that played to his knowledge of the field. ECL raised $3.5 million in a seed round led by 645 Ventures in April and closed a $100 million debt facility from Community Investment Management this month. Capchase took in $400 million in additional debt financing in June.

☆ Want to work in tech on Wall Street? These are the 8 coding languages that are most in demand.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Bianca Chan | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Coding languages are a foundational element of any tech job, but not all are made equal. But skilled technologists or those wanting to make a career switch into tech might still find a home on Wall Street. As it turns out, not all programming languages are made equal and some are more relevant to certain corners of Wall Street than others. Insider spoke with recruiters, Wall Street tech execs, and industry insiders, and analyzed job postings to get the low down on in-demand skill sets. Here are the top coding languages to know to land a tech job on Wall Street.

The valuations of listed financial technology firms have plunged 70% in 2022, analysts at Jefferies Group said in a note last week. The Columbus, Ohio regional bank is scouring for more targets after it bought Torana, a payments fintech, in May. PNC Financial Services Inc (PNC.N) in September bought Linga, a fintech focused on restaurant operations and sales. The slide in fintech valuations coincides with banks earning more from traditional lending businesses as interest rates rise. Fintech deals enable banks to buy new technology or products instead of developing them in-house.

☆ Bank of America-backed fintech Banked just raised $15 million in fresh funds. Check out the 21-slide pitch deck used to close the round led by Insight Partners.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Payments fintech Banked has raised $15 million from private equity giant Insight Partners. The London-based startup offers payment options direct from users' bank accounts. Check out Banked's 21-slide pitch deck below:A London-based fintech backed by Bank of America has raised $15 million in fresh funds. Banked, founded in 2018, offers a service called "Pay by Bank" that enables users pay merchants directly through their bank accounts without having to wait for card settlement. This deal takes the company to just over $50 million raised to date.

☆ Private equity is opening up to the public cloud, setting up a new battleground for AWS, Microsoft, and Google to win over Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Like other Wall Street firms upended by the technology, PE firms' motivation to make the move is tied to harnessing the copious amounts of data they manage. GFT works with more than 20 private-equity firms for digital transformation, including a handful of tier-one PE companies, he said. Some PE firms have tried to leverage their scale for pricing discounts among cloud providers, Mahenthiran said. Major cloud providers, like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, have been hungry for more Wall Street market share. But the wait-and-see approach has put PE companies far behind their Wall Street peers.

☆ FTX's future went from being in the hands of the young disrupters to grizzled veteran lawyers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The two key lawyers involved — who were profiled here by Insider's Jack Newsham — have quite the track record, including stints working with Enron, Michael Milken, and Elon Musk. In other news:Mia Lee decided to become a professional girlfriend for a living after her Wall Street accounting job left her burnt out. Here's where they say Wall Street got it wrong when it comes to VC. Salesforce evaluated employees in a way that actually set up some of its top salespeople to get axed, insiders say. "You can take the girl off Wall Street, but you can't take the banker out of the whore."

☆ A surplus of fintechs focused on wealth management has financial advisors scrambling to stitch them together
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

RIAs are solving the problem of limited tech integration by creating their own overlay tools. An abundance of wealth management-focused fintechs to choose from combined with a lack of integration between systems has led some advisory firms scrambling to piece them all together. In turn, the company decided to make that a value proposition by taking customers' data and entering it into a database for them. Once those customers created a Redshift data warehouse, they then could connect with Orion's warehouse and pull their data from there. Orion met with AWS' strategic-partnerships team and walked them through their use cases of applying Redshift technology.

☆ Leaked memo: Here's how Walmart is enticing its 1.6 million employees to sign up for its newly acquired online bank
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Ben Tobin | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But some Walmart employees are skeptical. A Walmart employee from Michigan who wished to remain anonymous asked, "What does Walmart get out of this?" The memo sent from One to Walmart employees specified that users aren't required to have a One account to get their paychecks from Walmart. The rollout of One to Walmart employees comes as current users of the neobank have expressed frustration that features they liked have disappeared in the wake of the acquisition. Many said they received little or no communication about changes to their accounts and described fears of being left behind as One execs turned their attention to Walmart employees and customers.

☆ Kuda, a Nigerian fintech backed by Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, is launching in the UK to offer remittances to Africans
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Nigerian fintech banking startup Kuda is launching its UK operations to offer remittances. UK to Nigeria remittances are worth $3.1 billion each year, according to data from the World Bank. Kuda has looked to diversify its sources of revenue in 2022 and is on the lookout for M&A. Nigerian fintech startup Kuda is launching in the UK to offer its remittance services for Africans. The banking startup, which was founded in 2017, has raised $90 million in funding from the likes of Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures and Target Global.

☆ Inside BlackRock's long journey toward crypto adoption
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

BlackRock's crypto quest. The culmination, and perhaps biggest step, in BlackRock's crypto journey came this summer, when it announced a partnership with Coinbase. Insider's Rebecca Ungarino and Morgan Chittum mapped out Blackrock's long journey toward crypto acceptance, which essentially dates back to an initial memo in 2015. Which is why mapping out BlackRock's journey is so interesting, Rebecca told me. Industry insiders detail a difficult week for the tech industry that saw thousands lose their jobs.

☆ 2 top investors identify fintech trends flying under the radar
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Payments and lending are receiving a lot of hype from venture capitalists, but two investors say that needs to change. That's lagging well behind 2021, which saw more than $46 billion raised by US fintechs at this point last year. Kemp and Russ told Insider the top areas they feel have flown under the radar within fintech. B2B PaymentsThe direct-to-consumer space has become digitized and somewhat commoditized, Kemp told Insider. Financial education, equity and accessVenture capital is overlooking a lot of companies doing interesting things around financial education, financial equity, and giving underserved populations access to much-needed financial tools, Russ told Insider.

☆ Cramer: Why tech can't find a bottom as other parts of the market show signs of life
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

The Carvana and Zillow calls aren't resonating because the autos and housing companies have already seen their stocks crushed. At the same time, these once-thriving tech companies that saw an ever-expanding funnel somehow didn't seem to see any of this coming. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade.

☆ Fed proposes to disclose which depository institutions have master accounts
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Nov 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is seeking comment on a proposal to publish a list of depository institutions that have access to master accounts, which grant firms access to Fed payment services. The proposal would require regional Fed banks to periodically disclose which firms have access to accounts and payments services, which the Fed said would result in more transparency. In August, the Fed finalized guidelines for how it will review requests by banks, fintechs and other firms to access the central bank's master accounts and payment systems, as a number of new nontraditional financial institutions have emerged and begun seeking access to such accounts. Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington Editing by Chris ReeseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ After months of a slumping economy, layoffs are finally starting to hit finance firms
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The economy has been trending downward for months, but it seems the shoe we've all been waiting to drop — layoffs — is starting to come down. Over on the tech side, Insider is covering the mass layoffs at Twitter, which started last night. Bloomberg reports that Twitter has been hit with a class action lawsuit, alleging staffers were not given enough notice before the cuts. Click here to see all the companies across industries that have already conducted layoffs. Keep updated with the latest business news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief.

☆ A Walmart-backed fintech has been making changes to an online bank it acquired. Long-standing customers are getting fed up.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Carter Johnson | Ben Tobin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

But once the Walmart-backed fintech venture Hazel acquired One and adopted its moniker in January, some of the features that drew Gastley to the bank disappeared. The page has become, in some cases, the first place customers turn to for information about product changes. (Like most neobanks, One has partnered with a sponsor bank, the Washington-based Coastal Community Bank, to provide financial services.) But then One customers received an email from the bank on May 12: It would be closing current credit lines, effective immediately. That's not the only change to Pockets for which Joseph, who has dozens of the virtual bank accounts, didn't receive a notification about, he said.

☆ Digital bank Chime cuts 12% of workforce as stormy markets hurt fintechs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nov 2 (Reuters) - Online banking company Chime has laid off 12% of its employees, a spokesperson said on Wednesday, blaming "current market dynamics" as this year's tech rout slams the once-high valuations of growth startups. Klarna, once Europe's most valuable startup, saw its valuation drop to $6.7 billion in July from $46 billion earlier. read moreThe downturn comes after payment companies enjoyed robust growth during the pandemic as consumers embraced digital banking services. Chime makes money by earning a fee from payment processors such as Visa Inc (V.N) every time a customer uses a Chime debit or credit card. Earlier this year, Reuters had reported that Chime could aim for a valuation of nearly $40 billion for an initial public offering in New York.

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