Two weeks ago I told you about Sallie Krawcheck’s keynote address at the Empire Startups Fintech conference in New York as part of Fintech Week NYC. If you didn’t get to it yet, here it is. The day after the Empire Startups event, I attended the FinXTech Annual Summit at the Nasdaq MarketSite. The day… Read More

Peer-to-Peer Lender Goes Public The IPO market for online lenders has been very quiet over the past year. However, China Rapid Finance just raised $60MM through an ADR offering on the NYSE. While public market valuation of $350MM is much lower than the private market value of $1B the company achieved a few years ago,… Read More

Sallie Krawcheck was fired. Twice. It made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. But her story didn’t stop there. After a brief hiatus, Sallie got back to work. She is still making headlines, but now they center around her fintech startup Ellevest, which has raised about $19MM in total funding over the last… Read More

No column today – plenty to chew on from last week and the first article below. I promise I’ll back off on the Amazon stories as soon as they stop being so good. Amazon Strategy Teardown As a follow-up from Bezos’ shareholder letter last week, I wanted to share this “Amazon Strategy Teardown” from CB… Read More

Small departure from our normal financial innovation focus, but the below (abridged) shareholder’s letter from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is too good to pass by. It also doesn’t feel too off the mark given the scope and ambition of Amazon’s payments business, including the recently launched Amazon Cash, which allows customers to upload cash to their… Read More

In what has become something of an annual tradition, I wanted to break down portions of Jamie Dimon’s letter to JPMorgan shareholders. This year’s letter started off sounding a little more like Warren Buffett than in previous years, but the most interesting sections (to me) are the responses to the technological changes in the market… Read More

Last month, Tommy Nicholas (co-founder of Alloy) wrote a great article on the need for fintech to innovate on the business model. While it is a short (10 minute) read, I wanted to summarize it here. An aside for you bankers – if you have a need (and you do!) for automated identity verification for… Read More

I had a chance to chat with CarrieAnne Cormier from Avidia Bank last month. Avidia is a $1.3 billion mutual community bank based outside of Boston. The bank has been getting a lot of attention over the last few years thanks to their efforts around mobile and social media, which has been supported by working… Read More

API watch: Standard Chartered launches new API platform Standard Chartered is the latest bank to roll out an API platform, launching their version last week. While payments companies are better known for their API platforms, banks are catching up. While I always think of BBVA as the banking API leader today, the field is getting… Read More

Yellin’ at Yellen While not technically fintech news, the letter from Rep. Patrick McHenry to Janet Yellen is noticeable for challenging how the Fed has been operating and its activities in the future. McHenry, as the Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has also been outspoken about fintech issues. However, after relating slower economic growth… Read More