Fintech Focus For September 1, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: "Overspending is a real threat for startups that are handed large sums. With more money to play with, startups aren’t encouraged to adopt a lean mentality and have a higher risk of scaling prematurely.”

Source: Fernando Dal Re

One Big Thing In Fintech: A lot has changed since Benzinga last spoke with Kevin O’Leary, businessman, author, "Shark Tank's" Mr. Wonderful, and co-founder of O’Shares ETFs, which are traded on the BATS exchange.

Most notably, his deal flow is more so concentrated around emerging markets such as DeFi — a finance model that replicates market-making, borrowing, lending and exchanging without expensive institutional middlemen — given a clear change in regulatory leeway.

Let’s further unpack what O’Leary’s focusing on.

Source: Benzinga

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Voyager finishes big token merger.
• Prosus is buying Billdesk for $4.7B.
• Octane banked $2M for billing tech.
• Nigeria’s central bank, Bitt team up.
• Ikea invests $22.5M in BNPL Jifiti.
• Point raises for home equity fintech.
• Challenger Bunq rolling out IBANs.
• Open Finance next fintech frontier.
• AvidXchange bolsters executives.
• PayPal looks to offer stock trading.
• Jane Street joins the Pyth Network.
• Arbitrum secures $120M in funding.
• FTX to acquire LedgerX exchange.
• EmiSwap has launched on Kucoin.
• Japanese BNPL Paidy looks to IPO.
• Klarna widens Globel-e partnership.
• Panama could benefit from bitcoin.
• OpenExchange to add Nucleus195.
• Plaid, Astra tackle money services.
• Coinbase sends erroneous notices.
• Square to launch paid subscription.
• Amerant selects Alloy to automate.
• CalTier and Alto Solutions team up.

Watch Out For This: The global pandemic dramatically accelerated the interest in and use of enterprise low-code, a technology trend that had already been well underway prior to the pandemic. The findings reveal that 77% of enterprises in six countries have already adopted low-code, and 75% of IT leaders said it's a trend they can't afford to miss.

Source: Mendix

Interesting Reads:

• U.S. economy softening from delta.
• Apple plans to add satellite feature.
• Moderna making more antibodies.
• Fed is risking too-slow of a tapering.
• Chicago sues DoorDash, Grubhub.
• South Lake Tahoe’s massive traffic.

Market Moving Headline: It is no longer carved in stone that the Fed will taper ahead of the ECB. Lanes comments opened the door for a technical taper in September from the ECB as they look at financial conditions both when they go up and down.

Source: Nordea