Fintech Focus For September 8, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: “Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?”

Source: Robin Williams

One Big Thing In Fintech: El Salvador has become the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender.

Source: NPR

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• ONT ID has surpassed 1.5M users.
• Neobanks introducing SaaS offers.
• Standard Chartered eyes neobank.
• JCB, Checkout growing partnership.
• Squire Card targeting underserved.
• Cashfree debuts BaaS fintech offer.
• MVB, Victor, NYDIG partnering up.
• CoinSwitch Kuber looking to raise.
• HoneyBee secured $5.7M in equity.
• Beaxy seeks Blockdaemon for tech.
• Baanx acquires stake in a US bank.
• Cboe, EuroCCP intro CEDX market.
• Bitso, El Salvador work on cryptos.
• Wave adds $200M Series A round.
• Finance app Jeff adds $1.5M seed.

Watch Out For This: Three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine as of Tuesday, according to the White House, setting a new milestone in the country’s fight against the pandemic.

Source: Bloomberg

Interesting Reads:

• PE payday from Build Back Better.
• Ford hires Apple Car Chief in coup.
• Soros cautions on China exposure.
• NFL stance on crypto partnerships.
• Microsoft launches a news service.

Market Moving Headline: “People pretty much stopped buying S&P 500 puts [last] week. At the same time, people are overexposed to changes in VIX, and will be hurt more than usual if VIX starts moving up. Historically, this means SPX down, VIX up.”

Source: SqueezeMetrics