Plaid’s Pipes, Paper Palms, Monzo Revenue, Extra (Way forward for Finance | Week in Evaluate)
A five-point weekly round-up of major events in fintech, the future of finance and the next wave of banking industry transformation.
How Plaid’s whistles found their way into every bank
What happened: One in three Americans with a bank account now has access to Plaid, a remarkable increase for a start-up just 10 years old.
Why it matters: The app economy required more efficient plumbing than what traditional finance could provide. A near purchase by Visa has kept the company private, and that could mean Plaid’s ambitions ultimately jeopardize the financial institutions it currently works with.
What’s next: Plaid clearly has an ambition to “make old-school banks look like a blockbuster video.” Visa, whose attempt to buy Plaid was thwarted by antitrust authorities, once described the company as an underwater volcano whose true power is yet to be seen. Expect an eruption soon. (By Jenny Surane, Bloomberg)
Traditional finance, once derided as paper hands, now primed for hodl
What happened: Traditional financial institutions have long turned their noses up at helping clients hold or trade crypto assets. Now they are building or investing in ways to do just that.
Why it matters: Trustworthy market participants could lead to more trading. “‘The big, purebred, traditional institutional investors definitely prefer dealing with counterparties that they know have been around for years and are regulated in the traditional sense,’ said Gautam Chhugani, senior analyst for global digital assets at Bernstein.”
What’s next: Watch out for the civil, criminal, and regulatory pressures being placed on industry leader Binance to go from hot to hot. There are already many who are hoping that it will fail. If traditional institutions believe that loss can be their gain, there probably aren’t many buttons they wouldn’t push to make that happen. (By Nikou Asgari, The Financial Times)
The consequences of a bank failure: 10 predictions
What happened: Silicon Valley Bank and the First Republic collapsed. Now comes a guess as to what happens next.
Why it matters: The rise of risk officers and an outright snub from regulators are just two of the many possible next steps for banking. What is important to the banks themselves and what is important to customers, companies and investors are two very different things. Just assume that there will be significantly fewer banks with non-heterogeneous customer profiles in the near future, and that will affect all of them.
What’s next: That’s what it’s all about: finding out. But at least we now have a way to measure these very specific predictions. (From the editor, American Banker)
One of the oldest FinTech startups is finally turning a profit
What happened: British fintech firm Monzo turned a profit for the first time in its history in the first two months of 2023, largely due to higher lending rates, which jumped nearly 400%.
Why it matters: FinTech profitability is a question asked on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially in the UK, where a slow, invasive regulatory process is believed to be helping kill potential upstarts like Revolut. Monzo’s profitability could help clear up those questions. But that’s only after the company moved its headquarters from London to San Francisco and has a customer base that appears to be increasingly dependent on credit to meet the increased cost of living.
What’s next: According to the company, full-year profitability is at least a year away. And an ongoing row with UK regulators and the company’s move mean there will be growing questions about the island nation’s tech-friendliness. (By Ryan Browne, CNBC)
The biggest crypto investors are on the lookout for the latest shiny thing, just like the rest of the industry
What happened: One of the most stable and active crypto VCs, Paradigm, recently removed mentions of crypto and Web3 from its website in an apparent attempt to expand investments into other verticals such as AI.
Why it matters: Crypto’s promise of outperforming traditional finance, among others, was built and funded by the eager investments of primarily Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms like Paradigm. The fact that they and many others have started to diversify doesn’t prove the dream is dead, but at least something of a permanent hold.
What’s next: FTX collapse slowed crypto VC investments and cost Paradigm $300 million. “Venture capitalists poured about $2.8 billion into crypto investments in the first quarter of 2023, up from about $3.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data compiled by The Block Research.” That number could be coming soon turn out lower. (By Yogita Khatri, The Block)
