The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Sept 27th

By Gaia Lamperti

The IBSi Roundup is published every Monday and sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

What banks are up to

JPMorgan launched its new digital bank in the UK under the Chase brand last week. Chase already provides a broad range of financial services to more than 60 million households in the US and now British customers will also be able to open an account in minutes via app. The Chase banking experience will offer a range of features to help people budget, manage money, spend, and save.
The View: “The launch of JP Morgan Chase demonstrates just how much customer and business expectations have shifted. These changing expectations are driving the very innovations in banking currently dominating the headlines.” – James Allum, VP & Head of Europe at Payoneer.

UK neobank Monzo has launched its ‘Flex’ service which enables its current account customers to make interest-free repayments in three instalments over three months on purchases worth between £30 and £3,000. With the move, Monzo becomes the first major bank to launch its own ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) scheme and enter the nascent credit market competing with companies like Klarna and PayPal.
The View: “The seemingly unstoppable rise of  ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ products shines a light on the fact that how we are paid simply isn’t in keeping with how we live. More than ever, people crave flexibility. BNPL fills a gap by providing this flexibility when they are making purchases.” – David Brown, CEO of Hi55 Ventures.

Meanwhile, in crypto world…

On Friday, China’s central bank declared all crypto-related transactions illegal, effectively banning digital tokens. Being China one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency markets, the ban has a global impact on the price of crypto-currencies, as shown by Bitcoin falling by more than $2,000 in the wake of the Chinese announcement. Friday’s statement is the most detailed and expansive yet from the country’s main regulators, underscoring Beijing’s commitment to suffocating the Chinese crypto market.
The View: “China is, undoubtedly, worried about bitcoin – but not because of money laundering, phishing scams or economic destabilization. China is worried because bitcoin gives its citizens the freedom to teleport their wealth around the world instantly at the click of a button.” – Martin Leo Rivers on Forbes.

Robinhood plans to begin testing cryptocurrency wallets next month, with a broader rollout in early 2022, allowing its users to move supported digital currencies in and out of their brokerage accounts. Currently, the company already allows buying, selling and holding of certain cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and dogecoin, and last quarter saw crypto transactions exceed equities transactions for the first time. Crypto wallets would allow its customers to participate more broadly in blockchain-based ecosystems, such as buying virtual assets like NFTs.
The View: “This is the natural next step for us when we think about democratizing finance for all, being able to have a lot more people from a lot of different contexts participate in this emerging market, and wallets are the key.” – Aparna Chennapragada, CPO at Robinhood.

Where’s the buzz

At Money 20/20, one of the biggest FinTech events of the year which was held in Amsterdam last week (we were there!), over 50 industry announcements were made, demonstrating the ferment in the sector. The most interesting ones feature:

• ClearBank doubling-down on improving global payments infrastructure
• dLocal launching Direct Issuing, white-labelled prepaid cards in emerging markets
• Railsbank announcing a partnership with QNTMPAY and McLaren to tap into the UK’s “fan economy”
• OpenPayd releasing the world’s largest independent study of brand perceptions toward embedded finance today
• TerraPay signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Network International to develop and deliver a payment solution on an interoperable platform in the UAE
• Salt Edge and Western Union announcing their collaboration around PSD2
• IDnow introducing automated identity verification for highly regulated use cases