Issue 320 · Jul 8, 2021 Weekly edition · 5 min read

Issue #320

More and more companies are choosing direct stock exchange listings over traditional listings. By that companies save on fees for underwriting the IPO offering and avoid mispriced shares as it is estimated by investment

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Digital currencies from central banks could change money as you know it

Raghuram Rajan, former India central banker and ex-IMF chief economist, explains to CNBC podcast "Beyond the Valley" what central bank digital currencies could look like — and what they would mean for commerce.

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In this issue · 14 items

Fintech giant Wise is set go public in a rare Spotify-style listing — and it will be a big test for London CNBC — Wise, one of Britain’s biggest fintech companies, is about to go public. And it will be a major test for post-Brexit London. Open story ↗ Moroccan fintech startup Yalla Xash raises $675k funding to expand internationally DISRUPT AFRICA — Moroccan fintech startup Yalla Xash, a money transfer platform operating between North America and Africa, has raised MAD6 million (US$675,000) in funding from the Maroc Numeric Fund II to extend its services to other countries. Open story ↗ Zurich takes on fintech founder as group chief platform officer Insurance Business Asia — Zurich Insurance Group has announced the appointment of Frank Verkerk to the newly created role of group chief platform officer. In his new role, Verkerk will work to accelerate the company’s development of digital services. Open story ↗ JPMorgan to acquire OpenInvest Finextra — Backed by capital from Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, QED, and others, OpenInvest was founded in 2015 with a core focus on helping advisors unlock the social and environmetal impact of their clients' investments. Open story ↗ Instagram To Allow Users Sell NFT Collectibles, New Leak Reveals Bitcoinist — According to a leak by Alessandro Paluzzi (leaker and mobile developer), Instagram is planning to adopt its own version of NFTs soon. Instagram is still working on Collectibles (Instagram posts offering NFTs will be labeled as “Collectible”) The “Collectible” name will alert users that the given post contains a purchasable NFT. In the past, Instagram has mentioned the possibility of introducing payment features in the future. Open story ↗ Barclays stops UK card payments to Binance Finextra — Barclays has suspended debit and credit card payments from UK customers to Binance, citing recent Financial Conduct Authority action against the crypto exchange. Open story ↗ Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS 11:FS — The #1 business podcast for fintech innovators, influencers, and those eager to learn. Open story ↗ Fintech Summit Latam Latin America and the world are embracing the fight against COVID-19. Despite this challenge, Fintech demand in the Region has been accelerated. More than ever, financial institutions are facing the need to provide digital financial services. Every day increasingly, it is becoming clearer the importance of solid cross-country digital financial strategies. Open story ↗ Iceland’s four-day work week trial was a triumph for all QUARZ — “My older children know that we have shorter hours and they often say something like ‘Is it Tuesday today, dad? Do you finish early today? Can I come home directly after school?,’” says one happy father, “and I might reply ‘Of course’. We then go and do something — we have nice quality time. ✨ Open story ↗ Bank execs predict branch model will be dead within 5 years Finextra — With Covid-19 leading to an uptick in digital banking, nearly two thirds of industry executives from around the world think that the branch-based model will be dead within five years, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey. Open story ↗ Europe makes the case to ban biometric surveillance WIRED — Your body is a data goldmine. From the way you look to how you think and feel, firms working in the burgeoning biometrics industry are developing new and alarming ways to track everything we do. And, in many cases, you may not even know you’re being tracked. Open story ↗ Swiss bank UBS says Bitcoin is ‘unsuitable’ for institutional investors CryptoSlate — UBS (Swiss banking giant) has warned its clients that the regulatory crackdowns can make Bitcoin unsuitable for professional investors. In the report, it is stated that China’s crackdown on mining already hurt the market but UK’s and US’s tougher rules will be bad for crypto as well. According to Nirmala Sitharaman (Indian Minister of Finance), the cabinet note for the country’s crypto bill is ready, saying that “from our side, I think one or two indications that I have given is that at least for fintech, experiment and pilot projects a window will be available". Open story ↗ BlockFi's new Visa Credit Card allows paying bill with stablecoins BlockFi — BlockFi’s Reward Visa Signature Credit Card has concluded its Beta testing period. The company has already started inviting people from the top of the waiting list to apply for the card and start using it in the real world. Open story ↗ YouTuber accused of engineering multi-million-dollar pump-n-dump via Uniswap Cointelegraph — Patrick Shyu (famous YouTube and an ex-Google tech lead) launched the Million token (MM) via an initial DEX offering on Thursday on Uniswap His channel is called TechLead and it has 1.1 million subscribers. The launch price was $1.00 and it sky-rocketed 3,500% within just three days (it hit $36.87 on Sunday). The price has crashed since than to $15.26 (at the time of the writing). The immediate crash led to speculations and accusations on Twitter that MM might be a pump-and-dump project What can potentially back up this is that a large amount was pulled from the liquidity pool by the same address that minted the MM tokens Open story ↗

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Digital currencies from central banks could change money as you know it

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