🚨New podcast alert!🚨
Matt Janiga (
@regulatorynerd
) from
@Trustly
returned to the podcast to break down the CFPB’s open banking proposal
The episode covers:
📖What the proposal says
👏What it gets right and wrong
🏰Effects on incumbents and new entrants
🤓Much, much more
@ArmandDoma
The DOJ failed to prosecute any of the bankers or financiers involved in the Great Financial Crisis, as the statute of limitations begins to lapse evidencing to a wide swath of Gen Z that crime does indeed pay.
Larry Summers, who said women were worse at math and science because of smaller brains, will sit on the board of the company building artificial intelligence.
In other news, government regulators have a long future a head of them in stamping out bias in algorithms, ML and AGI.
We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.
We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.
1/ Lots of people are chattering about Walmart and how poaching some guy named Marcus means they're gearing up for a big FinTech push.
But here's the thing folks forget. Walmart has been into FinTech for a while.
1/ I wrapped up my time at Lithic this week. I would have shared earlier, but there were bigger things going on in the world and it just didn’t feel right.
Some parting thoughts follow.
Seeing all the internal audit roles on Stripe's website warms my heart and seems to signal they're prepping for IPO. One of them even asks that candidates have experience with SOX, PCAOB and SEC requirements. All three must-haves for public companies.
@sarthakgh
Bet he could have had a nice tenured faculty job somewhere if only some of these boomers would retire. Poor guy has to grind it out in Corporate America instead!
1/ Today the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued an advisory opinion about earned wage access products. If you’ve wondered what the legal skinny is on Dave, Earnin, Even and all the others -- this thread is for you.
@kimmaicutler
So why don’t we flood the courts with law suits against Greg Abbott? It seems like you can accuse someone of assisting even if you’re out of state. The law doesn’t allow him to recover legal fees if he wins. But the filing would still require a response from him.
1/ So this has been an interesting Rorshach test, with a lot of Stripe people pushing back here and in my DMs. Am going to break down what I'm seeing for the folks in the cheap seats.
After this, doesn’t Square leapfrog Stripe in the race to scale to PayPal’s footprint and revenue?
And aren’t they an M&A deal away (Checkout, Adyen, something else in the merchant space) from being as big or bigger than PayPayl?
One of my favorite weekly FinTech newsletters made the claim that Stripe invented the PayFac category. The newsletter is a fantastic regular read, but this claim isn't true. Here's some background on the history of PayFac from someone who lived it.
1/
We are excited to announce our latest partnership and integration with industry leading password manager,
@1Password
.
Starting today, you will be able to create, use, and save virtual cards directly within your 1Password browser. 🤩
We live in Half Moon Bay.
We have enough thoughts and prayers.
Please send meaningful gun reforms passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
1/ Last week I joined Trustly, where I'm helping support the America's team on product legal, regulatory and policy work.
Sorry for not sharing earlier but onboarding is a lot of work!
We are thrilled today to make our legal and compliance library available to all of you in the fintech space.
Our blog covers a lot of the key details on why, but I'd love to take folks a level deeper. 1/
📚 Introducing the Lithic Legal Library:
A free repository of legal and compliance templates, based on best practices for card programs. The library is open for all companies to use.
Read
@regulatorynerd
's blog about it for more details.
Job postings make me giggle. This one is for my old individual contributor role at Stripe, which I’m apparently two years away from being qualified for.
USA financial compliance systems are not good...
there's an arms dealer by the name of Tardigrade Ltd., so the OFAC banned all transactions containing the word Tardigrade, causing problems for anyone selling products related to this cute micro-organism
We don’t have a monopoly issue in this country.
Now if you’ll excuse me, after a long day of Teams meetings and drafting memos in Word, I need to unwind by firing up my X Box and playing the latest Call of Duty.
@mattyglesias
You and the person you quote are not compliance attorneys or professionals, and your views are mistaken.
I am an expert in these spaces and have worked with SVB on joint KYC and KYB matters with a variety of companies. They were good at compliance.
1/ The FDIC released a bulletin today reminding FDIC-supervised institutions that they need to collect the FULL NINE digits of a customers SSN before they open an account.
There's a reason for this, and separately I have bones to pick.
Super excited to share we raised a Series C. Thank you to our customers and investors for this vote of confidence.
What are we doing with the money? Hiring! So come join us!
Big news! 🥳 We're excited to announce that we’ve raised $60M in Series C funding from
@stripesco_
,
@BessemerVP
, and
@IndexVentures
to scale our team and double down on our mission of building accessible card issuing APIs.
If you are a CEO of a financial services company, I don’t think you should refer to the consumer funds you are holding and corporate cash on your balance sheet as an ecosystem.
Okay -- kids are asleep. Dishes are done(ish). Time to break down this super cool AML development for US banks and FinTech. Thread follows this message.
There was an interesting AML provision tucked into the U.S. defense authorization act by the U.S. House of Representatives. I'll break down what it is, why it got there and what it might mean for the future of FinTech and online banking later tonight.
The SF tech --> Miami stuff is fun, but I don't take it seriously. Are so many long-term focused people really going to a place that's going to be without fresh water in 10 years, and underwater in 20?
1/ I really enjoyed Jason's piece on Laso and the mystery of how a no-KYC card could get approved by Stripe and Celtic.
Before joining Trustly, I lived in the BaaS space for four years and wanted to share some additional insights.
Fintech Biz Weekly just dropped:
Laso Leverages Stripe and Celtic Bank To Offer Crypto Users A “No KYC” Visa Card
Due dil failures show compliance challenges of BaaS
Why potential fallout could impact other Stripe clients, including Ramp & Shopify
You know where to find it!
I have a favor to ask - retweet or reply if you'll help.
My father-in-law has a couple of days to live. He produced Home Alone, Mystic Pizza, Teen Wolf and others.
If you enjoyed them, could you leave a video or tweet about what they mean to you? 1/
1/ Wanted to share some thoughts on the Synapse issues. Thanks to
@mikulaja
for all the tracking and glad to see folks like
@Hugh_Son
and
@ddayen
help push this news mainstream.
Reading that Coatue FinTech deck and is this the first "in the wild" break down of Square Capital's underwriting? I've heard Sarah Friar describe the economics before, but I've never seen this get explained without an NDA in place.
+1M — Stripe wouldn’t be as big as it is if
@JZieger
wasn’t the first legal hire and GC. He knew what risks were important. Knew what small stuff we should sweat. And knew when to let stuff go (something I had to learn). Built a great team and left a huge imprint on Stripe.
I talked to
@collison
(YC office hour) a few years ago and he mentioned that hiring great counsel was crucial in building a great product.
Now, how to actually deal with lawyers:
It’s an art.
Not sure if there’s a science to it.
Well I finally did it.
The regional banking crisis has had me spooked, so I moved all my money to the safest place on earth.
The Starbucks gift card and loyalty program.
It’s a win for
@Marqeta
that
@Square
launched it’s checking account product at Sutton vs. Square Financial Services (the ILC). Should mean all that new debit card volume runs over the $MQ processing stack.
@BernieSanders
Please Stop. Dean Preston is a regressive multi-millionaire politician that would rather sling platitudes than use his seat to better his community or solve his constituents problems. It’s like if you endorsed Rand Paul.
1/ Cross River is making time to chat with clients on the consent order.
I joined one such call and my tl;dr is they're doing a good job managing the normal give-and-take that happens in this space.
If I'm a fintech founder, I'd be excited to keep working with them.
✨Announcing: On Deck Fintech Fellowship✨
Fintech is exploding but barriers to entry and lack of access to specialized knowledge have slowed innovation — until now.
Today we're helping innovators create the new frontier of financial services.
Super stoked for Square.
Bummed for Stripe because it’s a reminder that they’re missing out on these types of M&A opportunities by not being public.
Hopefully they get their act together to be public company capable in 2022. Feels too late for them to make it this year.
1/ Look—if you're going to doom scroll and react in a tizzy to all the SVB tweets, at least spend some time reading the public portion of their resolution plan.
People are pearl clutching over ZELF and their lack of KYC for their product, but what if I told you there was a publicly traded FinTech that also offered no-KYC cards?
Pictures to prove it in the next tweet!
.
@mikulaja
(who has a fantastic newsletter) nerd sniped me, then I had a full day at work and couldn't participate in the fun.
So after some NDAs, internal committee meetings and an *almost* finished employee handbook, I'm ready to share some thoughts. 1/
We keep talking about how 60% of all people in SF are vaccinated for COVID, but when are we going to focus on the real problem?
Only 3% of San Franciscans are PCI compliant.
I can’t believe people give her money to invest.
Walmart can’t own a bank because of federal laws that prohibit the mixing of banking and commerce. One Finance was a program manager. One banking products at Walmart are offered by Coastal Community Bank.
Stonks!
@vim_dzl
and
@amandamoore1012
Asked if I could do a legal explainer about all the Robinhood locking people out of GME activity.
As they say on Wall Street, when the ducks quack, feed 'em! So I'm going to do a quick primer thread on all the potential legal players 1/
Me, at the gas station, testing a new physical card:
That was exciting! We broke the pump’s card acceptance function!
Wife, under her breath:
I don’t think we have the same definition of exciting. . .
10/ I’m still excited for Lithic and will be rooting the team on as an investor. I have so much faith in Bo, Jason and the rest of the folks that I exercised my stock options.
But starting Monday it’s on to new things. More on that next week.
I am going to apply for the CFPB's consumer advisory board. But I need some recommendation letters. Anyone from the banking, fintech or policy spaces interested in helping?
1/ Lots of interesting nuggets on the PayPal earnings call. And Dan Shulman saying "regulators" four times in his opening remarks. Thread following here later tonight (Pacific time).
Second patent issued today. Thinking about how cool it is that anyone can be an inventor. And thanks to Stripe and its legal team for filing the application to make this a thing.
.
@noyesclt
had a good blog post where he called
@Square
a potential loser due to
@Apple
's purchase of
@mobeewave
I respectfully disagree with Tom. Square will remain the leader for next gen POS and SMB services. But Fiserv, and Visa and MC may have a new threat. Thread below.
Congrats to
@mercury
on the launch of a fantastic product. We're thrilled to be their partner
@lithic
, and excited for you all to be able to benefit from their new card program.
The missing piece has arrived. 🔑
Introducing IO, the corporate card built to help founders scale their companies with confidence.
All the benefits of credit — built on Mercury:
Who are the best consumer FinTech, cards and banking people you know?
I'm talking can run strategy for the whole show -- product, marketing, needle-moving channel partnerships and BD efforts.
It's Friday and I'm stoked to have
@packyM
in our cap table
@lithic
.
For folks who gave me a follow off the piece, I'll have some FinTech specific tweets coming this weekend and next week. I swear its not all California housing and reply-guying to other folks in FinTech. 1/
You may not know
@lithic
. Until recently, it was privacy dot com.
In May, it announced an Amazonian move: delivering the card issuing & processing infrastructure it built for itself via an API.
Now, it's worth $800M and growing like a 💳🚀
Wife was trying to tell me about a loan she took in animal crossing to buy a bridge, and how they wouldn’t build the bridge until she fully paid the loan.
I tried to explain that was actually layaway.
She told me I could lay away on the couch tonight.
1/ If you’re a VC or a tech founder with exposure to SVB, it’s good to start talking through contingencies. But it’s also not worth panicking until Monday.
This is a tease. Introducing a bill in the House is as easy as dropping a postcard in the mail. And has the same impact on laws.
Someone wake me when this gets past a cloture vote in the Senate. Until then, this is a stunt to fish for campaign donations from tech.
SCOOP 🍿 A Silicon Valley lawmaker and venture capitalists are teaming up to create a startup visa, providing a path for immigrant entrepreneurs to stay. The bill will be introduced on Monday. Details here.
It’s not rent a charter! Deposit partnerships are channel partnerships and allow banks to meet customers where they are — not at a branch or airport gate, but in the digital space where so many of us spend our time!
Diem has conceded it needs access to a US bank license to conduct it's operations.
But rather than try & get its own, it's playing rent-a-charter games.
If Diem wants to issue deposits it should get a license. No more fintech's using banks as shields
1/ Chase media solutions cracks me up, because here's Chase saying "we'll cross-market your crappy product to our consumers if you pay us" when in requests on government rule makings they've said . . .
Chase $JPM launches Chase Media Solutions, a digital media business, offering brands to connect directly with the financial institution’s 80 million customers.
This advice from regulators shows how insulated and out of touch they are.
People use fintech because large banks treat us like fungible sources of deposits and fee revenue. Fintech’s offer valuable products and better deals vis-a-vis banks.
I’ve unfollowed Harry Stebbings over this.
I occasionally listened to the podcast, but how can you now? You can’t trust anything Harry or the guests say will be honest. Have to assume it’s all garbage.
I’ll save you 30. Everyone’s fault but Domm’s: VCs, funding market, board, media. Domm is brash, high-profile, polarizing — a great builder like Elon Musk, doesn’t care about publicity, just his impact in world. He couldn’t have run winddown process better. The Board killed Fast.
1/ Welp, now that the cat (rock?) is out of the bag, I guess you all know the news. I'm no longer the GC at . I'm now the GC
@lithic
. Here's some more color for folks who are curious.
.
@PrivacyHQ
announced today it has re-branded to Lithic, and raised $43M in a round led by
@BessemerVP
. The company has historically focused on virtual cards for consumers but is now doubling down on its Card Issuing API with a B2B focus.
If you’re considering writing a check to a guy who set over $100M in VC money on fire with his last effort, maybe don’t and find a harder/smarter working woman-run or minority-led startup instead.
been having fun heads down building the last few months with a small team and excited to be getting closer to releasing our alpha version
will release more details soon, but will say:
its b2b saas, indirectly related to ecommerce, is a platform not a plugin
1/ We're wrapping up our 2022 planning process at
@lithic
and I'm bursting with pride and excitement about it all.
My wife has told me she's tired of hearing about my work, so I'm going to broadcast it into the void to get it out of my system.
@nextdoorsv
@cafedujord
Yes. I went home after the last meeting and went to bed angry that our public officials could be so heartless. I woke up the next day angry and repeated the cycle. On the third day I decided I'd stand on the Main Street in town with my sign.
Fantastic thread based on conversations between .
@jmover
and
@mengxilu
—
I agree with Justin that Plaid/Visa (and MC/MX) have a chance to build a better ACH substitute. Unlike Justin, I think I can see how.
A late night thread 🧵
@mikulaja
How many of these wallets are compliant with Escheatment laws? I’d say that’s going to be the first area of impact. I bet I have <$10 sitting in each of various fintech wallets launched in the last decade.
What are unique ways companies recognize employee achievement?
Like I heard Palantir gets the CIA to dedicate drone strikes to employees who ship big projects.
What are other companies up to?
I love working
@lithic
because
@bolingj
is the type of CEO and founder to roll up his sleeves and do work on a fire drill matter alongside junior IC's and I at 7:00 pm ET on a Thursday (and volunteer other members of management to also help).
1/ The CFPB has started to get comments on its open banking proposal, which comes from Dodd-Frank Act Section 1033. Here's some of the more interesting ones.
If you are a small startup and Visa tells you that you can't have a decoupled debit card, ask them why they let Affirm have decoupled debit but not you.
Live look at Stripe processing all the political donation emails on ActBlue and WinRed as politicians on both sides of the aisle fundraise off the Trump verdict.
View of the Northern California Kincaid and Vallejo wildfires on our flight back from Seattle this morning. The Vallejo fire looked so small, but is blanketing East Bay with a heavy line of smoke that lazily drifts into the mid-Penninsula region.
I like Clubhouse, but boy is it weird to have to ask people for their cell number every time they ask for an invite.
Sometimes we just want to be slack or twitter friends, and getting that celly feels like a new level of commitment we're both just not ready for.
I was on a way to a wedding in Santa Barbara today when new SF DA Brooke Jenkins called me with disturbing news.
She told me 91% of consumer credit originated to Californians in 2021 was BNPL.