#439
A Bright Spot On The Horizon

FTX has held acquisition talks with Webull, Apex, Public.com - If the reports are true, it could be a sign that FTX is making another serious push into stock trading. All three companies—Webull, Public.com, and Apex Clearing—are registered brokerages with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which means that they can buy and sell securities, such as stocks, on their own or on clients’ behalf. Read more

Banks and funds stash record $2t overnight at Fed facility - The figures disclosed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York marked the first time more than $2t had been tucked away in the Fed’s overnight reverse repo facility. The surge of interest in this facility, which acts as an investment of last resort, has been exacerbated by a decline in issuance of short-dated government debt, known as Treasury bills, spurred by a drop-off in government spending. Read more

JPMorgan warns overseas digital bank losses could top $1bn after UK push - JPMorgan Chase expects to lose more than $1bn in the next few years on its new digital-only international consumer bank that began operations in the UK last year. The bank hopes the digital business will break even by 2027 or 2028. Read more

Green fintech money app Tred busts crowdfund target in ten minutes - Tred, a UK startup building a carbon tracking debit card and app, has bust through its initial £600,000 crowdfunding target within ten minutes of going live on Crowdcube. Read more

Hotels using NFTs to create a StubHub for lodging reservations - Some resort owners think they have found a way to avoid getting stuck with excess inventory when guests cancel at the last minute - which involves converting room nights for sale into NFTs that can be bought or sold by hotel guests, similar to the StubHub market for concert and sporting event tickets. Owners say this ensures they get paid for the rooms because guests would sell their reservation in the market if they decide not to go, and appeal to the crypto-enthusiastic traveler. Read more

Ethereum Founder Buterin Blasts DeFi Model in Terra Critique - Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said there is no genuine investment that can get anywhere close to 20% returns per year while analyzing the implosion of the Terra blockchain which sent the crypto market into freefall earlier this month. Read more

Stripe launches App Marketplace, scripts and tools incorporating third-party SaaS apps that work alongside Stripe - The move potentially represents Stripe's biggest leap yet away from payments. The Marketplace is launching with 50 apps that Stripe’s customers are already using as part of their marketing, payments and business development stacks, such as DocuSign, Dropbox, Intercom, Mailchimp, Ramp and Xero. There will be more added over time as well. Read more

JPMorgan Summer Reading List arrives in the metaverse - JPMorgan has made its annual Summer Reading List available for perusal in a metaverse library. Read more

The Airbnb of Wall Street Wants to Free Up Trapped Bank Capital - Capitolis' new idea resembles an old one: Banks have long sliced up and sold their big corporate loans to other banks and investors. Capitolis figured out how to use this syndication concept to turn all kinds of banking products—foreign-exchange swaps and lines of credit, to name a few—into a kind of fixed-income security or loan they can sell to investors. Read more

Coinbase tests app for employees to grade each other during meetings - The cryptocurrency company has been piloting an app that collects employees' evaluations of their colleagues, including their managers, after meetings and other interactions. Known as Dot Collector, the app was invented by Ray Dalio's hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, and has been in use by Coinbase's HR and IT teams since the first quarter of this year. Read more

Banks turn to blockchain in search for high-quality trading assets - BNP Paribas has joined JPMorgan in using digital tokens for short-term trading in fixed-income markets as some of the world’s biggest investment banks step up efforts to modernize the $12t market with blockchain technology. JPMorgan’s blockchain allows banks to lend out US government bonds for a few hours as collateral, without the bonds leaving their balance sheets. Read more

Swedish fintech Klarna to cut 10% of workforce - CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Klarna’s more than 7,000 employees globally it was the “hardest” announcement the Swedish bank had made. He called 2022 “a tumultuous year” and blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine, a shift in consumer confidence, rises in inflation, a volatile stock market “and a likely recession” for the job cuts. Read more