Facebook owner is behind $60m deal for Meta name rights - Meta Platforms will acquire the trademark assets of U.S. regional bank Meta Financial Group, spokespeople for the companies said this week. The deal underscores how valuable the Meta name has become for the technology giant, which is betting that its focus on the metaverse - shared digital spaces accessed via the internet through an array of devices - will pay off handsomely in the coming years. Read more
HSBC and Wells Fargo to settle currency trades with blockchain - The two banks will use blockchain technology to reconcile and pay out on deals in dollars, sterling, euro and Canadian dollars between them, using HSBC’s FX Everywhere platform. The agreement means they will bypass CLS, the nearly two-decades-old utility that central banks urge market participants to use to neutralize the risk of certain trade failures. Read more
A baseball star in the ‘shark tank’: inside JPMorgan’s client poaching row - Joining from Merrill, a division within Bank of America, Campbell was based out of San Francisco and brought with her almost $1.4b in client assets and loans, including hundreds of millions of dollars from Alex Rodriguez. Just over a year since joining JPMorgan, however, things have soured. Read more
Nike acquires NFT collectibles studio RTFKT - The acquisition announcement comes at an opportune time for the studio; RTFKT is currently behind one of the most talked-about NFT project drops of the month — a sweeping avatar partnership with artist Takashi Murakami called CloneX. Since its initial drop less than three weeks ago, the project has already seen nearly $65m in transaction volume. Read more
Nancy Pelosi doesn’t think that members of Congress should be banned from trading stocks - “This is a free market, we are a free market economy, they should be able to participate in that," Pelosi said. It is not illegal for members of Congress to trade stocks. But Pelosi was responding to a question from Insider, which released an investigation on Monday revealing that 49 members of Congress and 182 congressional staffers were late to disclose personal stock trades, which is a violation of federal conflict-of-interest laws. Read more
Zero taxes, golf and beach houses create a crypto island paradise - After a meteoric year, investors are relocating to Puerto Rico for its savings on individual and corporate taxes. The presence of digital currency enthusiasts is already palpable on the small island, where chance encounters and networking opportunities abound: Run-ins at taco stands; spontaneous drinks and dinner at luxury condos; “Crypto Mondays” gatherings at hotels and restaurants across San Juan. Read more
Business has a new favorite buzzword - Mentions of the word “journey” by S&P 500 executives on conference calls this year have soared almost 70% to 3,091, making it one of the fastest-growing corporate buzzwords in recent memory. The term was rarely used before -- in fact, just once in 2001 -- but it’s now used to describe practically any kind of business goal, even if it’s totally mundane. Read more
$300,000 Bored Ape NFT sold for $3,000 because of misplaced decimal point - The NFT’s owner Max, who listed the NFT for sale this past weekend, had meant to price the NFT at 75 ether (around $300,000) but accidentally typed 0.75 ether instead (roughly $3,000). Before they could correct the mistake, the NFT had been snapped up, apparently by a bot programmed to find and buy undervalued listings. Read more
The rise of legal insider trading - Big-dollar insider stock sales are increasingly common, with no fewer than 82 different corporate insiders selling more than $100m of stock in 2021. That's up from just 32 in 2019. As a result, the SEC wants to make it much harder for insiders to take advantage of provisions surrounding stock sales that effectively make insider-trading prosecutions impossible. Read more
Nium launches virtual card issuing solution for the United States travel industry - Virtual card issuance capabilities allow travel-related businesses to optimize supplier payments and better manage cash flow. Read more
PayPal, Affirm scrutinized over ‘buy now, pay later’ by CFPB - PayPal, Affirm and Afterpay Ltd. are among several companies being scrutinized by U.S. regulators over their policies of letting consumers buy products now, while paying for them later. Read more
Banque de France demos ledger interoperability in CBDC trials - The Banque de France has completed the last of its interbank settlement in CBDC experiments, demonstrating the possibility of direct ledger interoperability in a hybrid cloud environment across multiple technologies and asset classes. Read more
Chime rolls out cash deposits at Walgreens - This service is available at more than 8,500 Walgreens at no fee. The company noted that 78% of Americans live near a Walgreens location. Read more
34% of UK finance businesses are now making crypto payments - Mercuryo - According to new research by global payment network, Mercuryo, over one third of UK finance businesses are now using blockchain to facilitate payments, as demand for innovation soars. Read more
H&R Block sues Block, formerly Square, over new name - Tax preparation company H&R Block Inc on Thursday sued payment company Block Inc, previously called Square Inc, saying the new name infringed its trademarks. Read more |
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