By Christopher Hamman
Happy new month!
Besides banking failures, the “other” big issue hovering in the air is a word we all dread to hear: “de-dollarization”.
Then again, five words come to mind per the apparent fight against the greenback: dictators, democracy, innovation, institutions, and leadership.
America will still win!
Robinhood showed its true colors with the enabling of external wallets for users.
Ivy-league country will get its first taste of the RTP ecosystem FedNow with a public-private partnership, and brokerage fees got reduced massively for borrowers with GPARENCY.
This is your week in digital wealth!
WealthTech, RegTech and Treasury
NASDAQ Private Market (NPM)
Liquidity issues in private markets will soon become a thing of the past with the launch of NPM’s Transfer and Settlement Solution (T&S) for market participants. The product increases settlement times to within one week instead of 90–120 days.
NPM revealed the launch with nifty features, including trading history activity, real-time transfer tracking, holdings verification, right of first refusal (ROFR), and more.
Broadway Technology/CBOE Global Markets
CBOE Market’s new U.S. Treasury trading platform will get all the bells and whistles that users will need and a bit more with the selection of CBOE Global Markets as its Infrastructure Service Provider (ISP).
Per the cooperation, CBOE Markets will provide service co-location, hosting, administration, and oversight alongside first-class infrastructure support.
Octaura Holdings
Loan trading solutions firm Octaura Holdings revealed its syndicated loan trading platform.
The new solution allows industry players to get everything done within a single interface without relying on outside apps, from the regular Request-for-Quotes (RFQs) to order fulfillment and other customizations, including straight-through processing (STP) via automated order bookings.
Crypto, Blockchain, and Digital Assets
Robinhood Markets Inc.
The crypto space hit another milestone with retailer-focused Robinhood launching “Robinhood Connect” a feature that allows users to link external wallets to the trading platform.
Robinhood Connect will be initially available on Solana’s Phantom and Exodus wallets besides other integrations.
Franklin Templeton/Ethereum (ETH)/Polygon (MATIC)
Investment behemoth Franklin Templeton announced the integration of its U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) with Polygon (MATIC), the Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain.
FOBXX transactions can now get executed on Polygon, with over $270 million in assets under management (AUM) in cash, repurchase agreements, and government securities.
Transactions are also possible on the Stellar (XLM) blockchain.
Circle/USDC/Avalanche (AVAX)/Ethereum (ETH)
Blockchain interoperability reached a new milestone with the announcement of Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) for its USDC protocol.
CCTP is available on the Avalanche (AVAX) and Ethereum (ETH) blockchains, allowing users to transfer tokens seamlessly between the two and enabling mainnet token minting and burning by the issuer.
FinTech, Personal Finance, and Apps
Vesta/Shopify
Fat-fingered hackers and other bad guys will have a difficult time executing chargeback fraud with Vesta’s payment guarantee extension, which is available for merchants in the United States and Mexico.
Merchants will now breathe easy with Vesta’s integrated machine learning (ML) capabilities, real-time link analysis, and increased transaction legitimacy.
Eved Solutions LLC/SAP
The media and entertainment industry got a new component as part of payment value chains with a partnership between enterprise solutions giant SAP and vendor and entertainment ecosystems firm Eved Solutions LLC.
Per the cooperation, Eved’s solution can be integrated with production accounting software plus SAP’s solutions-SAP S/4HANA®, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Ariba®, and SAP ERP.
Eved got added to the SAP store (its online software marketplace).
Fiserv/Clover Go
Fiserv’s Clover Go went omnichannel with iPhone contactless payments in the United States.
“Tap-to-Pay” functionality is now available for Small-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and merchants, reducing wait times and increasing efficiency.
Offline payments and unified Point-of-Sale access are a part of the package.
Banking, Payments, and Infrastructure
FICO
According to a recent FICO survey, the rise in real-time payment (RTP) platforms corresponds with increased RTP fraud cases.
Per the survey results, 81% of respondents said they made real-time payments, with 72% receiving unsolicited calls, emails, and texts. 25% lost over $5000 and 46% up to $500.
Wise
Global payments firm Wise was in the news again last week with 3.92% Annual Percentage Yields (APYs) on USD balances for American customers.
FDIC insurance (up to $250,000) for the APY feature is available through JPMorgan Chase Bank, and the FinTech firm stores funds with partner banks.
FinTech Automation/ Federal Reserve Bank of Boston/FedNow
Things got pretty interesting for real-time payments when the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Software-as-a-Service firm Fintech Automation revealed their partnership to enable FedNow, the Fed’s real-time payments ecosystem, which is launching soon.
Per the partnership, banks and financial institutions will access FedNow via FinTech Automations’ platform, which will relay payments without risk transfer from Fed payment master accounts.
REtech, Insurtech and Investing
GPARENCY
Borrowers got a boost per mortgage brokerage fees with partial/total elimination within GPARENCY’s ecosystem.
Lenders within the member-only mortgage brokerage ecosystem will now cover fees for borrowers, and “Free Agency or CMBS Loans” will charge 25% of the loan value (with an $11,000 upfront option at closing).
Permanent “Agency or CMBS Loans” over $10 million are fee-free.
Alliant Insurance Services
Insurers now have data-driven insurance options with the launch of Alliant Re, Alliant Insurance Services’ reinsurance division.
Alliant Re offers insurers several “intelligent” services, including individual risk programs, managing general underwriters (MGU), facultative insurance, deductible buy-downs, flexible reinsurance solutions (automated and semi-automated), and more.
Blend/Atlantic Coast Mortgage
The difficulty of mortgage deal closing got nipped in the bud for Atlantic Coast Mortgage, an independent mortgage institution with the integration of “e-Closing” services by Blend, a banking software provider for financial institutions.
The service improves Atlantic Coast’s business process with Blend’s hybrid/remote online notarization (RON) products, a process integration game changer.
