Web3, blockchain, and crypto innovation in financial services.

2020 has seen plenty of fintech M&A - LendingClub buying Radius Bank, Intuit acquiring Credit Karma and of course with Visa buying Plaid. You might think the current crisis would reduce activity but it could create more opportunities.

There’s quite a lot of technical lingo in this Unfiltered. We know that’s not really our style, but we’re talking about some big ideas here. If you’re into crypto and keen to see what else we know, get in touch. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

This past weekend an estimated 177m people tuned in as Matthew Stafford’s (strong surname BTW) LA Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals at Super Bowl LVII.

Providing the best service to have the largest market share. That’s what banks want to be and want to have. And for a very long time they did.

What. A. Year. Suffice to say, 2020 has been a year like no other. Some industries have been dealt a crushing blow by the pandemic, and while fintech hasn’t come out of it unscathed, parts of the industry have flourished.

As July continues apace, brands all over the world are rolling up their rainbow logos and packing them away for another year.

There is huge growth projected for digital financial services in Southeast Asia but up to 50% of the population are unbanked and will therefore remain excluded from this explosion.

By now we’ve surely all heard of NFTs. Seemingly overnight they’ve grown from a niche internet phenomenon to a household buzzword with everyone from Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Berners Lee, Banksy and even Lionel Messi having a piece of the pie.

Crypto is democratising finance and it’s a beautiful thing to see.

TL;DR None of the challenger banks use blockchain, the guy who’s leading the most popular smart contract platform (Ethereum) say’s it’s a bad idea. So, I mean read on…but. No, don’t use a blockchain or smart contracts for the love of god.

It’s about trust. Why do banks insist on having everything? Because they think if they only insist on some, they’ll never get the rest.

As you may have noticed I’ve been doing a lot of teasing around this for the last few months. Well today...right now...is the grand reveal as we celebrate the public launch of our 11:FS values.

The challenges (and opportunities) ahead for enterprise applications of distributed ledger tech.

Let’s start by calling Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) what it is - debt. Debt, of course, has many faces. But ‘credit, pay in instalments, pay nothing today, etc.’ are all just debt. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

The Pulse team spends their time trawling through the world of banks and fintech apps, sorting the good from the bad so you don’t have to.