We are sorry! Crises or Opportunities? - Issue #416

Nicole Valentine, FinTech Director at the Milken Institute Center For Financial Markets, joins Allie Garfinkle (Yahoo Finance) to discuss the current state of fintech in the US and globally. The banking crisis represented an opportunity for fintech. As Valentine affirmed, “Fintech is not scared of a crisis [...] a crisis for fintech is just another opportunity to figure out what’s next”.

The SEC is currently in a tough dispute with Coinbase. During a Q&A session, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said that crypto businesses “tend to be built on non-compliance”, and he highlighted that three out of four of the major and recent bank collapses were linked to cryptos. When Tom Barkin, president of the Fed of Richmond, asked why the SEC doesn’t want to publish rules for the crypto market, Gensler replied that those rules already exist.

Fintech in Africa is thriving, and Nigeria doesn’t want to miss the opportunity. For what concerns cryptocurrencies, the country is Bitcon friendly and developed a regulatory framework to welcome digital assets. This can represent a major step for the country to become an interesting place for crypto enthusiasts and investors.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said – during an interview – that regulators should focus less on creating new rules for banks. The main problem now, according to Dimon, is fixing the banking crisis.

The summit of the leaders of BRICS countries will be extremely interesting in 2023. Hosted in Johannesburg on August 22, the summit will be dominated by talks related to the creation of a common currency. South African minister Naledi Pandor said that the leaders must discuss this matter properly. BRICS were already involved in de-dollarization efforts, and the block is receiving a high number of requests to join the group – since an increasing number of countries don't understand why they’re committed to trading through the US dollar.

Ethiopia has so far been dominated by Ethio Telecom, a state-owned telecommunication company. For the first time, the National Bank issued a mobile money license to a foreign investor, the Kenyan Safaricom.

The centralized financial space has recently shown many weaknesses. In this article, FinTech Weekly analyzes the top CeFi lawsuits.