🇺🇸 Forbes' Personal Finance Content is Managed by a Shadowy Third Party
We're also covering Revolut's delayed launch in India 🇮🇳, Trump's New Crypto Adventure 🇺🇸, Brex's new white label offering 🇺🇸, the rise of salary advances in Canada 🇨🇦 & more.
🇺🇸 Forbes' Personal Finance Content is Managed by a Shadowy Third Party
Forbes’ personal finance content, marketed as Forbes Advisor, is actually managed by Marketplace Platforms Limited, not Forbes itself. This third-party entity uses the Forbes Advisors brand to run an affiliate marketing empire in the US, UK, Australia, Italy, Germany and Canada, driving client acquisitions for fintechs and financial institutions through affiliate links. According to a recent blog post penned by Lars Lofgren, Chief Growth Officer at performance marketing agency Stone Press, Forbes holds a 40% stake in Forbes Marketplace (the co-enterprise managing Forbes Advisors), while Marketplace Platforms Limited holds a controlling stake.
The joint venture’s rapid rise has allowed Forbes Advisor to pass Nerdwallet in term of organic traffic, with more than 20 millions visits per month. However, this profitable arrangement may violate Google’s rules against third-party content manipulation. Under Google's new site reputation abuse policy, third-party content produced primarily to manipulate rankings, like affiliate articles hosted by Forbes Advisor, could be flagged as spam.
Google recently began enforcing this policy, deranking the coupons sections of major websites like CNN and USA Today for similar practices. If Forbes is penalized, it risks losing valuable search traffic, which could severely damage its affiliate-driven business model and force its fintech clients to turn to other marketing channels. Further complicating the story, Marketplace Platforms has grown so powerful that, according to Lofgren, it is now attempting to acquire Forbes itself.
Source: Lars Lofgren
🇮🇳 Revolut Set to Launch in India in 2025 After Four Years of Delays
Revolut is set to launch its services in India next year. Although it established a presence in India in 2021, the London-based international neobank only received regulatory approval this year to issue prepaid cards and wallets. Paroma Chatterjee, CEO of Revolut India, told the Financial Times that the company’s strategy is “not just blindly scale focused,” emphasizing that it will prioritize profitability as it targets the top 10-15% of India's population, where the GDP per capita is estimated at $2,730.
Source: Financial Times
🇮🇪 Survey Shows 66% of Irish People Are Banking With Multiple Institutions
A new survey conducted by Ipsos for Ireland's Department of Finance shows that more Irish people than ever are using multiple banks. Indeed, 66% of respondents had more than one provider, up from 57% in 2023. The survey reveals that 42% of people have their main account with Allied Irish Banks, 33% with Bank of Ireland, and 14% with Permanent Trustee Savings Bank. Additionally, 36% occasionally use credit unions, and 40% now rely on apps outside traditional banking, largely thanks to Revolut. Overall, 81% of respondents believe that digital-only banks are a good alternative to traditional banks.
Source: Irish Examiner
🇲🇽 PayRetailers Launches in Nigeria, Kenya & Other African Countries
PayRetailers, a Mexican payment processor operating across Latin America, has expanded its services into eight African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, and Nigeria. This follows its earlier launch in Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda, and Tanzania three months ago, bringing its total African presence to 12 countries. The company’s unified payment solution offers access to over 300 local payment methods, including M-Pesa in Kenya, all integrated into a single API for ease of use.
Source: Finextra
🇺🇸 New F.D.I.C. Rules Aim to Secure Fintech Customer Deposits
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the U.S. agency responsible for protecting depositors, plan to impose new rules requiring banks that partner with fintech companies to keep detailed records of customers’ identities and balances. This measure targets American banks holding deposits for fintechs, which typically do not have their own banking licenses.
This proposal aims to address issues that arose when customers were unable to access their funds following the collapse of US-based banking-as-a-service provider Synapse Financial Technologies, which left users of the fintech products powered by Synapse cut off from $300 million of their money. Currently, in the United-States, funds transferred through fintech apps often end up pooled in a single bank account.
The new regulations would mandate that US banks know the identity of each customer and monitor their balances daily to ensure funds are protected, even if a fintech company fails. In contrast, in Europe, fintechs usually work with banking-as-a-service providers like Satchel or Clean Junction, which hold their own licenses and manage both the technology and risk under one roof, thus avoiding such issues.
Source: The New York Times
🇺🇸 Trump Serves Up His Partisans a New Crypto Platform with a Side of Bitcoin Burger
On September 16, 2024, the Trump family officially announced key details about their new crypto project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), during a two-hour event on X. The project, which aims to serve as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform for borrowing, lending, and investing in cryptocurrency, will issue its own token called WLFI. This venture is spearheaded by the former president’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, alongside real estate investor Steve Witkoff, with Donald Trump serving as the project’s "Chief Crypto Advocate."
Just two days later, on September 18, Trump made history as the first presidential candidate to publicly use Bitcoin when he paid for a burger at New York's crypto-themed PubKey Bar, a moment captured on X. This marked a remarkable U-turn from his earlier stance, when he called Bitcoin a "scam" during his presidency.
At the Bitcoin 2024 conference earlier this year, Trump vowed that if re-elected president, he would make the U.S. the crypto capital of the planet and push for the creation of a Bitcoin "strategic reserve" using the Bitcoins seized by the U.S. government. Although nobody is holding their breath for WLFI to revolutionize the crypto market, Trump's potential return to the White House could dramatically impact crypto regulation in the U.S.
Source: NBC News, AP News & USA Today
🇺🇸 Brex Enters the White-Label Payments and Virtual Credit Cards Market
Brex, a San Francisco-based fintech known for its multi-currency corporate credit cards for startups, has launched Brex Embedded, which allows third-party platforms to issue virtual credit cards under their own brand. This white-label solution enables software vendors to integrate Brex’s corporate card and payment capabilities without managing underwriting or onboarding. The API-driven tool, already used by companies like DoorDash and Sabre, offers features like quick customer onboarding and local currency payments in 50 countries.
Source: Banking Dive
🇧🇭 Crypto.com Secures a Payment License in Bahrain
Singapored-based global crypto exchange Crypto.com has secured a payment service provider (PSP) license from the Central Bank of Bahrain, allowing it to expand its e-money services and introduce prepaid cards in the region. Crypto.com, which already holds licenses in countries such as Singapore, France, Australia, Ireland, the UK, the US, Canada, and South Korea, is now serving over 100 million users worldwide.
Source: The Fintech Times
🇨🇦 Scotiabank Teams Up with ZayZoon to Provide Salary Advances to Canadians
Scotiabank, one of the top five banks in Canada, has partnered with Calgary-based ZayZoon to provide Canadian workers access to their earned wages before payday. Through this partnership, Scotiabank's business clients can integrate ZayZoon's platform into their payroll systems, enabling workers to access wages instantly without disrupting payroll processes. This initiative aims to improve financial well-being and retention for employees, with ZayZoon's data showing that companies offering this service see reduced absenteeism and lower employee turnover.
This news comes four months after ZayZoon re-entered the Canadian market, after initially focusing on the U.S. due to challenges in gaining traction locally. The company has seen renewed interest in its service due to rising financial pressures experienced by North-American employees. ZayZoon’s service is already used by major companies like Amazon and McDonald’s in the U.S.
Source: HR News Canada
Upcoming Fintech Events
🇪🇸 The European Blockchain Convention will be held in Barcelona on Sept. 25th & 26th (€719 to €1899) with speakers such as Polygon co-founder Jordi Baylina and Kraken COO Gilles BianRosa.
🇬🇧 The Fintech Without Borders Forum will be held in London on Sept. 25th (£109 to £326), with speakers such as Adam Gagen, head of government affairs at Revolut and Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO of AZA Finance.
🇺🇸 Boston Fintech Week will be held in Boston Oct. 14th to 18th ($395), with speakers such as Chris Behling, Head of Risk Product Sales & Underwriting at Northwestern Mutual and Matt Harris, partner at Bain Capital Ventures.
🇿🇦 The Africa Tech Festival will be held in Cape Town November 12-14 ($1,749), with speakers such as Kagiso Mothibi, CEO of MTN Fintech and Christian Kajeneri, director, payment systems at the National Bank of Rwanda.
Fintech’s Musical Chair
🇪🇸 Sergi Herrero, former head of payments at Meta & new markets lead at Square, was appointed as CEO of Madrid-based payment provider Mangopay.
🇪🇺 Mike Saunders, Plaid's credit team lead, has been appointed head of Plaid's European business, replacing Brian Dammeir.
🇺🇸 Brian Dammeir, former Adyen executive and previous head of Plaid’s European operations, now leads Plaid’s global payments division.
🇨🇳 Ruo Yang, former CFO at Shopline and co-CFO at Fosun, has been appointed head of technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) for China at J.P. Morgan.
🇨🇭 Michael Eidel, former CEO of Australian-based Openpay Group, has been appointed as the new CEO of Swiss company Yapeal, a provider of digital banking solutions, as the company secures fresh capital.
🇺🇸 Mitesh Popat, former CFO for Citi's Middle East and Africa operations, has been appointed Chief Financial Officer at Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company.
🇬🇧 Paul Pester, former TSB Bank CEO, has been appointed chair of UK-based embedded finance platform Firenze, which offers securities-backed loans through wealth managers brokers & investment platforms.
🇦🇪 Salma Tabbech, former strategic relationships manager in the UAE’s financial services industry, has been appointed Sales Director at XTB, an online investing platform.
Have some fintech news you think I should include in the Global Fintech Insider newsletter or heard some rumours you’d like me to look into? Drop me an email at: jrbrault@protonmail.com