Hey everyone, Jordan here.
Today is a big day here at Fintech Today. Over the past few months, we’ve been busy building out our media platform. We’ve brought on amazing writers, started covering the booming fintech markets in LatAm and Africa, and released a podcast - the most recent episode of which featuring Frank Rotman and Ken Lin is already our most popular to date!
But on top of the media side, one of our goals as a company has always been making the fintech ecosystem more accessible. Today, we’re taking another big step forward in achieving this goal by announcing Fintech Today Jobs, our very own job board powered by Pallet. Whether you are a company who has recently raised and is looking to hire or a job seeker looking to break into fintech or advance your career, FTT Jobs offers you the opportunity to see and be seen. With new drops every Monday, our job board curates exclusive opportunities at high-growth fintechs across the globe.
For more information, reach out to me at [email protected].
The News
Metromile Crypto
There’s a new way to pay not only for your Tesla, but also the insurance for it. Fintech startup Metromile is going to start letting customers pay and get paid in crypto. Also like Tesla, the company is going to buy $10M worth of Bitcoin this quarter, though it’s unclear how much, if any of that, it has already bought.
Regulations For Crypto Exchanges
From FTT Expert John Collins: The new SEC Chair, Gary Gensler, yesterday promised to work to put together a regulatory framework for crypto exchanges. Jamie Dimon repeated the idea in an interview yesterday. (The video is worth watching, and short.) During an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box earlier this morning, Gensler again said he'd work to put crypto exchange regulatory frameworks in place.
Goldman Crypto Is Up and Running
Goldman Sachs has performed the ribbon cutting ceremony for cryptocurrency trading on Wall Street. This week, Goldman told employees in its markets division that a newly created cryptocurrency trading desk had successfully traded two kinds of Bitcoin-linked derivatives. Just wait until you can do that on Robinhood! (I’m joking, I hope). The derivatives it traded were Bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards, and didn’t require the bank to actually buy and store Bitcoin. The new team at Goldman sits in the global currencies and emerging markets trading division, and you can read the full memo here.
Fed Gets Friendly With Fintech
The Federal Reserve is deciding whether to give fintech companies more direct access to its payment system since so many companies in our space have grown dramatically during the course of the pandemic. The move is currently open to public comment, meaning loads of fintech companies should be commenting on this (if you’re not, what are you waiting for?!) If it goes through, it looks like some companies in our space would be able to access accounts and services provided by the Fed, giving them access to one of the most efficient ways to send money in the U.S. In the statement, Fed Governor Lael Brainard said:
“With technology driving rapid change in the payments landscape, the proposed account-access guidelines would ensure requests for access to the Federal Reserve payments system from novel institutions are evaluated in a consistent and transparent manner.”
Argyle Caught Phishing?
Honestly I hadn’t heard of Argyle before this story so I’m not incredibly familiar with it, but wow this is wild. The company collates payroll and employment history and then gives clients access to that. Well, apparently it might be part of a phishing scam. This is a must read from Vice.
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(Here's all the legal jargon we know you love reading.)
Career Corner
Not one, but two job postings from Monzo today. One for iOS and one for Android:
- Mobile Engineer (iOS / Android) at Monzo: Monzo’s US operation is expanding and is looking for outstanding mobile engineers to help lead development of their iOS and Android apps. Monzo is the top neo-bank in the UK, having recently passed 5M customers and to date raised more than $500M funding from top investors such as YCombinator, General Catalyst, Accel and Stripe. Now, it's expanding its office in San Francisco. The team is looking for candidates who are passionate about building magical experiences that real people will want to use every day. This is a unique opportunity to join a small product-focussed team as the first full time US mobile engineer, with lots of autonomy and independence.
