The price of bitcoin neared $68,400 on Wednesday, reaching its highest level since July and sparking a rally across the crypto sector.
Bitcoin is up more than 9% over the past week and ether is up about 7%. Other popular coins have also rallied, with solana up close to 10% in the past seven days and dogecoin up 15%.
The gains have made their way to crypto-pegged stocks. Digital asset exchange Coinbase climbed almost 7% on Wednesday, bringing its three-day rally to 19%. The stock is at its highest since August.
Bitcoin and Coinbase move higher in the last week.
One reason for bitcoin’s 53% gain so far this year is a host of new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds that hit the market in January, welcoming in a host of new investors. Ether ETFs followed in July.
Investors have bought $1.2 billion in ETF shares in the past three days, bringing total holdings to more than $63 billion. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has accounted for more than 30% of the new purchases.
Samara Cohen, chief investment officer of ETF and index investments at BlackRock, told CNBC recently that 80% of buyers of IBIT are direct investors. Of those, 75% have never owned a BlackRock ETF, she said.
“We went into this journey with the expectation that we needed to educate ETF investors on crypto and on bitcoin specifically,” Cohen said. “As it turns out, we have done a lot of education of crypto investors on the benefits of the ETP wrapper.”
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With shares of his nascent social media business in the midst of a sharp rebound and with just three weeks until the presidential election, Donald Trump is bringing his latest proposed money-making endeavor to market, this time in crypto.
On Tuesday, the former president and current Republican nominee aims to launch WLFI, the token accompanying his new crypto project called World Liberty Financial. Over the weekend, Trump pumped the sale in a post on X, telling his followers that it’s a “chance to help shape the future of finance.”
Prospective investors can be forgiven for having little idea about what they’re being asked to support.
People involved with WLF have described it as a sort of crypto bank, where customers will be encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in crypto. No official white paper or formal business plan has been released to the public, and about all that’s been disclosed is that investing in the project will give users voting rights over the yet-to-be-launched WLF platform.
In a roadmap given to prospective investors that was first viewed by The Block, the WLF proposal says the coin is looking to raise $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation in its initial sale. CNBC reached out to WLF for comment but didn’t hear back.
World Liberty Financial is separate and apart from Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of social media platform Truth Social. Trump Media, known by ticker symbol DJT, started trading in March, after going public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). It’s been a rocky road for the stock, which peaked at close to $80 in late March, before falling all the way down to $12.15 last month.
But since bottoming on Sept. 23, DJT shares are up close to 150% at $29.95, giving the company a market cap of $6 billion. That’s on revenue of less than $1 million a quarter and after the company lost more than $16 million in the latest period.
The Nasdaq Market site is seen on the day that shares of Truth Social and Trump Media & Technology Group start trading under the ticker “DJT”, in New York City, U.S., March 26, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
While DJT shares can be purchased by anyone, the digital coin WLFI will be a Regulation D token offering, following a provision that makes it possible to raise capital without first registering a security with the SEC. Certain conditions must be met, such as limiting the size of the sale and restricting it to accredited investors, defined in part as having a net worth of over $1 million.
Trump owns about 57% of DJT’s outstanding shares, but his potential control over World Liberty Financial is more opaque. WLF’s website, which is currently a landing page to register for know-your-customer verification to buy the coin, includes some of the fine print that indicates the financial incentive for the founders.
Co-founder Zachary Folkman, who previously had a company called Date Hotter Girls and reportedly helped develop crypto project Dough Finance, has said that 20% of WLF’s tokens would be allotted to the founding team, which includes the Trump family.
And there appears to be another way they can make money.
“DT Marks DEFI, LLC and its affiliates including Donald J. Trump and his family members has or may receive tokens from World Liberty Financial, and will be entitled to receive significant fees for services provided to World Liberty Financial, which amount cannot yet be determined,” the website says.
On Monday, less than 24 hours before the planned token launch, the WLF team convened a conversation on X Spaces to share details of the sale. About 12,000 people tuned in to listen to the more than hourlong chat about the overarching goals of the project.
Folkman reiterated what he said in a prior Spaces event, telling attendees that WLFI is a governance token that allows holders to vote on decisions regarding the protocol, including initiatives like promotional partnerships. He said token ownership “isn’t equity” and “doesn’t represent economic right.”
Folkman said the token sale will exclusively take place on World Liberty’s website, and that only those who had been whitelisted after signing up will be able to participate. He said “well over 100,000 people” are on the whitelist and that it’s not too late to register. Folkman added that WLF would publish the “long-awaited” roadmap for the project on Tuesday, in tandem with the token sale.
Last week, WLF began the process of getting its crypto bank approved by the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem known as Aave.
Aave is open source and, in DeFi, is one of the longest-running and most-trusted crypto lending platforms.
“The protocol itself is permissionless, so I’m kind of less opinionated about integrations, because that’s the whole idea of decentralized finance,” Aave founder Stani Kulechov told CNBC in an interview at the Permissionless Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Kulechov joined Monday’s X event and said he’s “excited that WLF is using and relying on” Aave.
‘”That’s a strong signal that what we build is fairly useful, so we’re super excited,” he said.
In a 400-word post to Aave’s governance forum, the WLF team presented a brief outline of its objectives, which include promoting “DeFi to a wider audience through its marketing efforts,” and introducing “a new class of users to over-collateralized borrowing and lending.” The proposal is currently at the preliminary stage of consideration known as “Temp Check,” and Aave’s users are able to comment on the plan.
In the comments section, a number of users raised concern over the project’s deep ties to the Trump family.
“I believe this proposal poses significant risk to the Aave protocol for little gain,” according to one comment that’s since been deleted. The commenter then questioned the rationale of having “the largest and most trusted protocol in DeFi” working with a group led “by people of questionable backgrounds … including several convicted criminals.”
Folkman helped start WLF with long-time business partner Chase Herro. CoinDesk reported that the pair previously worked on Dough Finance, which was also built on top of Aave and suffered a $2 million hack in July. Herro also launched another crypto trading business a decade ago called Pacer Capital, which appears to now be defunct.
For World Liberty to proceed, it must pass multiple rounds of consideration and approval, each decided by a vote among existing AAVE token holders.
At this stage in the process, the token sale is akin to an IOU. Those who buy in now have a claim to the token if and when the platform is approved and launched.
Despite bold statements, a lot of companies are failing to produce tangible results, according to Edward J Achtner, the head of generative AI for U.K. banking giant HSBC.
“Candidly, there’s a lot of success theater out there,” Achtner said on a panel at the CogX Global Leadership Summit alongside Ranil Boteju — a fellow AI leader at rival British bank Lloyds Banking Group — and Nathalie Oestmann, head of NV Ltd, an advisory firm for venture capital funds.
“We have to be very clinical in terms of what we choose to do, and where we choose to do it,” Achtner told attendees of the event, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London earlier this week.
Achtner outlined how the 150-year-old lending institution has embraced artificial intelligence since ChatGPT — the popular AI chatbot from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI — burst onto the scene in November 2022.
The HSBC AI leader said that the bank has more than 550 use cases across its business lines and functions linked to AI — ranging from fighting money laundering and fraud using machine learning tools to supporting knowledge workers with newer generative AI systems.
One example he gave was a partnership that HSBC has in place with internet search titan Google on the use of AI technology anti-money laundering and fraud mitigation. That tie-up has been in place for several years, he said. The bank has also dipped its toes deeper into genAI tech much more recently.
“When it comes to generative artificial intelligence, we do need to clearly separate that” from other types of AI, Achtner said. “We do approach the underlying risk with respect to generative very differently because, while it represents incredible potential opportunity and productivity gains, it also represents a different type of risk.”
Achtner’s comments come as other figures in the financial services sector — particularly leaders at startup firms — have made bold statements about the level of overall efficiency gains and cost reductions they are seeing as a result of investments in AI.
Buy now, pay later firm Klarna says it has been taking advantage of AI to make up for loss of productivity resulting from declines in its workforce as employees move on from the company.
It is implementing a company-wide hiring freeze and has slashed overall employee headcount down to 3,800 from 5,000 — a roughly 24% workforce reduction — with the help of AI, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in August. He is looking to further reduce Klarna’s headcount to 2,000 staff members — without specifying a time for this target.
Klarna’s boss said the firm was lowering its overall headcount against the backdrop of AI’s potential to have “a dramatic impact” on jobs and society.
“I think politicians already today should consider whether there are other alternatives of how they could support people that may be effective,” he said at the time in an interview with the BBC. Siemiatkowski said it was “too simplistic” to say AI’s disruptive effects would be offset by the creation of new jobs thanks to AI.
Oestmann of NV Ltd, a London-based firm that offers advisory services for the C-suite of venture capital and private equity firms, directly touched on Klarna’s actions, saying headlines around such AI-driven workforce reductions are “not helpful.”
Klarna, she suggested, likely saw that AI “makes them a more valuable company” and was consequently incorporating the technology as part of plans to reduce its workforce anyway.
The result Klarna is seeing from AI “are very real,” a Klarna spokesperson told CNBC. “We publicize these results because we want to be honest and transparent about the impact genAI is having in the real world in companies today,” the spokesperson added.
“At the end of the day,” Oestmann added, as long as people are “trained appropriately” and banks and other financial services firm can “reinvent” themselves in the new AI era, “it will just help us to evolve.” She advised financial firms to pursue “continuous learning in everything that you do.”
“Make sure you are trying these tools out, make sure you are making this part of your everyday, make sure you are curious,” she added.
Boteju, chief data and analytics officer at Lloyds, pointed to three main use cases that the lender sees with respect to AI: automating back office functions like coding and engineering documentation, “human-in-the loop” uses like prompts for sales staff, and AI-generated responses to client queries.
Boteju stressed that Lloyds is “proceeding with caution” when it comes to exposing the bank’s customers to generative AI tools. “We want to get our guardrails in place before we actually start to scale those,” he added.
“Banks in particular have been using AI and machine learning for probably about 15 or 20 years,” Boteju said, signaling that machine learning, intelligent automation and chatbots are things traditional lenders have been “doing for a while.”
Generative AI, on the other hand, is a more nascent technology, according to the Lloyds exec. The bank is increasingly thinking about how to scale that technology — but by “using the current frameworks and infrastructure we’ve got,” rather than by moving the needle significantly.
Boteju and Achtner’s comments tally with what other AI leaders of financial services have said previously. Speaking with CNBC last week, Bahadir Yilmaz, chief analytics officer of ING, said that AI is unlikely to be as disruptive as firms like Klarna are suggesting with their public messaging.
“We see the same potential that they’re seeing,” Yilmaz said in an interview in London. “It’s just the tone of communication is a bit different.” He added that ING is primarily using AI in its global contact centers and internally for software engineering.
“We don’t need to be seen as an AI-driven bank,” Yilmaz said, adding that, with many processes lenders won’t even need AI to solve certain problems. “It’s a really powerful tool. It’s very disruptive. But we don’t necessarily have to say we are putting it as a sauce on all the food.”
Johan Tjarnberg, CEO of Swedish online payments firm Trustly, told CNBC earlier this week that AI “will actually be one of the biggest technology levers in payments.”But even so, he noted that the firm is focusing more of the “basics of AI” than on transformative changes like AI-led customer service.
One area where Trustly is looking to improve customer experience with AI is subscriptions. The startup is working on an “intelligent charging mechanism” that would aim to figure out the best time for a bank to take payment from a subscription platform user, based on their historical financial activity.
Tjarnberg added that Trustly is seeing closer to 5-10% improved efficiency as a result of implementing AI within its organization.
BARCELONA, SPAIN – MARCH 01: A view of the MasterCard company logo on their stand during the Mobile World Congress on March 1, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Joan Cros Garcia/Corbis via Getty Images)
Mastercard said Tuesday that it’s agreed to acquire Minna Technologies, a software firm that makes it easier for consumers to manage their subscriptions.
The move comes as Mastercard and its primary payment network rival Visa are rapidly attempting to expand beyond their core credit and debit card businesses into technology services, such as cybersecurity, fraud prevention, and pay-by-bank payments.
Mastercard declined to disclose financial details of the transaction which is currently subject to a regulatory review.
The payments giant said that the deal, along with other initiatives it’s committed to around subscriptions, will allow it to give consumers a way to access all their subscriptions in a single view — whether inside your banking app or a central “hub.”
Minna Technologies, which is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, develops technology that helps consumers manage subscriptions within their banking apps and websites, regardless of which payment method they used for their subscriptions.
The company said it works with some of the world’s largest financial institutions in the world today. It already counts Mastercard as a key partner as well as its rival Visa.
“These teams and technologies will add to the broader set of tools that help manage the merchant-consumer relationship and minimize any disruption in their experience,” Mastercard said in a blog post Tuesday.
Consumers today often have tons of subscriptions to manage across multiple services such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney Plus. Owning multiple subscriptions can make it difficult to cancel them as consumers can end up losing track of which subscriptions they’re paying for and when.
Mastercard noted that this can have a negative impact on merchants because consumers who aren’t able to easily cancel their subscriptions end up calling on their banks to request a block on payments being taken.
According to Juniper Research data, there are 6.8 billion subscriptions globally, a number that’s expected to jump to 9.3 billion by 2028.
Financial services incumbents such as Mastercard have been rapidly growing their product suite to remain competitive with emerging fintech players that are offering more convenient, digitally native ways to manage consumers’ money management needs.
In 2020, Mastercard acquired Finicity, a U.S. fintech firm that enables third parties — such as fintechs or other banks — to gain access to consumers’ banking information and make payments on their behalf.
Earlier this year, the company announced that by 2030, it would tokenize all cards issued on its network in Europe — in other words, as a consumer, you wouldn’t need to enter your card details manually anymore and would only have to use your thumbprint to authenticate your identity when you pay.
Visa, meanwhile, is also trying to remain competitive with fintech challengers. Last month, the company launched a new service called Visa A2A, which makes it easier for consumers to set up and manage direct debits — payments which are taken directly from your bank account rather than by card.
Wells Fargo looks across all of its business lines when making investment decisions and selecting technology vendors. For the $1.7 trillion bank, working with vendors is “about the direction of the firm, our customer-forward focus and then thinking about intention and modernizing our core infrastructure,” Jazz Samra, head of strategic partnerships and innovation initiatives, told […]
It also ditched U.S. expansion efforts after selling its U.S. book of business to Betterment in 2021, and sold its Wealthsimple for Advisors to Purpose Advisor Solutions as it focused in on Canadian consumers.
The company’s valuation is also down from its peak. Power Corp., which across several divisions together held a 55.1% undiluted equity interest as of June 30, said the fair value of its holding was $1.5 billion. That’s down from $2.1 billion in 2021.
But the company has still managed a steep climb in assets from growth across the board, whether it’s wealth management, trading and brokerage or its banking business, said Katchen.
It comes as Wealthsimple increasingly positions itself as a full-suite alternative to the big banks, including boosting its banking services last year, that has helped lead to a $20 billion boost to the bank’s net deposits.
“We’ve been pretty excited about a more complete product offering,” said Katchen.
Product expansion to include mortgages, credit and insurance
Wealthsimple, which also offers tax services after buying Simpletax in 2019, launched a mortgage offering earlier this year and plans more credit products ahead along with an expansion into insurance, he said.
It’s all part of the company’s effort to rival the big banks, by having more than a trillion dollars in assets under administration.
While Katchen had originally said he’d want to reach that goal within the first 15 years, he’s now aiming for a slightly less ambitious timeline of within 20 years of co-founding Wealthsimple.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday proposed a new rule forcing banks to keep detailed records for customers of fintech apps after the failure of tech firm Synapse resulted in thousands of Americans being locked out of their accounts.
The rule, aimed at accounts opened by fintech firms that partner with banks, would make the institution maintain records of who owns it and the daily balances attributed to the owner, according to an FDIC memo.
Fintech apps often lean on a practice where many customers’ funds are pooled into a single large account at a bank, which relies on either the fintech or a third party to maintain ledgers of transactions and ownership.
That situation exposed customers to the risk that the nonbanks involved would keep shoddy or incomplete records, making it hard to determine who to pay out in the event of a failure. That’s what happened in the Synapse collapse, which impacted more than 100,000 users of fintech apps including Yotta and Juno. Customers with funds in these “for benefit of” accounts have been unable to access their money since May.
“In many cases, it was advertised that the funds were FDIC-insured, and consumers may have believed that their funds would remain safe and accessible due to representations made regarding placement of those funds in” FDIC-member banks, the regulator said in its memo.
Keeping better records would allow the FDIC to quickly pay depositors in the event of a bank failure by helping to satisfy conditions needed for “pass-through insurance,” FDIC officials said Tuesday in a briefing.
While FDIC insurance doesn’t get paid out in the event the fintech provider fails, like in the Synapse situation, enhanced records would help a bankruptcy court determine who is owed what, the officials added.
If approved by the FDIC board of governors in a vote Tuesday, the rule will get published in the Federal Register for a 60-day comment period.
Separately, the FDIC also released a statement on its policy on bank mergers, which would heighten scrutiny of the impacts of consolidation, especially for deals creating banks with more than $100 billion in assets.
Bank mergers slowed under the Biden administration, drawing criticism from industry analysts who say that consolidation would create more robust competitors for the likes of megabanks including JPMorgan Chase.
Dutch challenger bank Bunq told CNBC that it plans to grow its global headcount by 70% this year to over 700 employees, even as other financial technology startups have decided to cut jobs.
Bunq, which operates in markets across the European Union, is looking to expand into new regions including the U.K. and the United States, taking on the fintechs already in those countries, including the likes of Britain’s Monzo and Revolut, and American neobank Chime.
Bunq said it needs corresponding talent in those regions to support its global expansion ambitions. To that end, the firm said it plans to see out the year with 735 employees globally — up 72% from its 427 members of staff at the start of 2024.
“Bunq focusses on digital nomads who tend to roam the world,” Ali Niknam, Bunq’s CEO and co-founder, told CNBC via emailed comments.
So-called “digital nomads” are defined as people who travel freely while working remotely, using technology and the internet to work abroad from hotels, cafes, libraries, co-working spaces, or temporary housing.
“We’d love to be able to service our users wherever they go — given the regulatory environment we’re in, this results in us having to have a lot of extra people to make this happen,” Niknam added.
Bunq is currently in the process of applying for banking licenses in both the U.S. and U.K. Last year, the firm submitted an application for a federal banking license. And in the U.K., Bunq is awaiting a decision from financial regulators on an application to become a licensed e-money institution, or EMI.
The digital bank said it was actively looking to hire across sales and business development, product marketing, PR, affiliate marketing, and market analysis, as well as user support, development, and quality assurance.
Many of these positions will be part of a “tailored digital nomad” program that allows staff to work from anywhere in the world, Bunq said.
However, the firm stressed it’s not closing down office space and that many new hires would work in its offices, including in Amsterdam, Sofia, Istanbul, Munich, Paris, Dublin, Madrid, London, and New York City.
Over the past two years, one of the biggest stories in both the fintech and broader technology industry has been companies slashing jobs to cut back on the massive spending implemented during in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
The operating environment for fintech firms has gotten tougher, meanwhile, with inflation knocking consumer confidence and higher interest rates making it harder for startups to raise money.
Meanwhile, some fintechs are looking to artificial intelligence to take on a growing number of roles.
Swedish buy now, pay later firm Klarna, for instance, said last month that it was able to reduce its workforce from 5,000 to 3,800 over the past year from attrition alone. It added that it is looking to further cut employee numbers down to 2,000 through the use of AI in marketing and customer service.
“Our proven scale efficiencies have been enhanced by our investment in AI, which has driven down operating expenses and improved gross profits,” the company said in first-half earnings.
Klarna said that its average revenue per employee had risen 73% year-over-year, thanks in no small part to the internal application of AI.
Bunq’s Niknam said he doesn’t see AI as a way to help firms reduce headcount, however.
“We’ve been deploying AI systems and solutions years before they became mainstream, [but] in our experience AI empowers our employees to be able to do better by our users, more effectively and efficiently,” he told CNBC.
Bunq earlier this year reported its first full year of profitability, generating 53.1 million euros ($58.51 million) in net profit in 2023. The business was last valued privately by investors at 1.65 billion euros.
“Private investments” is a catch-all term referring to financial assets that do not trade on public stock, bond or derivatives markets. They include private equity, private debt, private real estate pools, venture capital, infrastructure and alternative strategies (a.k.a. hedge funds). Until recently, you had to be an accredited investor, with a certain net worth and income level, for an asset manager or third-party advisor to sell you private investments. For their part, private asset managers typically demanded minimum investments and lock-in periods that deterred all but the rich. But a 2019 rule change that permitted “liquid alternative” mutual funds and other innovations in Canada made private investments accessible to a wider spectrum of investors.
Why are people talking about private assets?
The number of investors and the money they have to invest has increased over the years, but the size of the public markets has not kept pace. The number of operating companies (not including exchange-traded funds, or ETFs) trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange actually declined to 712 at the end of 2023 from around 1,200 at the turn of the millennium. The same phenomenon has been noted in most developed markets. U.S. listings have fallen from 8,000 in the late 1990s to approximately 4,300 today. Logically that would make the price of public securities go up, which may have happened. But something else did, too.
Beginning 30 years ago, big institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and university endowments started allocating money to private investments instead. On the other side of the table, all manner of investment companies sprang up to package and sell private investments—for example, private equity firms that specialize in buying companies from their founders or on the public markets, making them more profitable, then selling them seven or 10 years later for double or triple the price. The flow of money into private equity has grown 10 times over since the global financial crisis of 2008.
In the past, companies that needed more capital to grow often had to go public; now, they have the option of staying private, backed by private investors. Many prefer to do so, to avoid the cumbersome and expensive reporting requirements of public companies and the pressure to please shareholders quarter after quarter. So, public companies represent a smaller share of the economy than in the past.
Raising the urgency, stocks and bonds have become more positively correlated in recent years; in an almost unprecedented event, both asset classes fell in tandem in 2022. Not just pension funds but small investors, too, now worry that they must get exposure to private markets or be left behind.
What can private investments add to my portfolio?
There are two main reasons why investors might want private investments in their portfolio:
Diversification benefits: Private investments are considered a different asset class than publicly traded securities. Private investments’ returns are not strongly correlated to either the stock or bond market. As such, they help diversify a portfolio and smooth out its ups and downs.
Superior returns: According to Bain & Company, private equity has outperformed public equity over each of the past three decades. But findings like this are debatable, not just because Bain itself is a private equity firm but because there are no broad indices measuring the performance of private assets—the evidence is little more than anecdotal—and their track record is short. Some academic studies have concluded that part or all of private investments’ perceived superior performance can be attributed to long holding periods, which is a proven strategy in almost any asset class. Because of their illiquidity, investors must hold them for seven years or more (depending on the investment type).
What are the drawbacks of private investments?
Though the barriers to private asset investing have come down somewhat, investors still have to contend with:
lliquidity: Traditional private investment funds require a minimum investment period, typically seven to 12 years. Even “evergreen” funds that keep reinvesting (rather than winding down after 10 to 15 years) have restrictions around redemptions, such as how often you can redeem and how much notice you must give.
Less regulatory oversight: Private funds are exempt from many of the disclosure requirements of public securities. Having name-brand asset managers can provide some reassurance, but they often charge the highest fees.
Short track records: Relatively new asset types—such as private mortgages and private corporate loans—have a limited history and small sample sizes, making due diligence harder compared to researching the stock and bond markets.
May not qualify for registered accounts: You can’t hold some kinds of private company shares or general partnership units in a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP), for example.
High management fees: Another reason why private investments are proliferating: as discount brokerages, indexing and ETFs drive down costs in traditional asset classes, private investments represent a market where the investment industry can still make fat fees. The hedge fund standard is “two and 20”—a management fee of 2% of assets per year plus 20% of gains over a certain threshold. Even their “liquid alt” cousins in Canada charge 1.25% for management and a 15.7% performance fee on average. Asset managers thus have an interest in packaging and promoting more private asset offerings.
How can retail investors buy private investments?
To invest in private investment funds the conventional way, you still have to be an accredited investor—which in Canada means having $1 million in financial assets (minus liabilities), $5 million in total net worth or $200,000 in pre-tax income in each of the past two years ($300,000 for a couple). But for investors of lesser means, there is a growing array of workarounds:
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
With limited resources and tough competition, efficient cash management can make or break your business. One major challenge is unpredictable cash flow, which often results from irregular sales cycles or delayed client payments. A 2023 QuickBooks survey revealed that 61% of small business owners find cash flow to be their biggest hurdle. This inconsistency can make it tough to plan and ensure there’s enough capital to cover essential expenses.
Startups often rely on manual processes for things like invoicing, expense tracking, and financial reporting. These old-school methods can lead to errors, inefficiencies and a lack of real-time financial visibility. With tight budgets and limited expertise, managing cash flow becomes even more challenging. Tasks like reconciling multiple bank accounts and forecasting future cash flow can be overwhelming without the right tools. That’s why startups need a smarter approach to cash management, and fintech solutions are here to help.
There are tools that offer real-time payments and notifications, keeping you instantly informed about the status of your transactions. This means you can spot and address any issues right away, helping you stay on top of your finances and avoid any unexpected surprises.
On top of real-time tracking, these tools can also forecast your future cash flow. They use past data and current trends to predict what your cash flow will look like down the road. This helps you plan better and avoid running into cash shortages. By knowing what to expect, you can make smarter decisions and ensure you have enough funds to cover future expenses, making your financial management smoother and more predictable.
2. Perfect your numbers
Fintech tools make keeping your financial records accurate by automating data entry, so you don’t have to do it all manually. For instance, payment software can automatically link with your accounting software and update your records for you. This reduces the chance of mistakes and keeps everything accurate without all the manual work.
This means they can catch issues before they become big problems, helping you keep your records in check and avoiding costly mistakes.
Fintech tools can help you save time and money by automating everyday financial tasks. They take care of invoicing, expense management and payroll automatically. This means you and your team spend less time on admin tasks and more on important work that helps your startup grow and even thrive.
Digital payment solutions usually come with lower transaction fees than traditional banking methods. These services have cheaper processing costs as compared to the slow payment options, which helps you keep your budget in check. This way, you can manage your finances more efficiently and save on unnecessary expenses.
4. Stay agile and make quick decisions
Fintech solutions make transactions super-fast, so you can jump on financial opportunities or tackle needs instantly. With features like instant payments and real-time bank updates, you can make quick decisions that keep you winning and ready to respond to changes.
Fintech tools provide detailed financial reports and analytics that help users make smart choices quickly. For startups, where timing is everything, having easy access to clear financial information lets users stay flexible and adapt on the fly. This agility helps users drive growth and challenges more smoothly.
So, how can you get fintech solutions working seamlessly in your startup? Here’s a simple strategy from my experience. Start with the basics — focus on core tools that address your immediate needs, like cash flow forecasting or automated invoicing and billing. Once you’re comfortable with these, you can gradually introduce more advanced tools, such as expense management systems or detailed financial analytics. Make sure the tools you choose integrate smoothly with your current systems to avoid disruptions and keep things running efficiently.
Investing in training is also important. Around 70% of organizations provide training for their staff to effectively use new technologies. Proper training helps your team maximize the benefits of your fintech tools. Your team must know how to use the software and troubleshoot common issues. Many fintech providers offer training resources and ongoing support to help with this. Regular check-ins with your provider will update you on new features and best practices.
Lastly, keep a close eye on how your fintech tools are performing. Regularly review their effectiveness to ensure they meet your needs and spot any inefficiencies. Be ready to adapt as your business grows or as new fintech solutions become available. Flexibility is essential for maintaining efficient cash flow management strategies and ensuring your startup stays on top of its financial game.
Visa said it plans to launch a dedicated service for bank transfers, skipping credit cards and the traditional direct debit process.
Visa, which alongside Mastercard is one of the world’s largest card networks, said Thursday it plans to launch a dedicated service for account-to-account (A2A) payments in Europe next year.
Users will be able set up direct debits — transactions that take funds directly from your bank account — on merchants’ e-commerce stores with just a few clicks.
Visa said consumers will be able to monitor these payments more easily and raise any issues by clicking a button in their banking app, giving them a similar level of protection to when they use their cards.
The service should help people deal with problems like unauthorized auto-renewals of subscriptions, by making it easier for people to reverse direct debit transactions and get their money back, Visa said. It won’t initially apply its A2A service to things like TV streaming services, gym memberships and food boxes, Visa added, but this is planned for the future.
The product will initially launch in the U.K. in early 2025, with subsequent releases in the Nordic region and elsewhere in Europe later in 2025.
The problem currently is that when a consumer sets up a payment for things like utility bills or childcare, they need to fill in a direct debit form.
But this offers consumers little control, as they have to share their bank details and personal information, which isn’t secure, and have limited control over the payment amount.
Static direct debits, for example, require advance notice of any changes to the amount taken, meaning you have to either cancel the direct debit and set up a new one or carry out a one-off transfer.
With Visa A2A, consumers will be able to set up variable recurring payments (VRP), a new type of payment that allows people to make and manage recurring payments of varying amounts.
“We want to bring pay-by-bank methods into the 21st century and give consumers choice, peace of mind and a digital experience they know and love,” Mandy Lamb, Visa’s managing director for the U.K. and Ireland, said in a statement Thursday.
“That’s why we are collaborating with UK banks and open banking players, bringing our technology and years of experience in the payments card market to create an open system for A2A payments to thrive.”
Visa’s A2A product relies on a technology called open banking, which requires lenders to provide third-party fintechs with access to consumer banking data.
Open banking has gained popularity over the years, especially in Europe, thanks to regulatory reforms to the banking system.
The technology has enabled new payment services that can link directly to consumers’ bank accounts and authorize payments on their behalf — provided they’ve got permission.
In 2021, Visa acquired Tink, an open banking service, for 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion). The deal came on the heels of an abandoned bid from Visa to buy competing open banking firm Plaid.
Visa’s buyout of Tink was viewed as a way for it to get ahead of the threat from emerging fintechs building products that allow consumers — and merchants — to avoid paying its card transaction fees.
Merchants have long bemoaned Visa and Mastercard’s credit and debit card fees, accusing the companies of inflating so-called interchange fees and barring them from directing people to cheaper alternatives.
In March, the two companies reached a historic $30 billion settlement to reduce their interchange fees — which are taken out of a merchant’s bank account when a shopper uses their card to pay for something.
Visa didn’t share details on how it would monetize its A2A service. By giving merchants the option to bypass cards for payments, there’s a risk that Visa could potentially cannibalize its own card business.
For its part, Visa told CNBC it is and always has been focused on enabling the best ways for people to pay and get paid, whether that’s through a card or non-card transaction.
“Buy-now, pay-later” firm Klarna aims to return to profit by summer 2023.
Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Klarna said it posted a profit in the first half of the year, swinging into the black from a loss last year as the buy now, pay later pioneer edges closer toward its hotly anticipated stock market debut.
In results published Tuesday, Klarna said that it made an adjusted operating profit of 673 million Swedish krona ($66.1 million) in the six months through June 2024, up from a loss of 456 million krona in the same period a year ago. Revenue, meanwhile, grew 27% year-on-year to 13.3 billion krona.
On a net income basis, Klarna reported a 333 million Swedish krona loss. However, Klarna cites adjusted operating income as its primary metric for profitability as it better reflects “underlying business activity.”
Klarna is one of the biggest players in the so-called buy now, pay later sector. Alongside peers PayPal, Block‘s Afterpay, and Affirm, these companies give consumers the option to pay for purchases via interest-free monthly installments, with merchants covering the cost of service via transaction fees.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO and co-founder, said the company saw strong revenue growth in the U.S. in particular, where sales jumped 38% thanks to a ramp-up in merchant onboarding.
“Klarna’s massive global network continues to expand rapidly, with millions of new consumers joining and 68k new merchant partners,” Siemiatkowski said in a statement Tuesday.
The company achieved its adjusted operating profit “by focusing on sustainable, profitable growth and leveraging AI to lower costs,” he added.
Klarna has been one of the forerunners in the corporate world when it comes to touting the benefits of using AI to increase productivity and cut operating costs.
On Tuesday, the company said that its average revenue per employee over the previous twelve months increased 73% year-over-year, to 7 million Swedish krona.
It comes as Klarna tries to pitch itself as a primary banking provider for clients as it approaches a much-anticipated initial public offering.
The move highlighted how Klarna is looking to diversify beyond its core buy now, pay later product, for which it is primarily known.
Klarna has yet to set a fixed timeline for the stock market listing, which is widely expected to be held in the U.S.
However, in an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” in February, Siemiatkowski said an IPO this year was “not impossible.”
“We still have a few steps and work ahead of ourselves,” he said. “But we’re keen on becoming a public company.”
Separately, Klarna earlier this year offloaded its proprietary checkout technology business, which allows merchants to offer online payments, to a consortium of investors led by Kamjar Hajabdolahi, CEO and founding partner of Swedish venture capital firm BLQ Invest.
The move, which Klarna called a “strategic” step, effectively removed competition for rival online checkout services including Stripe, Adyen, Block, and Checkout.com.
Buy now, pay later firms like Klarna and Block’s Afterpay could be about to face tougher rules in the U.K.
Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Financial technology firm Klarna is pushing deeper into banking with its own checking account-like product and a cashback offering that rewards users for shopping via its app.
The company — best known for its buy now, pay later loans that let consumers pay for purchases via interest-free monthly installments — said Thursday that it is launching the new products as it seeks to “disrupt retail banking” and encourage customers to move their spending and saving onto its platform.
“These new products make it easier for customers to manage multiple scheduled payments, helping our customers use Klarna for more frequent purchases and driving loyalty,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO and founder, told CNBC.
Siemiatkowski said that Klarna wants to “support all consumers with their everyday spending,” adding that the products will allow people to “earn money while they shop and manage it in a Klarna account.”
The two new products, which are being rolled out in 12 markets including the U.S. and across Europe, will show up in the Klarna app as “balance” and “cashback.”
Klarna balance lets users store money in a bank-like personal account, which they can then use to make instant purchases and pay off their buy now, pay later loans.
Users can also receive refunds for returned items directly in their Klarna balance.
Cashback offers customers the ability to earn up to 10% of the value of their purchases at participating retailers as rewards. Any money earned gets automatically stored in their balance account.
It’s not Klarna’s first foray into more traditional banking; the company has offered checking accounts and savings products in Germany since 2021.
Now, the company is expanding these banking products in other markets.
Customers in the EU — where Klarna has an official bank license — will be able to earn as much as 3.58% interest on their deposits. Customers in the U.S., however, will not be able to earn interest.
The launch marks a major step up in Klarna’s product range as the fintech giant edges closer toward a much-anticipated U.S. IPO.
Klarna has yet to set a fixed timeline for the stock market listing. However, in an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” in February, Siemiatkowski said an IPO this year was “not impossible.”
“We still have a few steps and work ahead of ourselves,” he said. “But we’re keen on becoming a public company.”
In the meantime, Klarna is in discussions with investors about a secondary share sale to provide its employees with some liquidity, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
Klarna’s valuation on the open secondary market is currently in the high-teen billions, said the source, who was speaking on condition of anonymity as details of the share sale are not yet public.
The next-generation fintech now offers core banking, issuer processing, and card issuing services.
NEW YORK, August 14, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Omniwire, a leading next-generation fintech company, announces the official launch of its platforms and products with a suite of core banking, issuer processing, and card issuing services that allow financial services, fintechs and enterprises to go to market quickly and efficiently.
Omniwire’s mission is to create proprietary and innovative core banking, issuer processing, card issuance and embedded finance solutions that provide clients seamless integration and aggressive go-to-market strategies.
Omniwire presents those solutions – core banking, issuer processing and card issuing services, with a demand debit account (DDA) and debit card – to the world.
“We are proud to unveil this slate of unparalleled solutions that will deliver on Omniwire’s promise to reshape the digital payments landscape,” said Omniwire CEO Serge Beck. “This is just the beginning of our innovative industry-leading products and solutions.”
Omniwire designed its comprehensive array of secure, cloud-based and patented technology to streamline processes and drive improved efficiency, providing financial institutions, fintechs and enterprises with aggressive go-to-market strategies. Omniwire is built on a Cloud-based infrastructure to support Business-to-Business, Business-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Consumer, and Consumer-to-Business transactions.
The services include:
Core banking is an advanced core banking platform designed to streamline and optimize all critical payments operations and maintenance of customer accounts and financial records in real time across digital touch points. It enables financial institutions to deliver streamlined banking services and integrate seamlessly with existing systems.
The core products and features of the platform include card processing, ACH transaction processing, a virtual wallet ledger, and various fintech products. Key features of the platform include a modular and modern microservice architecture, ensuring scalability and ease of integration.
The core banking platform utilizes a cloud-based Infrastructure as a code approach, which allows for the quick deployment of production-ready environments. Its event-driven architecture provides a real-time experience across all levels of the system. Lite Core Banking deploys within days and is a cost-effective, flexible, and modular solution. It is available as a white-label product, providing everything needed for a fintech to start operations.
Issuer processing seamlessly integrates card management, efficient transaction authorization systems, card-to-card and account-to-account transfers, and advanced security features. Omniwire’s issuer processing facilitates a wide range of use cases.
The Omniwire issuer processing platform delivers end-to-end card management and transaction authorization services with advanced security features for financial institutions, fintechs and enterprises. It delivers end-to-end card management and transaction authorization services with advanced security features. Integration with the agnostic Omniwire platform via its open API architecture allows clients to focus on their go-to-market strategy, reduce costs and more quickly attain profitability.
With an agnostic API-based system, Card issuance provides a seamless, scalable solution to launch and manage card programs, including debit, credit, prepaid, physical, virtual and tokenized cards. Omniwire’s solution is highly customizable, allowing clients to tailor card products unique to their needs.
“Omniwire is more than just a technology frontrunner and financial services provider,” Beck said. “We are a partner for financial institutions, fintechs, and enterprises seeking a single gateway for multiple instant payment systems.”
Omniwire is a leading next-generation fintech company specializing in core banking, issuer processing and card issuing services. Its comprehensive suite of secure, cloud-based, patented technology streamlines processes and drives improved efficiency, providing clients with seamless integration and aggressive go-to-market strategies.
Financial services companies and their digital technology suppliers are under intense pressure to achieve compliance with strict new rules from the EU that require them to boost their cyber resilience.
By the start of next year, financial services firms and their technology suppliers will have to make sure that they’re in compliance with a new incoming law from the European Union known as DORA, or the Digital Operational Resilience Act.
CNBC runs through what you need to know about DORA — including what it is, why it matters, and what banks are doing to make sure they’re prepared for it.
DORA requires banks, insurance companies and investment to strengthen their IT security. The EU regulation also seeks to ensure the financial services industry is resilient in the event of a severe disruption to operations.
Such disruptions could include a ransomware attack that causes a financial company’s computers to shut down, or a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack that forces a firm’s website to go offline.
Multiple banks, payment firms and investment companies — from JPMorgan Chase and Santander, to Visa and Charles Schwab — were unable to provide service due to the outage. It took these firms several hours to restore service to consumers.
In the future, such an event would fall under the type of service disruption that would face scrutiny under the EU’s incoming rules.
Mike Sleightholme, president of fintech firm Broadridge International, notes that a standout factor of DORA is that it doesn’t just focus on what banks do to ensure resiliency — it also takes a close look at firms’ tech suppliers.
Under DORA, banks will be required to undertake rigorous IT risk management, incident management, classification and reporting, digital operational resilience testing, information and intelligence sharing in relation to cyber threats and vulnerabilities, and measures to manage third-party risks.
Firms will be required to conduct assessments of “concentration risk” related to the outsourcing of critical or important operational functions to external companies.
These IT providers often deliver “critical digital services to customers,” said Joe Vaccaro, general manager of Cisco-owned internet quality monitoring firm ThousandEyes.
“These third-party providers must now be part of the testing and reporting process, meaning financial services companies need to adopt solutions that help them uncover and map these sometimes hidden dependencies with providers,” he told CNBC.
Banks will also have to “expand their ability to assure the delivery and performance of digital experiences across not just the infrastructure they own, but also the one they don’t,” Vaccaro added.
DORA entered into force on Jan. 16, 2023, but the rules won’t be enforced by EU member states until Jan. 17, 2025.
The EU has prioritised these reforms because of how the financial sector is increasingly dependent on technology and tech companies to deliver vital services. This has made banks and other financial services providers more vulnerable to cyberattacks and other incidents.
“There’s a lot of focus on third-party risk management” now, Sleightholme told CNBC. “Banks use third-party service providers for important parts of their technology infrastructure.”
“Enhanced recovery time objectives is an important part of it. It really is about security around technology, with a particular focus on cybersecurity recoveries from cyber events,” he added.
Many EU digital policy reforms from the last few years tend to focus on the obligations of companies themselves to make sure their systems and frameworks are robust enough to protect against damaging events like the loss of data to hackers or unauthorized individuals and entities.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, for example, requires companies to ensure the way they process personally identifiable information is done with consent, and that it’s handled with sufficient protections to minimize the potential of such data being exposed in a breach or leak.
DORA will focus more on banks’ digital supply chain — which represents a new, potentially less comfortable legal dynamic for financial firms.
For financial firms that fall foul of the new rules, EU authorities will have the power to levy fines of up to 2% of their annual global revenues.
Individual managers can also be held responsible for breaches. Sanctions on individuals within financial entities could come in as high a 1 million euros ($1.1 million).
For IT providers, regulators can levy fines of as high as 1% of average daily global revenues in the previous business year. Firms can also be fined every day for up to six months until they achieve compliance.
Third-party IT firms deemed “critical” by EU regulators could face fines of up to 5 million euros — or, in the case of an individual manager, a maximum of 500,000 euros.
That’s slightly less severe than a law such as GDPR, under which firms can be fined up to 10 million euros ($10.9 million), or 4% of their annual global revenues — whichever is the higher amount.
Carl Leonard, EMEA cybersecurity strategist at security software firm Proofpoint, stresses that criminal sanctions may vary from member state to member state depending on how each EU country applies the rules in their respective markets.
DORA also calls for a “principle of proportionality” when it comes to penalties in response to breaches of the legislation, Leonard added.
That means any response to legal failings would have to balance the time, effort and money firms spend on enhancing their internal processes and security technologies against how critical the service they’re offering is and what data they’re trying to protect.
Stephen McDermid, EMEA chief security officer for cybersecurity firm Okta, told CNBC that many financial services firms have prioritized using existing internal operational resilience and third-party risk programs to get into compliance with DORA and “identify any gaps they may have.”
“This is the intention of DORA, to create alignment of many existing governance programs under a single supervisory authority and harmonise them across the EU,” he added.
Fredrik Forslund vice president and general manager of international at data sanitization firm Blancco, warned that though banks and tech vendors have been making progress toward compliance with DORA, there’s still “work to be done.”
On a scale from one to 10 — with a value of one representing noncompliance and 10 representing full compliance — Forslund said, “We’re at 6 and we’re scrambling to get to 7.”
“We know that we have to be at a 10 by January,” he said, adding that “not everyone will be there by January.”
Morgan Stanley on Friday told its army of financial advisors that it will soon allow them to offer bitcoin ETFs to some clients, a first among major Wall Street banks, CNBC has learned.
The firm’s 15,000 or so financial advisors can solicit eligible clients to purchase shares of two exchange-traded bitcoin funds starting Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the policy.
The move from Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s largest wealth management firms, is the latest sign of the adoption of bitcoin by mainstream finance. In January, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved applications for 11 spot bitcoin ETFs, heralding the arrival of an investment vehicle for bitcoin that is easier to access, cheaper to own and more readily traded.
So it’s not surprising that Wall Street’s major wealth management businesses didn’t immediately embrace the new ETFs, forbidding their financial advisors from pitching them and only allowing trades if clients actively sought out the product.
Morgan Stanley made the move in response to demand from clients and in an attempt to follow an evolving marketplace for digital assets, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s internal policies.
The bank is still striking a note of caution, however, in the rollout: Only clients with a net worth of at least $1.5 million, an aggressive risk tolerance and the desire to make speculative investments are suitable for bitcoin ETF solicitation, said the people. The investments are for taxable brokerage accounts, not retirement accounts, they added.
The bank will monitor clients’ crypto holdings to make sure they don’t end up with excessive exposure to the volatile asset class, according to the sources.
The only crypto investments approved for solicited purchase at Morgan Stanley are the pair of bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity; private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that the bank made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year.
Morgan Stanley is watching how the market for newly approved ether ETFs develops and hasn’t committed to whether it would provide access to those, the people said.
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Correction: Private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that Morgan Stanley made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year. An earlier version of this story included inaccurate information from Morgan Stanley sources about the company’s crypto investment offerings.
AI-generated responses are becoming more common, whether travelers know or not.
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An automated financial advisor called PortfolioPilot has quickly gained $20 billion in assets in a possible preview of how disruptive artificial intelligence could be for the wealth management industry.
The service has added more than 22,000 users since its launch two years ago, according to Alexander Harmsen, co-founder of Global Predictions, which launched the product.
The San Francisco-based startup raised $2 million this month from investors including Morado Ventures and the NEA Angel Fund to fund its growth, CNBC has learned.
The world’s largest wealth management firms have rushed to implement generative AI after the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, rolling out services that augment human financial advisors with meeting assistants and chatbots. But the wealth management industry has long feared a future where human advisors are no longer necessary, and that possibility seems closer with generative AI, which uses large language models to create human-sounding responses to questions.
Still, the advisor-led wealth management space, with giants including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, has grown over the past decade even amid the advent of robo-advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront. At Morgan Stanley, for instance, advisors manage $4.4 trillion in assets, far more than the $1.2 trillion managed in its self-directed channel.
Many providers, whether human or robo-advisor, end up putting clients into similar portfolios, said Harmsen, 32, who previously cofounded an autonomous drone software company called Iris Automation.
“People are fed up with cookie-cutter portfolios,” Harmsen told CNBC. “They really want opinionated insights; they want personalized recommendations. If we think about next-generation advice, I think it’s truly personalized, and you get to control how involved you are.”
The startup uses generative AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta’s Llama, meshing it with machine learning algorithms and traditional finance models for more than a dozen purposes throughout the product, including for forecasting and assessing user portfolios, Harmsen said.
When it comes to evaluating portfolios, Global Predictions focuses on three main factors: whether investment risk levels match the user’s tolerance; risk-adjusted returns; and resilience against sharp declines, he said.
Users can get a report card-style grade of their portfolio by connecting their investment accounts or manually inputting their stakes into the service, which is free; a $29 per month “Gold” account adds personalized investment recommendations and an AI assistant.
“We will give you very specific financial advice, we will tell you to buy this stock, or ‘Here’s a mutual fund that you’re paying too much in fees for, replace it with this,'” Harmsen said.
“It could be simple stuff like that, or it could be much more complicated advice, like, ‘You’re overexposed to changing inflation conditions, maybe you should consider adding some commodities exposure,'” he added.
Global Predictions targets people with between $100,000 and $5 million in assets — in other words, people with enough money to begin worrying about diversification and portfolio management, Harmsen said.
The median PortfolioPilot user has a $450,000 net worth, he said.
The startup doesn’t yet take custody of user funds; instead it gives paying customers detailed directions on how to best tailor their portfolios. While that has lowered the hurdle for users to get involved with the software, a future version could give the company more control over client money, Harmsen said.
“It’s likely that over the next year or two, we will build more and more automation and deeper integrations into these institutions, and maybe even a Gen 2 robo-advisor system that allows you to custody funds with us, and we’ll just execute the trades for you.”
Harmsen said he created the first version of PortfolioPilot a few years ago to manage his own newfound wealth after selling his first company.
He’d grown frustrated after meeting more than a dozen financial advisors and realizing that they were “basically just salespeople trying to give access to this fairly standard” approach, he said.
“It felt like a very real problem for me, because the only alternative I saw on the market was, you know, basically becoming a day trader and becoming my own portfolio manager,” Harmsen said.
“I wanted hedge fund-quality tools and ways to think about risk and downside protection, and portfolio management across all of my different accounts and the buckets of money in crypto and real estate,” he said.
So around the time he was starting a family and buying a home in San Francisco, he began coding a program that could manage his investments.
After realizing it could have a broader use, Harmsen began building a team for Global Predictions, including three former employees of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund.
The company’s rise has attracted regulatory scrutiny; in March, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Global Predictions of making misleading claims in 2023 on its website, including that it was the “first regulated AI financial advisor.” Global Predictions paid a $175,000 fine and changed its tagline as a result.
While today’s dominant providers have been rushing to implement AI, many will be left behind by the transition to fully automated advice, Harmsen predicted.
“The real key is you need to find a way to use AI and economic models and portfolio management models to generate advice automatically,” he said.
“I think that is such a huge jump for the traditional industry; it’s not incremental, it’s very black or white,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next 10 years, but I suspect there will be a massive shake up for traditional human financial advisors.”
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking at a campaign rally at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 20, 2024.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
NASHVILLE — Former President Donald Trump said that if he were returned to the White House, he would ensure that the federal government never sells off its bitcoin holdings. But he stopped short of proposing a formal federal reserve of digital currency.
“For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump said during his keynote speech at this year’s Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, the biggest bitcoin conference of the year.
The former president’s remarks cameas the race to capture the votes and the campaign cash of America’s frontline fintech adopters takes center stage in the 2024 presidential contest.
“This afternoon I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world and we’ll get it done,” Trump said.
But Trump’s pledge to simply maintain the U.S. government’s current bitcoin holdings was a less radical pitch to the crypto crowd relative to other proposals at the conference.
Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for instance, during his Friday Bitcoin Conference speech promised to launch a reserve of 4 million bitcoin, starting with the bitcoin holdings that the U.S. government already has stockpiled from criminal seizures. Kennedy said he would mandate the government purchase 550 bitcoin a day until the reserve reached 4 million.
Shortly after Trump’s speech, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wy., read out her own legislative proposal to amass an official U.S. federal reserve of 1 million bitcoin over five years.
“It will be held for a minimum of 20 years and can be used for one purpose: Reduce our debt,” Lummis said.
The price of bitcoin briefly dipped during Trump’s speech, but recovered and was up slightly for the day, as of 5:15 p.m. E.T.
Throughout his remarks, the former president worked to draw contrasts between the Republican Party’s growing embrace of crypto versus the hardline regulatory approach that has characterized the Biden administration.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s repression of crypto and bitcoin is wrong and it’s very bad for our country,” Trump said. “Let me tell you if they win this election, every one of you will be gone. They will be vicious. They will be ruthless. They will do things that you wouldn’t believe.”
Trump went on to list a series of crypto-friendly promises to a crowd of cheering bitcoin supporters, promising to dismantle what he called the “anti-crypto crusade” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” Trump said, referencing the Biden-appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto regulation.
The president does not have the power to fire appointed commissioners. Even if Trump were to appoint a new SEC chairman, Gensler would remain a commissioner on the independent agency.
The former president also pledged to create a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council.”
“The rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,” Trump said.
The Republican presidential nominee also held an accompanying fundraiser in Nashville, with tickets topping out at $844,600. In June, BTC Inc. CEO David Bailey, who organized the conference, pledged to raise $100 million and turn out more than 5,000,000 voters for the Trump re-election effort, as the bitcoin sector increasingly turns to the Trump camp for support.
Trump taking the main stage to directly address the bitcoin community is the latest in a months-long campaign to appeal to the crypto contingent, including accepting donations in virtual tokens, pledging to end President Joe Biden’s “war on crypto,” and advocating that all future bitcoin be made in America. It is also quite the about-face by the Republican presidential nominee.
Trump very publicly dismissed bitcoin when he was in the White House. In July 2019, he said he was “not a fan” of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He said that tokens aren’t money, that their value was “based on thin air,” and warned that unregulated crypto assets could help facilitate the drug trade, among “other illegal activity.”
“Bitcoin just seems like a scam,” he told Fox in a phone interview in 2021. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”
“I want the dollar to be the currency of the world, that’s what I’ve always said,” continued Trump in his conversation with Fox.
But five years, a lost presidential election, and millions of dollars from the crypto lobby later, the Republican presidential nominee sung the praises of the digital currency at the biggest bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville, which kicked off on Thursday.
“Bitcoin stands for freedom, sovereignty and independence from government coercion and control,” Trump said during his keynote speech.
Trump’s shift on bitcoin comes as the Republican Party pledges to lift the red tape of the Biden-Harris administration, working to turn crypto regulation into a voting issue for November, especially as inflation consistently ranks as a top voter priority in polls.
As crypto lobbyists and supporters become more of a presence in Washington, it raises questions on whether the Democratic Party will dig into the hardline regulatory approach of the past several years or ease its position.
“Every presidential candidate needs to understand, digital asset, pro-innovation voters are here to stay,” Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel of North Carolina told CNBC in an interview, adding that crypto regulation should not become a “partisan political football.”
“I want to keep this as a bipartisan issue. I don’t want Donald Trump to politicize this issue,” Rep. Nickel said.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., echoed Rep. Nickel’s sentiment, saying that crypto should not turn into a partisan talking point but will require regulation like any technology.
“I don’t really see why it’s partisan. Being against bitcoin is like being against cell phones. It’s like being against AI. It’s like being against laptops,” Khanna told CNBC. “It’s a technology. Have thoughtful regulation on the technology, but it’s a technology that has appreciated from about $10,000 to $80,000.”
Reps. Khanna and Nickel were two of the only Democrats to attend the Bitcoin Conference.
Bitcoin 2024 conference organizers say they were briefly in talks to have Vice President Kamala Harris appear at the conference, though she ultimately declined. But billionaire businessman Mark Cuban posted on X that the Harris campaign had reached out with questions about crypto, so it appears the vice president is looking into this space and potentially figuring out where her policies, if elected president, could land.
“I think we’re going to hear from Vice President Harris soon on this. And I’m very optimistic we’re gonna get a reset. And that I think, will matter in a major way,” Rep. Nickel said. “This issue isn’t going anywhere. And we’ve got to make sure we continue to embrace this in bipartisan way.”
Harris’ team has already begun to reach out to people close to crypto companies to set up meetings, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
The recent thaw in Trump’s sentiment for the digital asset space has coincided with a sudden influx of interest and cash from the country’s top tech talent.
He has raised more than $4 million in a mix of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether, the U.S. dollar pegged stablecoin USDC, and various memecoins, with contributors hailing from 12 states, including a few battlegrounds.
Crypto billionaire twins and venture investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss led the charge, each contributing 15.57 bitcoin, or just over $1 million at the time of their donation, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission — though they received a partial refund, because contributions surpassed the $844,600 limit.
There are a number of other venture capitalists who are pro-crypto, and they’ve pledged millions to the Trump campaign, as well.
Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz told employees of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) that they plan to make significant donations to political action committees supporting Trump’s campaign. The partners of Sequoia Capital are backing Trump, as is venture investor David Sacks, who helped the former president raise $12 million at a fundraiser he hosted in his San Francisco home. The chief legal officers for centralized crypto exchange Coinbase and blockchain giant Ripple were both there.
These members of the tech elite are also heavily contributing to pro-crypto super PACs like Fairshake, which has raised more than $200 million dollars to elect pro-crypto candidates up and down the ballot, and on both sides of the aisle.
But reporting from NBC News finds that the vice president’s team is looking to win over support from some of big tech’s undecided donors, many of whom remained on the sidelines while President Joe Biden remained in the race. Their tune may be changing now that the vice president is the de facto nominee for the party.
It helps that Harris has a long track record in California.
She has been fundraising in the tech community for years, including from those working at Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple.
“The pivot that has occurred in the last three days is dramatic,” Steve Westly, a venture capitalist and one-time gubernatorial candidate for California, told NBC News. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a surge of enthusiasm in any campaign I’ve been involved with.”
This comes as Trump’s running mate for vice president, JD Vance, is set to hold a fundraiser of his own in Palo Alto on Monday.
— CNBC’s Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.
Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on June 13, 2024.
Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is cracking down on so-called paycheck advance programs, which have grown popular with workers in recent years.
Such programs, also known as earned wage access, allow workers to tap their paychecks before payday, often for a fee, according to the CFPB.
The CFPB proposed an interpretive rule on Thursday saying the programs — both those offered via employers and directly to users via fintech apps — are “consumer loans” subject to the Truth in Lending Act.
More than 7 million workers accessed about $22 billion in wages before payday in 2022, according to a CFPB analysis of employer-sponsored programs also published Thursday. The number of transactions jumped more than 90% from 2021 to 2022, the agency said.
Such services aren’t new: Fintech companies debuted them in their earliest form more than 15 years ago. But their use has accelerated recently amid household financial burdens imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and high inflation, experts said.
If finalized as written, the rule would require companies offering paycheck advances to make additional disclosures to users, helping borrowers make more informed decisions, the CFPB said.
Perhaps most important, costs or fees incurred by consumers to access their paychecks early would need to be expressed as an annual percentage rate, or APR, akin to credit card interest rates, according to legal experts.
The typical earned-wage-access user pays fees that amount to a 109.5% APR, despite the serviceoften being marketed as a “free or low-cost solution,” according to the CFPB.
The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation found such fees to be higher — more than 330% — for the average user, according to an analysis published in 2023.
Such data has led some consumer advocates to equate earned wage access to high-interest credit like payday loans. By comparison, the average credit card user with a balance paid a 23% APR as of May, a historic high, according to Federal Reserve data.
“The CFPB’s actions will help workers know what they are getting with these products and prevent race-to-the-bottom business practices,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a written statement.
However, the financial industry, which doesn’t consider such services to be a traditional loan, had been fighting such a label.
It’s inaccurate to call the service a “loan” or an “advance” since it grants workers access to money they’ve already earned, said Phil Goldfeder, CEO of the American Fintech Council, a trade group representing earned-wage-access providers.
“I would resemble it closer to utilizing an ATM machine and getting charged a fee,” Goldfeder said. “You can’t utilize a methodology like APR to determine the appropriate costs for a product like this.”
The CFPB is soliciting comments from the public until Aug. 30. It may revise its proposal based on that feedback.
The proposal is the latest salvo in an array of CFPB actions aimed at lenders, like one seeking to rein in banks’ overdraft fees and popular buy now, pay later programs.
It’s also part of a broader Biden administration push to crack down on “junk fees.”
Consumers may encounter earned wage access under various names, like daily pay, instant pay, accrued wage access, same-day pay and on-demand pay.
Business-to-business models offered through an employer use payroll and time-sheet records to track users’ accrued earnings. When payday arrives, the employee receives the portion of pay that hasn’t been tapped early.
Third-party apps are similar but instead issue funds based on estimated or historical earnings and then automatically debit a user’s bank account on payday, experts said.
Branch, DailyPay, Payactiv, Dave, EarnIn and Brigit are examples of some of the largest providers in the B2B or third-party ecosystems.
Providers may offer various services for free, and some employers offer programs to employees free of charge.
The CFPB proposal’s requirements don’t apply in cases when the consumer doesn’t incur a fee, it said.
However, most users do pay fees, CFPB found in its analysis of employer-sponsored programs.
More than 90% of workers paid at least one fee in 2022 in instances when employers don’t cover the costs, the agency said. The vast majority were for “expedited” transfers of the funds; such fees range from $1 to $5.99, with an average fee of $3.18, the CFPB said.
Many are repeat users: Workers made 27 transactions a year and paid $106 in total fees, on average, said CFPB, which cautioned that consumers may “become financially overextended if they simultaneously use multiple earned wage products.”
The CFPB’s proposal marks the first time the agency has said “explicitly” that early paycheck access amounts to a loan, said Mitria Spotser, vice president and federal policy director at the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group.
“It is a traditional loan: It’s borrowing money at a cost from the provider,” she said.
Goldfeder, of the American Fintech Council, disagrees.
“Unlike the provision of credit or a loan, EWA is non-recourse and does not require a credit check, underwriting, base fees on creditworthiness; charge a fee in installments, charge interest, late fees, or penalties; or impact a user’s credit score,” he said in a written statement.
The CFPB rule doesn’t prohibit providers from charging fees, Spotser said.
“It merely requires them to disclose it,” she added. “You have to ask yourself, why is the industry so afraid to disclose that they’re charging these fees?”
If finalized, the rule would allow the CFPB to bring enforcement actions against companies that don’t make the appropriate disclosures, for example, said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. States could also sue in court, as could consumers or via arbitration, she said.
Companies “ignore it at their peril, because it’s the CFPB’s interpretation of what the law is,” Saunders said of the interpretive rule. “They could try to argue to a court that the CFPB is wrong, but they’re on notice.”
