Fintech Focus For December 17, 2021

One Big Thing In Fintech: Digital banking continues to gain momentum year-over-year with 73% of respondents to a JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) citing mobile app usage once a week or more (up 8% YOY), and 62% citing it’s a service they cannot live without (up 7% YOY).

Source: Chase

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• FIS is to add to InnovateIN48.
• Temenos, MSFT collaborating. (NASDAQ:MSFT)
• GIANT raises $5M seed round.
• Silverflow closes $17M round.
• Percent added a new offering.
• Tiger Global backs CreditBook.
• Alchemy teams up on domains.
• Bridgesplit adds $4.25M raise.
• Nansen secures $75M round.
• Qapital intros money planning.
• Rapyd surveying on payments.
• Kredivo, IKEA are teaming up.
• Galoy raises $3M seed round.
• Rally hiring Novi legal leaders.
• Circle collabs with Endaoment.
• Aztec secures $17M for Web3.
• Avant launches Avant Banking.
• Lambda256 adds $60M round.
• ViewTrade, Seminario partner.
• VizyPay is adding leadership.
• Fable Fintech adding API hub.
• Casavi brings home Series B.
• JustiFi added $6.5 for platform.
• Clikalia secures $518M round.
• CFPB doing BNPL deep dive.
• AIB signed new deal with IBM.
• Astra added Cross River offer.

Watch Out For This: Melania Trump is getting in on the latest crypto craze -- NFTs.

The former first lady announced Thursday that she is selling an NFT, or a non-fungible token, titled "Melania's Vision" -- her first public endeavor since leaving office almost one year ago

Source: CNN

Interesting Reads:

• A B747 hits supersonic speed. (NYSE:BA)
• TikTok threats prompt closure.
• Voodoo invests in DLT games.
• Why Powell pivots on inflation.

Market Moving Headline: The U.S. stock market rally charged into mid-December with good odds to end 2021 at record highs after a year of soaring inflation, COVID-19 variants, and an increasingly unstable labor market. Investors may need to add the risk of war, a potential misstep in monetary policy, and a cyberattack to their list of concerns for 2022.

Source: S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI)