After interviewing the Episode Six founding team in 2020, The Financial Revolutionist sat down with CEO John Mitchell, revisiting Episode Six’s strategies and predictions for the future. Mitchell outlines the company’s steady course, shares the vision behind their business model, and hints at the future of hybridized, digital payments ecosystems.
Read MoreConsumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra said that Big Tech’s expansion into the BNPL space raises privacy and antitrust issues. To date, Apple is the only tech giant to launch a BNPL product, which is called Apple Pay Later.
Read MoreIn a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, Democratic lawmakers asked Chopra to clarify whether consumers who are defrauded into making a financial transfer on peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps like Zelle are “errors” or “unauthorized electronic fund transfers.” This shift could make financial institutions liable for repaying consumers who have fallen victim to fraud on P2P platforms.
Read MoreMeta, the parent company to Facebook and Instagram, announced the launch of its cross-platform payments system, Meta Pay, on Instagram. Meta said that 1 billion users message a business on one of its apps every week.
Read MoreAmazon announced that it’s acquiring 1LifeHealthcare Inc., the parent company of primary-care network One Medical, for $3.9B. The health practice has 180 offices and offers benefits to employees at more than 8,000 companies.
Read MoreFlutterwave, Eversend, and other Africa-based fintechs discontinued use of virtual dollar cards due to the processor’s susceptibility to fraud. Scammers could contact the card issuer and fraudulently claim that they never made specific purchases.
Read MoreThe National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the public-private payments incubator operating within the country’s central bank, announced plans to build international digital payments infrastructure for the country’s 32 million expats. The NPCI previously built India’s domestic digital payments rails, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
Read MoreTo Len Covello, Co-Founder and CTO of Engage People, a Toronto-based loyalty network that connects loyalty programs with payment systems and retailers to let consumers pay with points at checkout, the future of payments leverages a fully-backed digital currency: the rewards point.
Read MoreMeta, Facebook’s parent company, announced it would reduce its engineer hiring goals by 30% this year. It will recruit between 6,000 and 7,000 engineers, down from an envisioned 10,000.
Read MoreLast week, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, banned loading pre-paid payment instruments using credit lines. The regulatory shift effectively outlaws the business strategy of major BNPL providers in the country.
Read MoreWith a surge in gas prices, travel costs, groceries, and rent, US consumers are adopting cost-cutting measures. Many are turning to credit card rewards programs as a needed windfall, especially cards with cashback offerings.
Read MoreThe BNPL giant is in talks to fundraise at a $15B valuation. It had previously been valued at $46B.
Read MoreSamsung announced that it’s merging its Pay and Pass apps into Samsung Wallet, a single, integrated platform for financial products, official documents, home and car keys, and more. Users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the US are the first to have access to the updated service.
Read MoreGolden Ark, a marijuana payments startup, has launched a metaverse-based payments system. It’s developed virtual cannabis as a cryptocurrency that supports real-life cannabis authentication and transactions.
Read MorePayPal announced the launch of its “PayPal Pay Monthly” service, which lets customers pay in monthly installments for purchases between $199 and $10,000. WebBank is the lender for the service.
Read MoreThe Financial Revolutionist is weekly newsletter and blog focused on the torrid pace of financial innovation. Today, thanks to the exponential rate of technological change, explosion in global trade and new regulations ushered in by the Great Financial Crisis, a new financial revolution is under way. In this battle, virtually every aspect of the greater financial services sector is subject to rigorous challenge. With the Financial Revolutionist, we are aspiring to create a boots-on-the-ground and highly opinionated assessment of important financial innovation developments in the past week.
