Happy Tuesday, Fellow Fintechers!

Hoping this finds my fintech friends safe, well and in good spirits. Our souls have been rocked these previous months – first with the pandemic, then with the senseless killing of George Floyd and the aftermath events, but we must persevere, we must get stronger and we must move forward into the next iteration of the businesses we want to build and the lives we want to lead. Sometimes you have to lose something – if only for a moment in time – in order to appreciate what you had and value it even more when it returns.

Now on to fintech – because fintech is indeed the future of finance. First off, as always, we have our Wealthtech Weekly column from industry guru Vasyl Soloshchuk with news from InvestorCom, FinMason, Questis and more. Next up our 3 Questions series has jumped to 4 Questions (33% more!) this week with an interview with Alex Cavalieri from the new NYC-based wealthtech marketing firm Seven Group. 

Here’s a number for you: $500 billion bucks! That’s what a recent UBS study revealed will be pulsing through the world economy annually in fintech revenues by 2030. Astonishing number. This week we also learned that Holistiplan has launched a new subscrption-based tool - Solve For Max, to look “across an end-client’s taxes to determine where additional income may be taken.”

On the banking side of fintech, we also learned that DriveWealth has announced an integration partnership with EasyVest, an app-based robo-advisor from California-basedAccess Softek, which provides mobile banking and online software.

Want to pay off those pesky student loans faster? Here’s the answer – just shop more! “FutureFuel.io, a San Francisco-based student loan fintech, has rolled out a feature that harnesses consumer purchases to accelerate paying down educational debt.” The firm claims that “by enrolling in Giveback and claiming just $25 in cash-back offers per month, users can reduce an average of $4,900 in interest and take 23 months off of the average student loan.” Pretty compelling, actually, and needed since student loans represent a huge looming crisis for the US economy and our beloved millennial generation. 

On a slightly different note, FA editor Karen DeMasters has interviewed two directors from Broadridge Financial Solutions who shared that during the beginning of the pandemic in March “the outflows for passive investments were rather quiet, while there were large outflows for active management.” So ETFs appear to be holding strong during these crises.   

Finally, we finish up with a fascinating piece on the explosive growth over the past year of Visa’s Fast Track program for fintechs. There are now over 140 financial technology companies worldwide in the Visa ecosystem. This is a brilliant move on the part of Visa, as it gives them a firsthand look at the best and brightest tech and business minds in payments, and gives them an indoor track into acquiring the high-flyers in the space.

All in all, it was another action-packed week in fintech and all while our Senior Editor Chris Robbins has been away on vacation, sipping rum cocktails by the poolside. What a lucky guy!

Read up and have a great week!

Yours in Fintech,
Cindy Taylor