If there's a consistent theme in technology and Fintech, it's the low hum of fear.

You're probably reading lots of 2023 predictions, but most explainers miss these key details 👇

1. Financial services is the world's largest profit pool

The prize for disruption is massive 2. Banks are making a come back, but it won’t last forever

Banks suffered a “lost decade” after the financial crisis. Now as interest rates rise they’re returning to profitability. Are the good old days back?

Bowing to pressure, Goldman Sachs will no longer pursue checking accounts for the mass market. Bloomberg reports Goldman will also limit their consumer lending but will continue their existing card partnerships. 🧵 🤔 There goes the case study. When pointing at "who's doing something interesting in consumer, every consultant (including me) would point at Marcus.

Amazing resilience and case study in how to do "new" in big org. Reality bites. Massive org w/ shareholders and P&Ls has bitten.

The average P/E multiple for Fintech businesses in public markets is 3.4x. That puts the Fast .com's 166x revenue multiple from 2021 into a sharp perspective!

So is Fintech dead? I don't think so. The whole venture and tech sector is down

Of the 124 tech IPOs in 2021, only 15 are above their trading price

Fintech deal velocity is also slowing (h/t @ftpartners)

It feels like every brand has launched cash-grab NFT projects, and many groan when they see another announcement.

But I think this announcement from Starbucks is much better than people give it credit for.

stories.starbucks.com/press/2022/sta… Starbucks has mastered loyalty.

Starbucks has 24.2m active rewards users, who pay with the app to get 1x extra star with every purchase.

Why not build in a little game and unique experiences with artists if it deepens engagement?

Some banks are about to make a big comeback as the market turns.

But only a few some will grab a once in a generation opportunity to change the game.

🧵👇 Hiring people isn't cool, doing something with those people is cool. Banks need to

1. Attack Structural Cost
2. Actually innovate
3. Work with "Fintech the supplier"
4. Get great at M&A
5. Make patient, long term bets on things like DeFi

In another gem packed post @packyM drops this line describing decentralized exchanges

"TC/IP for liquidity" The whole thing is of course excellent

notboring.co/p/web3-use-cas…

Especially the Instagram comparisons (which as someone who was working in TradFi during social media feels all too familiar!!)

The Ultimate SWIFT and Russia Sanctions explainer

You've probably been reading lots of people explaining SWIFT, but most explainers miss some key details like 👇

1. SWIFT is not a payment system.

SWIFT is a messaging system (like email) used by 11,000 banks in 200+ countries 2. SWIFT doesn't move money; banks do. Money moves when a bank updates its accounts.

Banks go through a series of messages to say who needs to get paid and for how much. These messages happen instantly but the payments may not get applied immediately because...

New report: Embedded Finance is reshaping #fintech

* Banks core business model is broken
* New players are disintermediating the bank relationship
* Banks that that lean in can capture a $trillion opportunity

How? New @11FS report 📑

11fs.com/insights-banki…

tl;dr 👇 2. Banks business model is broken

📉📉📉

* Over two decades net interest margin has been falling
* Way to make money for banks falls with interest rates
* It's more likely to get worse than get better

So Bank as a Service is a hot #fintech topic, but what is it? 🤔

● BaaS allows any brand to embed financial
services into its customer experience... 🍎

● ...by picking and choosing capabilities
offered by providers… 🛠️

● …and licence holders in a modular fashion. ⛓️ Bankers often say "that's just whitelabel banking"

The key here is it's not, the new providers have made the underlying bank capabilities more modular and API first.

Am loving @peepethApp code of conduct, all of the interactions with it are likeable. 🙌

It's really cool that this real world service will run with any front end, anyone can fork it, and its truly resilient. This is how to explain what decentralisation is... My only complaint is the obvious slowness of confirmations to @IPFSbot and @ethereum (must be some way to mask that for the user) and the lack of instant follows / gratification

@ricburton - I imagine @Balance_io folks could think of ways to make that possible?

With decentralised exchanges now all the rage we have to learn the lessons of centralised exchanges

1) user experience has to be better
2) performance has to be better
3) don't fight the law

Expanded below... 1) User experience is just awful on most centralised exchanges. There's no excuse for bad human centric design in 2018.

Who is the customer? What does crypto mean in their life? What job are they trying to get done?

Learn from the best in #fintech

Barclays boss Jes Staley sticks to investment bank strategy despite poor quarter' | via @telegraph
telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/… As Goldman has pivoted to retail to grow its deposit base and fund it's balance sheet

Barclays Jes Staley runs in opposite direction 🤦‍♂️