#275
Talladega Nights

Runa founder speaks at SXSW on the rising LATAM tech scene - Courtney McColgan, Founder and CEO of Mexico City HQ'd Runa, will speak at SXSW (03.08.19) about how a new generation of LATAM entrepreneurs, who are proficient with the startup toolkits available to their North American counterparts, are building tech companies that play to the advantages and preferences of their region. Read more

You drive a 1972 Pinto because your neighborhood makes you - Jase Wilson the CEO of Neighborly uses a thankfully absurd, but fun, analogy to highlight how America's community broadband is broken and how we might fix it. Read more

Investment app Acorns to sponsor Ryan Newman - Acorns will be featured for multiple races in 2019, making its debut with the Ryan Newman behind car No. 6 Ford Mustang at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Read more

MoneyLion, Team Penske roar into 2019 partnership - Portfolio company MoneyLion, America’s most powerful financial membership, announced a multi-year partnership with Team Penske, beginning with the 2019 NASCAR season. In celebration, MoneyLion has committed to providing racing fans across the country with 5% cashback on tickets, merchandise purchases, and at-track purchases. Read more

Purchases with plastic get costlier for merchants—and consumers - Visa and MasterCard are mulling increasing interchange fees (which merchants pay to issuing banks), as well as fees that card networks charge financial institutions for processing card payments for merchants. Read more

JPM throws its hat in the digital coin ring - In the saturated stable coin market, JP Morgan is rolling out a coin that is redeemable for fiat and powered by its private permissioned platform Quorum. It is meant for institutional clients who have to go through normal KYC procedures, with the primary use being b2b payments. Read more

Bakkt's launch date pushed again - The CEO of ICE announced that the firm's digital asset platform which was expected to launch at the end of 2018, will now be expecting a launch later in 2019. He described the crypto platform as a "moonshot bet" for ICE. Read more

Morgan Stanley, in its biggest deal since crisis, courts future millionaires - Morgan Stanley is shelling out $900m to acquire Solium, which manages the stock that corporate employees receive as part of their pay. Solium's 3k corporate clients have 1m employees and include startups such as Stripe and Instacart. Read more

Charles Schwab, Fidelity escalate brokerage price war - Schwab and Fidelity are making hundreds more ETFs free to trade on their platforms. Fidelity specified that it would expand its commission-free lineup to more than 500 ETFs. Read more

SoFi was in talks to acquire the fintech backing some of the hottest robo advisors - Looking to expand beyond lending, Business Insider reports the $4bn SF based fintech that got its start in grad student financing was in talks to buy Apex, a clearing and custody firm, at a $600m price tag before only making a minority equity investment. Read more

Amazon’s lending perpetuates the tech giant’s control over small businesses - With access to detailed information and data on each seller, Amazon is able to lend quickly and effectively while mitigating risk to its marketplace sellers. But SMBs on the platform are complaining over Amazon's exclusivity terms, data control, and capricious decisions. Read more