Lucy’s weekly column in the The Financial Times that I subscribed over a decade ago always carried wit and charisma through which she dispelled the condescending talk of business executives, explaining that speaking clearly is way better: pointing to contrarian nature of such behaviour, used often to rather hide malpractice or incompetence, than project professionalism.

It was a breather published in a rose-golden classical newspaper that still aspires to carry the high standard of reporting business news (for the very same reason I value the Weekend edition, especially its Books section).

The newspaper definitely lost after her leaving for a…

1. Nominally, this looks like a push by GS’s Marcus to bolster the partnership that Apple has in the US, as the card function a) competes with other card offers people can link to Apple Pay b) has on-par loyalty / cash-back, that premium cards by leading providers like Chase provide better.
2. The Apple Card did not have proper upgrade since the card’s launch. Apple indeed piloted installment on its user-base for Apple wares and may have seen the group is scalable to non Apple products — where financial installment is required to cover the interest of the instalment.
3. It is…

Where I read this book several years ago, it still resonates clearly — amid new instability between now Russia and the US, cancelling Open Skies Treaty, investing in orbital missile systems or supersonic delivery mechanisms of nuclear weapons. This coincides with literally no communication via channels built to de-escalate tensions as they rise — and no reliable channels to verify malign intent vs coincidence.

Such a situation, defused via international treaties, communication channels, contribute to rapid, costly and dangerous build-up of weapons of massive force and little room for error and virtually no recourse of action — and they happened…

A well planned and meticulously researched book that provides a bout of fresh air, despite decades spent on the subject and countless stories told in writing as well as cinematic optics, Dobbs holds one attention to the last page.

Especially poignant the story is in parallel to analysing recent Trump Presidency (shall one read Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House, by the way, a mentor of Dobbs). Uneasy analogies abound, but so do stories told by Nixon himself, an avid historical biographies reader, of misdeeds and misfires of Presidents ennobled by history.

It also plays well in 2021 alongside…

The funding is coming from Gauss Ventures and M&F Fund, among other unnamed investors. The startup has up to now opted to raise from individuals and smaller firms, CEO and founder Philip Belamant said in an interview, although that may change in future rounds as it looks both to bring in a tier-one debt line, not just to fuel growth in its current market of the UK but to expand to more countries, including the United States.

For now, Zilch has financed usage of its service off its own balance sheet: it has more than 500,000 users, Belamant said, and…

Traydstream, a London based Fintech is delighted to announce the successful closure of its Series A funding round. The US $8m raised was led by Spearhead Capital in a round from institutional and private investors, including AFG Partners and several European Family Offices.

…

Traydstream’s scalable, secure and seamless solution has proven to be the answer for many institutions, and it is now live with clients across 4 continents and 17 markets.

May 24th, 2021

Original link

It has been barely 1 year when I wrote a short technical update for one of the projects I am involved — and many years now since I stopped sharing pensive thoughts on a range of subjects — from book updates to industry news items that impact my line of work.

It was both Covid that touched me personally, physically and mentally, as the known network I relied on crumbled under pressure from the air-transmitted virus: closing travel, limiting ways to interact and collaborate. …

Source: Finextra, Square Press Release

“<Square> acquired Verse, a Spanish P2P payments app that allows customers to send and receive payments from friends and family instantly, safely, and free of charge.

We were drawn to Verse’s strong team, and they share a similar approach to us around inventing and learning to better serve customers. Verse will join the Cash App organization at Square, enabling the two teams to learn from one another as we provide them with additional support through Cash App technology and resources.”

More

Comment from Gauss Team:

It has been our privilege to add a token to the traction of Verse and we congratulate the team of Verse responsible for this milestone.