Coinbase reports blowout quarter; new digital banks target minorities

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Explosive

“In its first earnings report as a public company,” Coinbase said it “earned $771 million in the quarter, up from $32 million a year earlier, driven by a manic rally in bitcoin and other digital assets,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Total revenue surged to $1.8 billion from $191 million. The top and bottom-line figures represent records for the company, which was founded in 2012 and is the largest bitcoin exchange in the U.S.”

“Coinbase’s revenue and profit have largely been driven by the explosion in the popularity of bitcoin and other digital currencies. At the end of the first quarter, the company had 56 million verified users, up from 34 million a year earlier. Active users rose to 6.1 million from 1.3 million.”

Coinbase’s earnings report is “a sign of how enthusiasm for digital currencies has gone mainstream in the pandemic,” The New York Times said. “But Coinbase also offered a cautionary note, saying that rivals were swarming the market and increasing competition. The company has been spending heavily on marketing and development to keep ahead of its competitors.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the cryptocurrency exchange “would offer trading in dogecoin within six to eight weeks, as the company warned it faced rising competition from alternative trading venues. Cryptocurrency traders had been urging Coinbase to allow trading in dogecoin, a token that began as a joke but has soared to a market capitalization of $55 billion during the recent frenzy.”

Wall Street Journal

Loosening up

“Credit cards, auto loans and other personal loans are all getting easier to come by, more than a year into a pandemic that spooked lenders and caused them to tighten lending standards significantly. Some banks are reducing credit-score requirements and offering more generous loan terms, eager to lend after tightening up when the pandemic hit.”

Elsewhere

Outside the mainstream

A “new generation of digital banks is betting on minority markets, targeting communities where many people say their needs have not been met by mainstream lenders,” NBC News reports. “Such startups include First Boulevard and Greenwood, both focused on serving Black Americans, Cheese Financial aimed at the Asian community, and Majority serving immigrant groups.” Daylight serves the LGBTQ community.

Joining forces

U.S. Bank and Plaid are collaborating in an “open finance partnership” that will “allow their millions of customers to manage their accounts and connect to fintech apps and services,” Pymnts.com reported. “Open banking allows third-party developers to build applications and services around the financial institution. It can offer greater financial transparency options for account holders.”

“What we did together with Plaid is a huge step forward in open finance, especially for our shared customers,” said Gareth Gaston, executive vice president and chief digital officer for platforms and capabilities at U.S. Bank.

JPMorgan's payments pilot

JPMorgan Chase is working with the government of Bahrain “on a digital currency settlement pilot scheme” that would allow “instant cross-border payments based on digital currency technology,” Cointelegraph reported. “Aiming to cut settlement processing time, the new digital currency pilot will involve transferring funds from and to Bahrain in U.S. dollars for payments from buyers and suppliers. The central bank emphasized that it could move forward with the project to extend the collaboration to a central bank digital currency.”

Counting carbon

JPMorgan Chase also “set out mid-term, carbon reduction goals for clients, as banks face pressure to align their financing activities with their climate change commitments,” Reuters reported. “The U.S. bank is asking clients in the electric power and auto industries to meet carbon intensity reduction goals and for oil and gas clients to meet operational and end-use carbon intensity reduction goals by 2030.

Marisa Buchanan, JPMorgan’s global head of sustainability, told Reuters that “the targets signal the bank’s expectations that its clients operate responsibly and take the steps necessary to invest in a lower carbon future.”