Mississippi's Renasant names its next CEO; environmental fintech Aspiration Partners spins out its consumer brand; the OCC adds five weeks to comment period for Capital One-Discover merger; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.
Renasant in Mississippi taps insider to become next CEO
"Kevin is a dynamic leader with a keen understanding of both corporate banking strategy and the financial services marketplace," Renasant Executive Chairman Robinson McGraw and Waycaster said in a joint statement. "We believe Renasant will be in great hands with Kevin guiding the Company, and we look forward to a bright future under his leadership." — Jim Dobbs
Climate-focused fintech Aspiration spins out its consumer brand
OCC extends comment period for Capital One-Discover merger
It's still unclear whether or not the merger will go through; it still awaits approval from the OCC and the Federal Reserve. Even if the banks get a rubber-stamp from the agencies, the Department of Justice could sue to block the deal
Ex-Goldman Sachs executive joins Truist’s board of directors
Goldman’s Australia equities head said to join Jefferies
Spokespeople for Goldman Sachs and Jefferies declined to comment.
Earlier Monday, the Australian Financial Review reported that Argyrides was leaving Goldman, and said Mike Johnson, head of sales at Jefferies, had also resigned.
Argyrides had been sole head of the business following the resignation of former co-head, Ben Clifford. The pair had joined the firm from Macquarie Group together in 2017. — Harry Brumpton, Bloomberg News
UBS hires Barclays banker Lynch for technology dealmaking
Lynch — who covers companies including Uber Technologies and Tesla — has worked at Barclays since 2013, Finra records show. Menlo Park, California-based Lynch, who worked in leveraged finance earlier in his career, advised on the issuance of about $1.7 billion in convertible notes for Uber last year.
Representatives for UBS and Barclays didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Lynch didn't respond to a request for comment.
A slew of Barclays bankers have joined UBS since the lender named Marco Valla co-head of global banking last year. The hires include Laurence Braham, who is the firm's global co-head of technology investment banking, Richard Casavechia, who is UBS's head of global banking in the Americas and Richard Hardegree, a vice chairman within technology investment banking. — Gillian Tan and Katie Roof, Bloomberg News
Russian court freezes JPMorgan assets under $440 million claim
VTB Bank PJSC filed the suit against JPMorgan and its subsidiaries in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region on April 17, according to the court's database. While court documents didn't detail the main basis for the suit, they said VTB had requested provisional steps because the defendants were "taking measures to withdraw their assets" from Russia while the state-controlled lender was seeking to recover about $440 million from JPMorgan.
The court agreed to freeze the money in JPMorgan's Russian accounts, its stake in a Russian subsidiary bank and property rights related to some trademarks. It set the next hearing in the case for July 17.
JPMorgan declined to comment. VTB didn't immediately respond to a request to comment. — Bloomberg News
Stripe brings back crypto payments on platform with stablecoins
"There's been a lot of technical improvements happening in crypto," John Collison, co-founder and president said Thursday at the payments processing company's annual conference in San Francisco. The option should be available this summer, he said.
Transaction speeds have increased in crypto, while fees have gone down as crypto finds "real utility," according to Collison. He said that stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to a fixed asset like the dollar, are becoming "more stable" and demonstrated a crypto payment on Stripe using Circle's USDC token during his presentation. Stablecoins have continued to gain traction in crypto and fintech, with PayPal Holdings introducing its PYUSD stablecoin last year.
Stripe enabled bitcoin payments about 10 years ago, with Collison noting that the experience back then was "pretty terrible." The service ended in 2018 in part due to a lack of customer demand. —Hannah Miller, Bloomberg News