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As more consumers pile into Bitcoin and the currency's market capitalization increases, any handful of trades will not have as strong an effect on the currencys price swings.
December 19
Last year, inspired by some flashy headlines and
One area that was expected to heat up the alternative, short-term credit business instead cooled down with heightened regulatory scrutiny thwarting tech startups' attempts to
Payments technology was more of a mixed bag.
Walmart turned Bluebird, its prepaid debit card co-piloted by American Express,
Amazon, too, made a few moves,
Even Square, the Jack Dorsey-helmed payments startup that seemingly
Futurists often argue that it's easier for nonbanks to innovate since they're not subject to the pages and pages of regulations those with bank charters must comply with. Some believe this ability to innovate could ultimately disintermediate banks and dramatically overhaul our current
But Square's licensing problem, in particular, highlights just how hard it can be for nonfinancial firms to step in and take over an industry, particular a heavily regulated one like financial services. It's also telling that PayPal, which did
Unfortunately, regulation hasn't trended toward simple since the financial crisis and there are signs regulators will only increase their scrutiny of
Banks need startups to test the waters with new products, but startups also need banks for their capital, infrastructure, large customer bases, established regulatory relationships and compliance training. Most fledging fintech companies, incidentally, will cop to the fact that they are not trying to disintermediate anyone and, instead,
(The big exception here, it seems, is Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency/peer-to-peer payments network which managed to capture mainstream attention and, even,
In all likelihood, what we'll see as we head into 2014 and beyond is more partnerships between successful-ish startups and traditional financial services providers. We'll probably also see more partnerships between retailers and national banks a la the Wal-Mart-American Express Bluebird arrangement.
Eventually, I suspect these partnerships will morph into the model Lauren Pollak of Jump Associates envisioned in her
Jeanine Skowronski is the deputy editor of BankThink. You can contact her at