Your own neobank

Also:

  • 💡Innovation Norway + Stacc

  • 🔌 Coinbase with Browser extension

  • 🖼 Crypto and art

  • ⛓ How Etherum is growing

  • ⏳ BNPL needs regualation

  • 👌 Optimal amount of hassle

👴🏻 Your own neobank

If you could build your own neobank, what would be your first product and why

The Fintech Nerd Collective has asked this to several bright minds in Fintech. Head over to their site to see their answers.

My answer would be to create a senior bank. All neobanks are targetting the young population. Why is no one targetting the older people where the money mostly is? Let us not pretend that our eyes don't need larger fonts when we age. Or that the apartment that you want when you are retired probably costs more than the villa you have owned your entire career. The user experience should focus on plain language and simple wizards to guide you ahead to what you needed. The first product would be a mortgage where you don't have to pay interest or installments as long as you live in the home. (Insert legalese disclaimers here). I would then follow up with other products but seen from the needs of the senior population.

💡 Innovation Norway + Stacc

Last week Innovation Norway announced that they had chosen Stacc to deliver a complete solution for case handling of loans, grants, and guarantees to Norwegian businesses. Link

Stacc shows that we have forward-looking, competent, and innovative financial technology environments in Norway that can compete against the best and largest in the world in this area. Leon Bakkebø, Director of Financing and Banking at Innovation Norway.

🔌 More Browser extension

Last week I wrote about the untapped market of browser extensions for Fintechs. Speaking of: Coinbase this week launched their browser extension, Coinbase Wallet, to more easily and securely connect to decentralized apps (dapps) and decentralized finance (DeFi) on your desktop. Link

🖼 Crypto and art

Both cryptocurrencies and contemporary art rely on scarcity and hype because they have no other real value — though crypto has less price control.

An interesting article that is comparing crypto-currencies with the art market and what they can learn from each other. Link

Langlois is one of the breakout stars in his world, scores of other digital artists — formerly broke or hustling commissions for website design — have also begun to make a living from their art. The question of whether NFTs endure or end up as a 21st-century version of tulip mania means a lot more to these artists and their unusual sensibility than it does to the art world and other institutions that have edged into this speculative frenzy.

A long read from The New York times on the untold story of the NFT boom. Link

⛓ How Etherum is growing

TL;DR: Ethereum will use at least ~99.95% less energy post merge.

Etherum is writing about how completing their transition to Proof-of-Stake will eliminate the energy consumption problem Etherum has had. Link

What if I told you about a business that: Has strong network effects, Grew revenue 200x YoY, Is preparing to offer a 25% dividend, About to implement a permanent share buyback program? That's pretty much Ethereum.

A deep dive into why Etherum is the Excel of Blockchains and how Etherum makes money from Packy McCormick. Link

⏳ BNPL needs regualation

Payments? Let's worry about that later! Fourteen days free payment deferral, or Klarna account! The payment of teeth whitening, curtains, books, and electronics can be divided into anything from one to three years. But even if Klarna's payment solutions are so simple that you hardly notice the transaction happening, it's not free.

Traditional providers of unsecured credit are heavily regulated and have to report to the debt register. Therefore, it is a challenge that non-banks like Klarna can offer similarly aggressive interest-bearing products without regulation by rebranding them as Buy Now Pay Later. The authors in this article argue for regulating deferred payments and similar. Link

👌 Optimal amount of hassle

Theft is a good example. A grocery store could eliminate theft by strip-searching every customer leaving the store. But then no one would shop there. So the optimal level of theft is never zero. You accept a certain level as an inevitable cost of progress.

Morgan Housel is writing about the unique skill of identifying the optimal amount of hassle and nonsense you should put up with to get ahead while getting along. A quick and thought-provoking read. Link

🙏 Do share!

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Marius Hauken, partner Stacc X