Operating at the Intersection of Technology and the Capital Markets
Tag: JPM
Last night it was reported that M&T Bank (tkr: MTB) would acquire People's United (tkr: PBCT) for more than $7 billion. These "scale" acquisitions between regional banks simply delay the inevitable. What is required is the hard work of evolving business models and service delivery capabilities. More of the same won't suffice. Regional banks are … Continue reading Banks Need To Try Something New
AWS, Azure and GCP are to thank in large part for the proliferation of applications powered by broadly-defined AI. The big three remote server platforms have made it increasingly easy for companies of all sizes from all industries to build applications that incorporate core AI, machine learning, deep learning and related capabilities. A wide variety … Continue reading Artificial Intelligence Is Electricity 2.0
We compared a number of Fintech apps in the Google Play Store. Square's Cash App ranked #7 (See our analysis for Fintech rankings). Venmo failed to rank in the top 600. Recent Cash App user reviews from the same Google Play Store analysis suggest Cash App is frequently hacked. View our analysis by clicking the … Continue reading Square’s Cash App Has A Fraud Problem
Large Financial Institutions should acquire FinTech companies. Doing so would enable FI's to diversify beyond the depositary services business which will continue to suffer in a prolonged low interest rate environment. We won't lay out the entire FinTech ecosystem, but here are several examples. Capital Markets: FactSet (tkr: FDS) and SS&C Technologies (tkr: SSNC). FactSet … Continue reading Banks Should Acquire FinTech Companies
Intercontinental Exchange (ticker: ICE) recently announced that it agreed to acquire Ellie Mae from Thoma Bravo for approximately $11 billion. It makes sense that a large FinTech company is working to drive automation across the mortgage processing landscape. Ellie Mae will nicely augment Intercontinental's 2018 acquisition of MERSCORP. MERSCORP operates the MERS System, a national … Continue reading The Mortgage Processing Market Is A Riddle Best Solved by FinTech Companies
We are due for an equity market shakeout. The NASDAQ is up 450% since January 2009. The 26% spike in the NASDAQ from October 2019 to February 2020 on a lack of supporting fundamentals is like nothing I've ever seen. By late March we had traded down 30% from February's high yet we have gained … Continue reading The Market Is Upside Down
Lost amidst the drama around Jes Staley's ties to convicted (deceased) sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is Staley's poor performance as Barclays CEO. This speaks to Barclays' weak Board of Directors and lack of corporate governance. One need look no further than the numbers. Barclays has under-performed during Staley's tenure. Staley was groomed by JP Morgan … Continue reading Why Does Jes Staley Remain Barclays CEO?
With Michael Bloomberg throwing his hat into the ring for the 2020 Democratic nomination, many have speculated as to how Bloomberg would divest his equity stake in his namesake firm were he to win the Presidency. We don't expect Mr. Bloomberg to win the Office of the President nor would a sale necessarily be required … Continue reading Prospective Bloomberg LP Acquirers
Our experience is that it is best to take action during disruptive periods - or better yet - at the first signs of trouble. The "wait and see" approach often leads to irrelevance and ultimately death. Deutsche Bank plans to shed 18,000 jobs and exit the institutional trading business while simultaneously investing in technology. This … Continue reading “Wait and See” Does Not Constitute A Strategy
When speaking or writing about Apple we have spent much of the past 18 months beating up on the iPhone. Yesterday's "Apple Event" didn't engender confidence in the firm's content strategy. Anchored by a curated, walled garden approach, Apple's strategy seems mired in the early 2000's at a time when young people have migrated to … Continue reading Apple’s Strategy – The Good, The Bad & The RetroPremium
