Collaboration between banks and FinTech startups came to focus as financial media expanded on the need for collaboration, and a blockchain summit provided some cogent examples.

"Since 2016, there has been a significant move from banks fearing start-ups and start-ups wanting to disrupt banks, to start-ups and banks working together in harmony," writes Chris Skinner in "FinTech Collaboration."

Co-authored with Jake Crampton, founder and CEO of MedSpeed.

Real disputes among professional economists rarely make their way into political debates. But that’s what’s happened with the issue of whether the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent would mainly benefit shareholders or workers. Both sides make coherent arguments – but in the end, the evidence supports the proposal’s opponents.

Two Banking Conferences Last week I split my time between two conferences focused on banking and FinTech: two very different worlds that have more common than not, as this series of quotes show.

Merle Phillips is a petite 110-year old 4’9” fireball who keeps doing big things. She’s writing her twelfth book and recently created a new version of Scrabble to pitch to game-maker Hasbro. Reaching 110 makes Merle a “super-centenarian.” This is a most exclusive club. There are likely fewer than 50 American super-centenarians alive today.

Here they go again.  Despite the Republicans’ control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, their internal divisions keep on frustrating their plans to accomplish anything of consequence. So, the most polarizing GOP president since Abraham Lincoln has come up with a startling work-around:  Cut deals with the Democrats on selected major matters, including funding the government, raising the debt limit and, perhaps soon, legalizing the Dreamers.

During the last week in August, Noah’s Ark found a new home in Houston. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver medical supplies. Between August 25th and 29th, Hurricane Harvey dropped an almost biblical 52 inches of rain on beleaguered Houston, flooding vast swaths of the metropolitan area. GPS data indicates the weight of that 33 trillion gallons of water depressed the surface of the affected region by 2 centimeters.[1]

As a follow up to last week's newsletter, Breached, the Equifax breach likely will have regulatory effects on FinTech that go beyond the credit-scoring business itself. In an ironic but not unsurprising development, legacy institutions questioned new technologies in relationship to legacy problems.