The Week in Fintech
Last week's most interesting fintech developments and why.
John Lennon’s son Julian has launched a virtual auction where Beatles’ memorabilia will be up for grabs in the form of NFTs. The auction will include digital images and audios of various items including three guitars owned by John Lennon and a hand-written note about the band’s popular song “Hey Jude”. NFTs have become an increasingly popular form of collectibles, for both buyers and sellers. Despite, such auctions merely conferring digital ownership without any physical transference of items, the bids crossed the $50,000 mark, indicating popularity and demand. The trend suggests more and more memorabilia will be sold in the form of NFTs, providing an alternative stream of revenue for auction houses and collectors.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is working towards making its devices into payment terminals or point of sale (POS) machines, taking on Square and Venmo. The new feature, which is expected to be a part of software updates in the coming few months, will allow merchants to accept card payments directly through their iPhones, eliminating the need for any extra hardware. The system will reportedly rely on iPhone's near-field communications chip, which is already in use for Apple Pay. iPhones-as-payment-terminals could be a big disruption in the payments and fintech industry. It has the potential to witness widespread adoption as it bypasses hardware constraints and allows users to merely use their phones. It could also help them effectively convert Android users into their customers. However, the cost-efficiency and possible limitation of the compatible payment platforms remains to be seen.
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Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is selling off assets tied to its cryptocurrency project Diem for around $200 million dollars. The currency originally called Libra was launched in 2019 to much fanfare and was expected to create billions of dollars in revenue for the company. The project is said to have failed due to a combination of internal tussles and building pressure from regulators. This recent development not only dashes Meta’s much-touted crypto plans, but also raises questions about the company’s Metaverse ambitions. Meta has had a long history of innovation stumbles and usually banks on acquiring companies to explore new growth areas, as opposed to building in-house capabilities.