Paul Schulte, Advisor, Banking and Financial Services
August 22nd, 2019
Paul Schulte is the Founder and Managing Editor of Shulte Research based in Singapore. Paul's roles[...]
Shaquille O’Neal Joins Steady; Company Raises $9 Million in Series A Round of Funding from Leading Fintech Investors
Digital Journal PR | Aug 7, 2018
ATLANTA--(Business Wire)--Steady, the income-building platform for the Build-Your-Own (BYO) workforce is already serving 100,000 Americans since it launched last week. The company, which today delivers personalized income-building opportunities, an income tracker, and exclusive relevant discounts, has raised $9 million in Series A financing round led by Propel Venture Partners, with significant participation from Omidyar Network, the impact investing firm established by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. The funds raised in this round will be used to rapidly scale and extend product features. Other investors include 25Madison, Clocktower Ventures, and Commerce Ventures. Shaquille O’Neal has joined the team as an Advisor and Advocate for the BYO workforce.
“The traditional 9-5 career path doesn’t work for everyone, and we’re seeing more and more people set out to make their own way. Steady sees and serves this group, giving them the tools to discover new job opportunities, and the resources to earn more money and take control,” said Shaquille O’Neal. “Helping hardworking folks do and get more is an important mission and I’m excited to be part of it.”
Work is changing. Full-time jobs are giving way to more flexible arrangements—shift work, part-time contracts, gigs, and an endless combination of these—that create income uncertainty; retirement resources aren’t cutting it for millions of Americans; and the resulting income mix throws people’s relationship to banks and financial products out of balance. Enter Steady.
See: A U.S. Perspective: Can Canadian Alternative Finance Contend?
“In today’s America, the single, upward career path is a false notion for too many people. A long-term, consistent, path of ascension just isn’t attainable in most industries. People need to create their own,” said Steady co-founder and lead seed round investor Michael Loeb, from Loeb Enterprises.
“Steady is uniquely built to address a financial health crisis that’s hitting epidemic proportions.”
Steady starts by helping BYO workers easily find and apply to income-building opportunities that match their availability, abilities, and interests. Whether augmenting retirement savings, working around childcare responsibilities, leveraging gig opportunities, or supplementing insufficient income from a primary employer, Steady helps people earn more.
“Today’s workforce faces wage stagnation, underemployment and an increasing cost of living. All this leads to people just not making enough money to live the American Dream, and instead they’re caught in a very vulnerable place,” said Ryan Gilbert, Partner at Propel Venture Partners.
“We’re excited to back Steady in delivering much needed solutions aimed at the root problem—insufficient earnings. If people are to thrive in today’s changing world, a solution like Steady is imperative.” Gilbert and Propel Venture Partners Vice President David Mort will be joining Steady’s Board of Directors.
See: Why Blockchain Is The Future Of The Sharing Economy
The new BYO workforce will be able to rely on Steady to:
- Build income: Discover and apply for extra income opportunities and shifts from large employers, small, and medium businesses and the hottest startups (including the top 40 gig economy players)—filtered by location, interests, availability, and goals, in addition to helping define their overall portfolio of work.
- Build networks: Monitor relevant community activity, learn from peers, uncover new opportunities, and create connections that help maximize earning potential.
- Build buying power: Access a marketplace of exclusive benefits—from essentials such as prescriptions and groceries, and discounts on major expenses such as auto care and telecom.
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Borden Ladner Gervais LLP | Stephen J. Redican, Robert Dawkins, Ross McGowan and Alexandra Nicol | Jan 9, 2020 The Canadian financial services industry is at the threshold of change. Regulatory overhaul, the ubiquity of online services, and technological innovation and disruption will affect all players—from banks to FinTech start-ups. Open banking will introduce new opportunities and business models for the financial services industry and new services from FinTech entrants to the market—but these opportunities come with unprecedented risks and operational requirements for a banking system that prides itself on stability. Given Canada's unique financial system and constitutional structure, the implementation of open banking won't look the same as it has in the U.K., the EU or Australia, where its introduction is already underway. See: Why Canada must be open to open banking We spoke with a diverse group of leaders from across the Canadian financial services industry to understand open banking's current and emerging issues: What do you see changing? How will your organizations fit into the new landscape? What might a made-in-Canada model of open banking look like for consumers and industry? Roundtable Participants Anne Butler Chief Legal Officer and Head of Policy and Research, Payments Canada "If ...
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CSA | Jan 16, 2020 Montreal - The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) today published Staff Notice 21-327 Guidance on the Application of Securities Legislation to Entities Facilitating the Trading of Crypto Assets, to help these entities to determine situations where securities legislation may or may not apply. “The evolving landscape of the industry prompts us to clarify our regulatory framework so as to better support fintech businesses seeking to offer innovative products, services and applications in Canada,” said Louis Morisset, CSA Chair and President and CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers. “As we continue to consider the comments and responses to the consultation we launched last year, the staff notice published today will help platform operators to determine whether their activities are subject to securities legislation.” The notice describes situations where securities legislation will and will not apply. For example, securities legislation may apply to platforms that facilitate the buying and selling of crypto assets that are commodities, because the user’s contractual right to the crypto asset may itself constitute a derivative, a security or both. The relevant determination will depend on the facts and circumstances, including the obligations and intention to provide immediate delivery of the crypto asset. The ...
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Vox Recode | Shirin Ghaffary | Jan 7, 2020 Facebook’s new rules will still allow controversial fake videos like the one of Nancy Pelosi that made her appear to be drunk. Facebook announced late Monday that it would ban “deepfakes,” which are AI-manipulated videos that distort reality, often simulating real people in fake situations. The social media giant announced the changes in a company executive blog post, saying it will remove deepfakes and other types of heavily manipulated media from its platform. Specifically, the company laid out two main criteria for removing content under the new rules. The first is that the company will remove content posted on Facebook if has been edited in ways that would “likely mislead someone into thinking a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say,” according to the post written by Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of global policy management. Secondly, the platform will ban media if it’s the product of AI or machine learning that “merges, replaces, or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.” Facebook came under fire last year for allowing a manipulated video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that made it appear as ...
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CNBC | Hugh Son | Jan 13, 2020 Key Points When Goldman Sachs released a long-awaited app for customers of its Marcus consumer bank last week, it did so with little fanfare or hype. But the app will one day serve as the bank’s storefront and one-stop shop for an array of digital banking services, according to Adam Dell, a Goldman Sachs partner and head of product at Marcus. “There are two kinds of incumbent banks,” Dell told the audience at a financial conference in June. “There are banks that are screwed, and there are banks that don’t know they’re screwed.” When Goldman Sachs released a long-awaited app for customers of its Marcus consumer bank last week, it did so with little fanfare or hype. Unlike the intense attention on its last retail product, the Apple Card, the launch of the bank’s Marcus app was heralded by little more than a smattering of user reviews. See: JPMorgan has a plan to help Amazon and Airbnb look more like banks But the app may prove to be far more important to Goldman than its credit card partnership with Apple. That’s because the portal, which today lets customers check balances and set ...
Read More
Fortune | Rey Mashayekhi | Jan 14, 2020 In late 2018, payments giants Visa and Mastercard both invested in fintech startup Plaid through a $250 million funding round that valued San Francisco-based firm at an impressive $2.65 billion. Described as “strategic investments,” the two financial services heavyweights sought not only to provide Plaid with financial backing, but also to leverage the fintech firm’s sprawling technological capabilities to improve their own services. See: Visa R&D Arm Develops a Blockchain System That Could Replace Financial Data Aggregators “We’re really excited about working with [Plaid] to enhance payment experiences globally,” Bill Sheedy, executive vice president of Visa’s strategy group, told Fortune at the time. With Plaid’s APIs (application programming interfaces), Visa could potentially improve the customer experience via everything from fraud detection to real-time account balance verification—services that “reduce the friction around financial transactions,” as Sheedy put it. A little over a year later, Visa has decided to come back for the whole thing. Whether it beat its great rival Mastercard to the punch, or saw a deal that its East Coast rival did not see, is as yet unclear. But on Monday, Visa announced that it has agreed to acquire a 100% ...
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McKinsey & Company | Sean Brown and Kevin Laczkowski | Dec 2019 Resilient companies enjoy gains that last long after an economic crisis has passed. We talk with two of our experts about their new research on corporate resilience and what differentiates companies that emerge from economic downturns stronger than they were going in. We'll share insights on preparing your organization for macroeconomic crises and why the next downturn may be very different from earlier ones. Sean Brown: Kevin, what do you see as the most important first steps in developing such a resilience playbook? Kevin Laczkowski: You need alignment across the top team. This must be driven from the top down. It has to be a senior management team priority, or it doesn’t work. The second step is setting up the resilience nerve center and staffing it with high performers who can take macroeconomic scenarios, bring them down to the company level, understand how to stress test, and know what interventions and diagnostics the organization needs. A resilience playbook needs alignment across the top team. It has to be a senior management priority, or it doesn’t work. Kevin Laczkowski See: Executive Perspectives on Top Risks 2020 Sean Brown: Do ...
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National Cyber Security Centre UK | Jan 9, 2020 The Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) has been launched at London's Science Museum. A guide which for the first time brings together knowledge from the world’s leading cyber security experts has been launched. The Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) provides a foundation for cyber security education, training and professional practice. It will be invaluable for academia, industry and Government. The 828-page resource has the potential to help organisations to better protect themselves. It covers the foundations of cyber security, ranging from the human element through to issues in computer hardware security. See: Cyberattacks now cost small companies $200,000 on average, putting many out of business Cybercrime FinTech, Flare Systems, Raises $1M, Led by Luge Capital Launched at a special event at London’s Science Museum, CyBOK was sponsored by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is a part of GCHQ, and funded by the National Cyber Security Programme with support from DCMS. The development of CyBOK was led by the University of Bristol. Chris Ensor, the NCSC’s Deputy Director for Growth, said: “This guide will act as a real enabler for developing cyber security as a profession. It’s been ...
Read More
Tech In Asia | Miguel Cordon | Jan 8, 2020 Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab has opened its first cloud kitchen in Singapore as part of the company’s 2020 expansion strategy for its food delivery service GrabFood. GrabKitchen offers merchant-partners a platform to introduce new food concepts and brands. In addition to offering a space to operate in, GrabFood takes care of utility management within the facility and marketing support within the app, helping reduce onset business challenges. The GrabKitchen in Hillview brings over 10 F&B brands, including three new virtual restaurants, to northwest Singapore, according to a statement. Grab is also planning to launch more cloud kitchens in the city-state within the first half of the year. See: Social equity must be central to urban tech innovations Along with this, the company unveiled a GrabFood merchant platform designed to provide tools for merchant-partners. It seeks to cater to their end-to-end business needs that span procurement, marketing, finance, and business management to help them expand their businesses. The platform will include features such as a unified merchant app and a dashboard with access to GrabFood, Grab Financial Group, and GrabAds services. It will also help merchant-partners procure discounted kitchen supplies ...
Read More
AiThority | Sudipto Ghosh | Jan 7, 2020 The People’s Republic of China has officially bestowed legitimacy to Blockchain and Cryptography. The country’s enchanted Blockchain industry will now be regulated as per China’s Password Law. The world’s first Password Law has come into effect on 1 January 2020, following the Chinese government’s initiative to regulate how government agencies and private companies use data to run their cryptography management systems. From the start of this New Year 2020, the Office of State Commercial Cryptography Administration (OSCCA), and only approved products are sanctioned for use in China. In this article, we are providing a quick overview of China’s Password Law and what it entails for the blockchain ecosystem globally. Decoding China’s Password Law Though a very unique development in the global Blockchain scenario, the Password Law is completely home-grown and blossoming affaire de coeur. Within weeks of its Seventieth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (1 October 2019), the government led by President Xi Jinping passed a resolution to regulate cryptography for multiple industries. A Chinese daily had reported that the 14th Session of the 13th National People’s Congress Standing Committee voted to pass the ‘crypto law’ on 26 October 2019 ...
Read More
KABN Network | David Lucatch | Dec 9, 2019 Crowdfunding Offering supported by UK Based Tokenise and KABN Equity Token created using Polymath Token Studio Gibraltar--(Newsfile Corp. - December 9, 2019) - KABN (Gibraltar) PLC ("KABN" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has created its KABN Equity Token using the Polymath Token Studio and will make its Equity Token available for sale through a public Equity Crowdfunding sale via UK based Tokenise, which is fully compliant with the UK FCA regulatory framework. The Company's Token Offering information site can be found at www.kabntoken.com. Unlike a network or utility token, each KABN Equity Token will represent a KABN (Gibraltar) PLC Preference Share as equity or ownership in the Company. After spending well over 2 years to develop, test and launch its active business platform, KABN believes that ownership of identity is a basic human right and that individuals should be the primary beneficiary of any use of that identity data. To that end, KABN has developed a continuous, Always On, verified identity solution for commercial clients and consumers that allows individuals to manage both their private and public data, restricting the sharing and use of that data while ...
Read More
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP | Stephen J. Redican, Robert Dawkins, Ross McGowan and Alexandra Nicol | Jan 9, 2020 The Canadian financial services industry is at the threshold of change. Regulatory overhaul, the ubiquity of online services, and technological innovation and disruption will affect all players—from banks to FinTech start-ups. Open banking will introduce new opportunities and business models for the financial services industry and new services from FinTech entrants to the market—but these opportunities come with unprecedented risks and operational requirements for a banking system that prides itself on stability. Given Canada's unique financial system and constitutional structure, the implementation of open banking won't look the same as it has in the U.K., the EU or Australia, where its introduction is already underway. See: Why Canada must be open to open banking We spoke with a diverse group of leaders from across the Canadian financial services industry to understand open banking's current and emerging issues: What do you see changing? How will your organizations fit into the new landscape? What might a made-in-Canada model of open banking look like for consumers and industry? Roundtable Participants Anne Butler Chief Legal Officer and Head of Policy and Research, Payments Canada "If ...
Read More
Read More
CSA | Jan 16, 2020 Montreal - The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) today published Staff Notice 21-327 Guidance on the Application of Securities Legislation to Entities Facilitating the Trading of Crypto Assets, to help these entities to determine situations where securities legislation may or may not apply. “The evolving landscape of the industry prompts us to clarify our regulatory framework so as to better support fintech businesses seeking to offer innovative products, services and applications in Canada,” said Louis Morisset, CSA Chair and President and CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers. “As we continue to consider the comments and responses to the consultation we launched last year, the staff notice published today will help platform operators to determine whether their activities are subject to securities legislation.” The notice describes situations where securities legislation will and will not apply. For example, securities legislation may apply to platforms that facilitate the buying and selling of crypto assets that are commodities, because the user’s contractual right to the crypto asset may itself constitute a derivative, a security or both. The relevant determination will depend on the facts and circumstances, including the obligations and intention to provide immediate delivery of the crypto asset. The ...
Read More
Read More
Vox Recode | Shirin Ghaffary | Jan 7, 2020 Facebook’s new rules will still allow controversial fake videos like the one of Nancy Pelosi that made her appear to be drunk. Facebook announced late Monday that it would ban “deepfakes,” which are AI-manipulated videos that distort reality, often simulating real people in fake situations. The social media giant announced the changes in a company executive blog post, saying it will remove deepfakes and other types of heavily manipulated media from its platform. Specifically, the company laid out two main criteria for removing content under the new rules. The first is that the company will remove content posted on Facebook if has been edited in ways that would “likely mislead someone into thinking a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say,” according to the post written by Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of global policy management. Secondly, the platform will ban media if it’s the product of AI or machine learning that “merges, replaces, or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.” Facebook came under fire last year for allowing a manipulated video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that made it appear as ...
Read More
Read More
CNBC | Hugh Son | Jan 13, 2020 Key Points When Goldman Sachs released a long-awaited app for customers of its Marcus consumer bank last week, it did so with little fanfare or hype. But the app will one day serve as the bank’s storefront and one-stop shop for an array of digital banking services, according to Adam Dell, a Goldman Sachs partner and head of product at Marcus. “There are two kinds of incumbent banks,” Dell told the audience at a financial conference in June. “There are banks that are screwed, and there are banks that don’t know they’re screwed.” When Goldman Sachs released a long-awaited app for customers of its Marcus consumer bank last week, it did so with little fanfare or hype. Unlike the intense attention on its last retail product, the Apple Card, the launch of the bank’s Marcus app was heralded by little more than a smattering of user reviews. See: JPMorgan has a plan to help Amazon and Airbnb look more like banks But the app may prove to be far more important to Goldman than its credit card partnership with Apple. That’s because the portal, which today lets customers check balances and set ...
Read More
Read More
Fortune | Rey Mashayekhi | Jan 14, 2020 In late 2018, payments giants Visa and Mastercard both invested in fintech startup Plaid through a $250 million funding round that valued San Francisco-based firm at an impressive $2.65 billion. Described as “strategic investments,” the two financial services heavyweights sought not only to provide Plaid with financial backing, but also to leverage the fintech firm’s sprawling technological capabilities to improve their own services. See: Visa R&D Arm Develops a Blockchain System That Could Replace Financial Data Aggregators “We’re really excited about working with [Plaid] to enhance payment experiences globally,” Bill Sheedy, executive vice president of Visa’s strategy group, told Fortune at the time. With Plaid’s APIs (application programming interfaces), Visa could potentially improve the customer experience via everything from fraud detection to real-time account balance verification—services that “reduce the friction around financial transactions,” as Sheedy put it. A little over a year later, Visa has decided to come back for the whole thing. Whether it beat its great rival Mastercard to the punch, or saw a deal that its East Coast rival did not see, is as yet unclear. But on Monday, Visa announced that it has agreed to acquire a 100% ...
Read More
Read More
McKinsey & Company | Sean Brown and Kevin Laczkowski | Dec 2019 Resilient companies enjoy gains that last long after an economic crisis has passed. We talk with two of our experts about their new research on corporate resilience and what differentiates companies that emerge from economic downturns stronger than they were going in. We'll share insights on preparing your organization for macroeconomic crises and why the next downturn may be very different from earlier ones. Sean Brown: Kevin, what do you see as the most important first steps in developing such a resilience playbook? Kevin Laczkowski: You need alignment across the top team. This must be driven from the top down. It has to be a senior management team priority, or it doesn’t work. The second step is setting up the resilience nerve center and staffing it with high performers who can take macroeconomic scenarios, bring them down to the company level, understand how to stress test, and know what interventions and diagnostics the organization needs. A resilience playbook needs alignment across the top team. It has to be a senior management priority, or it doesn’t work. Kevin Laczkowski See: Executive Perspectives on Top Risks 2020 Sean Brown: Do ...
Read More
Read More
National Cyber Security Centre UK | Jan 9, 2020 The Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) has been launched at London's Science Museum. A guide which for the first time brings together knowledge from the world’s leading cyber security experts has been launched. The Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) provides a foundation for cyber security education, training and professional practice. It will be invaluable for academia, industry and Government. The 828-page resource has the potential to help organisations to better protect themselves. It covers the foundations of cyber security, ranging from the human element through to issues in computer hardware security. See: Cyberattacks now cost small companies $200,000 on average, putting many out of business Cybercrime FinTech, Flare Systems, Raises $1M, Led by Luge Capital Launched at a special event at London’s Science Museum, CyBOK was sponsored by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is a part of GCHQ, and funded by the National Cyber Security Programme with support from DCMS. The development of CyBOK was led by the University of Bristol. Chris Ensor, the NCSC’s Deputy Director for Growth, said: “This guide will act as a real enabler for developing cyber security as a profession. It’s been ...
Read More
Read More
Tech In Asia | Miguel Cordon | Jan 8, 2020 Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab has opened its first cloud kitchen in Singapore as part of the company’s 2020 expansion strategy for its food delivery service GrabFood. GrabKitchen offers merchant-partners a platform to introduce new food concepts and brands. In addition to offering a space to operate in, GrabFood takes care of utility management within the facility and marketing support within the app, helping reduce onset business challenges. The GrabKitchen in Hillview brings over 10 F&B brands, including three new virtual restaurants, to northwest Singapore, according to a statement. Grab is also planning to launch more cloud kitchens in the city-state within the first half of the year. See: Social equity must be central to urban tech innovations Along with this, the company unveiled a GrabFood merchant platform designed to provide tools for merchant-partners. It seeks to cater to their end-to-end business needs that span procurement, marketing, finance, and business management to help them expand their businesses. The platform will include features such as a unified merchant app and a dashboard with access to GrabFood, Grab Financial Group, and GrabAds services. It will also help merchant-partners procure discounted kitchen supplies ...
Read More
Read More
AiThority | Sudipto Ghosh | Jan 7, 2020 The People’s Republic of China has officially bestowed legitimacy to Blockchain and Cryptography. The country’s enchanted Blockchain industry will now be regulated as per China’s Password Law. The world’s first Password Law has come into effect on 1 January 2020, following the Chinese government’s initiative to regulate how government agencies and private companies use data to run their cryptography management systems. From the start of this New Year 2020, the Office of State Commercial Cryptography Administration (OSCCA), and only approved products are sanctioned for use in China. In this article, we are providing a quick overview of China’s Password Law and what it entails for the blockchain ecosystem globally. Decoding China’s Password Law Though a very unique development in the global Blockchain scenario, the Password Law is completely home-grown and blossoming affaire de coeur. Within weeks of its Seventieth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (1 October 2019), the government led by President Xi Jinping passed a resolution to regulate cryptography for multiple industries. A Chinese daily had reported that the 14th Session of the 13th National People’s Congress Standing Committee voted to pass the ‘crypto law’ on 26 October 2019 ...
Read More
Read More
KABN Network | David Lucatch | Dec 9, 2019 Crowdfunding Offering supported by UK Based Tokenise and KABN Equity Token created using Polymath Token Studio Gibraltar--(Newsfile Corp. - December 9, 2019) - KABN (Gibraltar) PLC ("KABN" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has created its KABN Equity Token using the Polymath Token Studio and will make its Equity Token available for sale through a public Equity Crowdfunding sale via UK based Tokenise, which is fully compliant with the UK FCA regulatory framework. The Company's Token Offering information site can be found at www.kabntoken.com. Unlike a network or utility token, each KABN Equity Token will represent a KABN (Gibraltar) PLC Preference Share as equity or ownership in the Company. After spending well over 2 years to develop, test and launch its active business platform, KABN believes that ownership of identity is a basic human right and that individuals should be the primary beneficiary of any use of that identity data. To that end, KABN has developed a continuous, Always On, verified identity solution for commercial clients and consumers that allows individuals to manage both their private and public data, restricting the sharing and use of that data while ...
Read More
Read More
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