Chime to stop calling itself a ‘bank’ to settle legal action
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US-based neobank Chime will no longer refer to itself as a bank after it agreed to a
settlement with the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. The regulator took action against the US neobank in 2020 because it doesn’t have a state banking license. The settlement calls for Chime to add clarifications about its operations to its website and advertising by May 15. Moving forward, Chime will state that it is a fintech and that it partners with outside banks to provide its offerings.
Some of the neobank’s licensed competitors argue that their licensing helps bolster their reputations, which would also come with the ability to offer deposit products without needing to partner or share revenues with a sponsor bank. Green Dot CEO Dan Henry
U.S. Bank tests branches geared for a digital-first era
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U.S. Bank has made a series of overhauls to branches in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota to reposition physical banking as digital channels eat away at its usage,
per the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. The latest example, a renovated concept branch in Eden Prairie, features self-service stations with digital devices instead of tellers. Branch employees will instead help customers with services including technology assistance, lines of credit, and wealth management. U.S. Bank began rolling out these concepts last fall.
The concept branches let U.S. Bank test ways to pair physical banking with the digital-only channels that are displacing it.
In the UK, search’s saving grace was strong growth in ecommerce
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Search had a challenging time during the pandemic. Spend grew just 5.3% to £7.34 billion ($9.41 billion) in 2020, down from 17.7% the previous year and significantly down on our pre-pandemic estimate of 12.2% growth. However, this latest forecast is a reversal on our interim August 2020 estimate, when we expected a decline of 1.7% for the year.
Travel spending is predominant in search, so 2020 was likely to be a rocky year for the format. Our ad spend by industry forecasts from August last year were already painting a bleak picture for the travel sector a 36.7% decline in digital ad spend in 2020 and our update later this year is unlikely to contain any significant upticks.
On today's episode, we discuss Facebook letting users choose how their News Feed looks, Clubhouse adding tipping, tech giants betting people are ready for augmented reality (AR) glasses, making the most of "micromoments," Apple making a car, what happens when you look down at your phone while walking, and more. Tune in to listen to the discussion with eMarketer analysts Nina Goetzen and Blake Droesch, and senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Sara M. Watson.
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