Bankman-Fried arrest, regulatory changes open doors for fintechs and what matters in the market

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SBF is arrested in the Bahamas

Founder and former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday by Bahamian police.

The operation took place shortly after a formal notification from the US of criminal charges against the businessman, said the attorney general of the Caribbean country.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he was indicted for wire fraud, conspiracy to wire fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and money laundering.

Bankman-Fried, or SBFas is known, had been participating in a series of interviews in recent weeks and was trying to disassociate himself from the accusations of fraud, stating that he did not commit intentional irregularities in what is considered one of the biggest scandals in the history of the crypto industry.

• He acknowledged his own “enormous management failures” but said he was unaware of the transactions between Alameda Research, in which he was a majority shareholder, and FTX.

Remember: FTX became the second largest exchange (crypto brokerage) in the world in trading volume, with a market cap of $32 billion🇧🇷 A cash crunch in early November, however, prompted it to file for bankruptcy.

• The problems that caused FTX’s demise arose at the trading firm Alameda Research, in which SBF was a majority shareholder.

• She took advantage of FTX’s structure and money to gamble on risky investments that didn’t pay off.

Fintechs eyeing new sectors in 23

Regulatory updates promoted in recent months should bring fintechs into competition in two markets starting next year: exchange and benefits.

The assessment is by Bruno Balduccini, partner in the banking and financial transactions area at Pinheiro Neto Advogados.

in exchangethe law passed in December 2021 allows payment institutions to operate in the foreign exchange market as of July 2023.

• Names such as Nubank, PicPay, Neon, PagSeguro and Mercado Pago are payment institutions.

• These fintechs will be able to offer services for buying and selling currencies, remittances abroad and accounts in foreign currency or abroad, with a limitation of up to US$ 100 thousand (R$ 520 thousand) per transaction.

in the benefitsthe new rules for food and meal vouchers, sanctioned in September, should open up a market currently dominated by large companies, such as Alelo, Sodexo and Ticket.

• Among the novelties are the option of portability of the benefits card from May 1, 2023 and the open payment method, in which the worker can use the card in any restaurant that accepts vouchers.

Stock market returns to August with politics on the radar

The stock exchange closed sharply this Monday, at the lowest level in more than four months, while the dollar and interest rates rose, on a day marked by investor reaction to news about the next government.

In numbers: the Ibovespa closed at a low of 2.02%, at 105,343 points, but retreated 3% during the day. the dollar rose 1.27%, at BRL 5.31. In future interest, the DI rate for 2024 increased from 13.80% to 13.91% per year.

Which explains: The news that the next government is considering modifying the Law on State Companies –which shields companies from interference– to facilitate political appointments hit the actions of State companies and affected the Stock Exchange as a whole.

• The alteration could facilitate the appointment of former PT minister Aloizio Mercadante to command the BNDES and Senator Jean Paul Prates (PT-RN) to Petrobras.

• The State-owned Law prohibits the appointment of party leaders or politicians who contested elections in the previous 36 months.

• Mercadante said this Monday that he is unaware of “any initiative” to change the State-owned Law. He also declined to answer whether he will hold any office in the next government.

• In a meeting with Febraban (the federation of banks) after the closing of the Stock Exchange, Mercadante said that there is no room in the public accounts for BNDES subsidy policies and that the government would not grant loans for projects abroad.

In Chinathe growth in Covid cases raised doubts about the loosening of the zero Covid policy in the country and ended up dropping in 2.99% Vale’s shares here.

• The mining company depends heavily on sales to the second largest economy in the world and has the highest market value on the Brazilian stock exchange.

More about investments:

‘Alternative Exchange’ has a new IPO

BEE4, a kind of Exchange for tokenized assets of Brazilian companies, announced the start of the offering of Mais Mu, a healthy food company that is the second to make an IPO on its platform.

• The first was the Engravida human reproduction clinic, in September of this year, when the volume traded was BRL 331.7 thousand, with 18.4 thousand tokens traded.

Understand: the platform uses blockchain network infrastructure (chain that records transactions) to transform company papers into digital assets, which are traded by investors.

• To ensure liquidity (trading volume) for the shares, trading on the platform is always on Wednesdays, from 12:00 to 20:00.

“Green” companies for the Exchange: BEE4 says that its focus is on companies that are past the initial stage of their operations, but that are not yet big enough to go public on the B3, the Brazilian Stock Exchange.

Today, there are 2,000 investors registered on the Beegin website, the crowdfunding platform where assets are traded. BEE4’s idea is to plug its platform to market brokers in 2023.