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CLARITY Act Dead, Fed Hikes & Southeast Asia Fintech Consolidates
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The CLARITY Act's Senate defeat kills the clearest path to US crypto regulation, while the Fed's first rate hike since 2023 rattles digital assets and Grab's $1.49B Atome acquisition reshapes Southeast Asian lending. Six stories that move the needle for finance professionals and fintech investors.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The CLARITY Act is dead. The Senate voted forty-nine to fifty against it on September fifteenth, and with that, the clearest legislative path to comprehensive crypto regulation in the United States is gone.
Then came September sixteenth. The Federal Reserve voted to raise rates by a quarter point, the first hike since twenty twenty-three.
Away from the regulatory drama, there's meaningful infrastructure being built. Partior and LSEG announced a partnership to launch what they're calling a Multi-Settlement Bank solution, always-on, twenty-four seven cross-border payment infrastructure targeting a Q1 twenty twenty-seven production launch.
In Southeast Asia, Grab has acquired Atome for one point four nine billion dollars. Atome brings a thirty thousand merchant network and a one billion dollar loan portfolio.
The other emerging market story worth watching is GCash. Mynt's planned IPO in the Philippines carries a valuation of up to ninety-two point three billion pesos and would make GCash the country's first listed fintech.
The through-line across all of this is straightforward. Legislative certainty for crypto is off the table for now.
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