The Benzinga Fintech Summit is a gathering of the top leaders in payments, lending, capital markets, blockchain and cryptocurrencies in San Francisco Nov. 14. Ahead of the Summit, Benzinga is profiling fintech thought leaders who are speaking at the event. For this installment, Benzinga interviewed one of our keynote speakers, Venmo founder and current founder of AI digital assistant Fin Andrew Kortina. Kortina and Greycroft venture investor Kamran Ansari will present the keynote talk on how...

Startup brokerage Robinhood announced Wednesday it has developed a proprietary trade clearing system called “Clearing by Robinhood” that will let the company clear and settle all transactions on its trading platform. The company also announced it has recorded six million open accounts. Why It Matters A brokerage bringing its clearing in-house is relatively novel—while Vanguard's brokerage arm moved its clearing in-house in 2008, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev claimed the startup is the first to...

Robinhood, the startup brokerage, made two huge announcements Wednesday: One might ask why a rapidly-growing startup would invest in such a massive technological undertaking while supporting growth at scale, so Benzinga sat down with Robinhood co-founder and co-CEO Vlad Tenev and product lead Christine Hall to understand the process of bringing the clearing system online. In short, Tenev said, the goal is to offer a more comprehensively Robinhood experience to users, and to cut out third...

The Benzinga Fintech Summit is a gathering of the top leaders in brokerage, payments and cryptocurrencies in San Francisco Nov. 14. Ahead of the Summit, Benzinga is profiling fintech thought leaders who are speaking at the event. For this installment, Benzinga interviewed a key speaker on our upcoming brokerage panel: Barry Metzger, senior vice president of global, trading and advice at Charles Schwab SCHW 2.1%. BZ: Tell us about your role at Charles Schwab. What does it mean to be SVP of...

Scottish electropop act Chvrches recently kicked off the tour in support of their third album, “Love is Dead,” but used their trademark energy and stage presence to highlight their entire discography. Chvrches played the first show of their North American tour at the CalCoast Credit Union Open Air Theater at San Diego State on Sept. 20. This show was the first time the band had played San Diego in two years, since they made a stop at the Observatory in North Park in between the two Coachella...