New Zealand-founded global fintech FNZ's showdown with some staff is heating up with a group of employees filing a US$4.6 billion claim in the High Court against the firm and its directors, saying they’ve been unfairly diluted in recent capital raisings.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s tariff deal with the European Union has attracted criticism, while stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic were broadly weaker.
And oil prices nudged higher after Trump shortened his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to make progress in ending the war with Ukraine.
As New Zealand clamps down on surcharges and eyes open banking services as means to put a little more in households’ back pockets, US megabank JPMorgan Chase is considering charging fintechs for access to its customers’ information.
Mixed reception
Stocks on Wall Street and in Europe were broadly weaker as investors digested US President Donald Trump’s deal with the European Union to halve the threatened rate of tariffs imposed on goods sold into the world’s biggest economy.
French prime minister François Bayrou called it a “dark day” and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard described the deal as a defeat for Europe, while German chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged a trade conflict would have hit his nation’s economy hard.
Germany’s DAX30 dropped 1% and the UK’s FTSE 100 index declined 0.4%, while Wall Street’s S&P 500 dipped 0.1%. The greenback rallied as investors dialled back their appetite for riskier assets, with the kiwi falling to 59.70 US cents at 7am in Auckland from 60.11 cents yesterday.
“It didn’t take long for joy about the negotiated US-EU trade ‘deal’ to fade,” Bank of New Zealand senior markets strategist Jason Wong said in a note. “While the agreement that the EU will face only a baseline 15% tariff on exports to the US for most goods averted worse scenarios of a 30% rate or an outright trade war, the reality is that the deal is negative for growth in the region.”
US defence companies including Lockheed Martin gained while European military suppliers declined after Trump said the EU will buy a large amount of military equipment from the US.
Losing patience
Oil prices nudged higher with Brent crude futures up 0.3% at US$69.50 a barrel after Trump shortened the deadline for Russia to reach a truce with Ukraine, threatening secondary sanctions on nations that buy oil from Russia if a deal isn’t made.
Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite bucked the trend, up 0.2%, ahead of earnings from four of the Magnificent 7 megastocks on Wednesday and Thursday in the US.
Tesla recovered some of its recent losses, recently up 3.3% after chief executive Elon Musk said the electric vehicle maker will buy US$16.5 billion of artificial intelligence chips from Samsung, with the South Korean firm’s new Texas factory being dedicated to the supply deal.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported JPMorgan Chase plans to charge fintechs for access to its customer data, raising fears about the future for open banking.
Across the Tasman, British fintech Wise’s shareholders approved plans to shift the company’s primary listing to New York, despite opposition from one of the payments firm’s founders over its dual-class share structure.
Australian futures are pointing to a 0.8% decline for the S&P/ASX 200 index when trading opens today.
No local data is scheduled for today.
And a group of employee shareholders at FNZ have filed a US$4.6 billion claim in the New Zealand High Court, accusing the firm and 17 current and former directors of unfairly diluting their holdings through capital raisings in 2024 and 2025. FNZ has called the claim entirely without merit.
Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Ben Rosett on Unsplash.