Category: Blend Network

Thursday October 10 2019, Weekly News Digest

Lend Academy

News Comments Today’s main news: Affirm debuts shopping app. Zopa profits tick upward. RateSetter recovering from loan scandal. PPDAI stock rises 7% with lift in institutional-funded loans. Oportun ends Nasdaq debut with 8% gain. Australia: RBA cuts interest rates, online lenders follow. Today’s main analysis: The Future of Finance: Marcus, Neobank, and fintech. (A MUST-READ) […]

The post Thursday October 10 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

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News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

European Union

International

Other

News Summary

United States

OnDeck Survey: Economy is Top Concern for Small Businesses Ahead of 2020 Election (New Kerala), Rated: AAA

OnDeck today announced the results of a national survey of U.S. small business owners that finds economic issues are the most important factors in determining their choice for president in 2020.

  • Economic concerns arise in several dimensions, including tax policy, job growth, support for small businesses, government spending and the overall economic climate. These issues were cited as the top concerns of more than 33% of those surveyed;
  • Immigration was an issue of interest for 11.3% of small business owners surveyed, ranking second behind the economy as a concern.
  • 57% of small businesses surveyed said they were either Very Optimistic or Somewhat Optimistic about the economic outlook for their businesses;
  • 93% of those surveyed said they plan to vote in the 2020 election.
  • 60% of small business owners surveyed said they already know who they plan to vote for in the 2020 presidential election.

Affirm debuted a new app encouraging customers to start their shopping journeys with it (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

The point-of-sale (POS) financing provider 

Source: Business Insider

Affirm ships new shopping and bill splitting app (Finextra), Rated: A

Affirm’s app also allows consumers to pay at any brick-and-mortar store that accepts Apple Pay or Google Pay, which is increasingly important as 24% of consumers want the flexibility to look online and shop in-store.

Those with Apple Pay or Google Pay enabled have also seen up to 14% of transactions driven in-store, making the Affirm app a rare omnichannel solution for customer acquisition.

Max Levchin On The Future-Present Of Everywhere POS Lending (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Since Affirm’s launch, the landscape in the POS space is radically different than it was when Affirm entered. It is, first and foremost, a much bigger and more populated space than it once was. Other startups have come to the field — Afterpay, Uplift and Sezzle for example — but also bigger and more established names in financial services. In the last 12 months alone Square, Mastercard, PayPal and Chase have all rolled out POS installment lending products or enhancements as the market continues to pick up popularity among consumers, particularly younger ones.

Latest Macro; latest from Marcus; Oportun goes IPO (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

Q4 is off to a brisk start. The jobs report released this past Friday shows 114K in net new jobs (vs expectations of 120K), generally flat wages, and a drop in the unemployment rate to 3.5%.

On the one hand, the US economy is near ‘stall speed’ – around 1 to 1.5% growth rate.

Source: PeerIQ, The Daily Shot, Conference Board

House prices are expected to rise 5.8% over the next year due to low mortgage rates.

Two major financing announcements this week. FinTech lender, Oportun, led by CEO Raul Vazquez, ends its Nasdaq debut with an 8% gain. The debut is notable as it represents a positive shift in the sentiment to the reception of lenders to the IPO market.

My Quarterly Marketplace Lending Results – Q2 2019 (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

The upward trend in my returns continued in Q2, making it the fifth quarter in a row with increasing returns. My preliminary return for the 12 months ending June 30, 2019 is 6.20% (one investment is still not final), the best I have achieved since Q3 2017.

Source: Lend Academy

The Maybe-Dubious Rise of the Loans-for-Sneaker Business (GQ), Rated: AAA

Afterpay is one of a number of platforms that have sprouted up over the past couple years that are willing to float customers a couple hundred or thousand dollars to shop. In addition to it, there are Affirm, Sezzle, Klarna, and Quadpay. They are positioned as a more consumer-friendly option than credit cards, a whole host of services bent on—because this is 2019—disrupting the powers that be.

Globally, Afterpay, which launched in Australia, has over 4.6 million customers and 35,000 retail partners. In the U.S., where Afterpay only launched in May of last year, it has two million customers and is available at 6,500 retailers. Over three million people use Affirm, while another 500,000 have shopped with Sezzle.

Silicon Valley promises aside, Afterpay is, at best, a platform that allows you to take out what amounts to a small loan on an item. After an approval process—Afterpay does not check a credit score; others like Affirm do—the customer pays a fourth of the price upfront and the rest is paid off in three equal installments every two weeks.

Also new is the $1,500 limit, up from $500, that Afterpay raised after Hyde-McCormick proved himself a responsible shopper and the $87.50 payments currently due every two weeks.

a 

What Happened to Borro? (deBanked), Rated: A

In 2013, Borro, an innovative online lending company that was poised to disrupt pawn shop lending forever, invited me to their stylish offices at 767 Third Avenue in Manhattan.

Borro made $50 million worth of such loans in 2013 and doubled that number in 2014.

Auto, home equity are soft spots in consumer lending (American Banker), Rated: A

In its quarterly report that tracks consumer delinquency trends, the American Bankers Association said that 30-day past-due rates ticked up in eight of 11 categories in the second quarter when compared with the first quarter, but stressed that delinquencies remain well below historic norms.

Finally! Maker Offers Multi-Collateral DAI Lending (Cryptovest), Rated: A

Maker DAO, the most active decentralized finance app on the Ethereum network, has announced a date for its long-awaited multi-collateral DAI generation. According to observers, November 18 may be the date MKR starts accepting other assets as collateral.

Multi-collateral DAI creation has the potential to be riskier in comparison to ETH-based models. Currently, Maker is deliberately over-collateralized at above 300%, with the minimum at 150%, due to the high volatility of crypto assets.

A $ 40 Billion Pile of Leveraged Loans Is Battered by Big Losses (Bloomberg), Rated: A

Loans tied to more than 50 companies have lost at least 10 percentage points of face value in just three months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Some have dropped a lot more, with lenders lucky to get back just two-thirds of their investment if they tried to sell.

It’s hardly a full-blown apocalypse for the junk-rated leveraged loan market, which totals $1.2 trillion.

Energy is the hardest-hit sector on the list, with more than $12 billion of loans falling more than 10 cents on the dollar. Consumer and health care follow, comprising around $8 billion and $5 billion of loans outstanding, respectively.

Source: Bloomberg

Ruling cuts short debt collectors’ victory lap over CFPB proposal (American Banker), Rated: B

Under the CFPB’s May proposal, debt collectors could have unlimited contact with debtors through email and text messages, though consumers could opt out of such communications. Additionally, collectors could satisfy disclosure requirements with a hyperlink embedded in an email that takes consumers to a description about how they can dispute a debt.

The SEC is hiring a chief data officer (Business Insider), Rated: B

The Securities and Exchange Commission is hiring its first chief data officer, according to a job posting for the role.

Voyager Selects Celsius Network to Manage Certain Assets (AP News), Rated: B

Voyager Digital, LLC, a subsidiary of publicly-traded Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd (Ticker VYGR.CN), an industry-leading best execution crypto asset broker, today announced a partnership with Celsius Network, in which Celsius will manage a portion of Voyager’s digital assets.

United Kingdom

Zopa’s P2P profits tick up but group losses widen due to heavy investment in bank (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

Zopa Group – which incorporates the P2P platform and upcoming digital bank – reported a pre-tax loss of £18.295m for the year ended 31 December 2018, compared to a pre-tax loss of £5.536m the previous year.

Zopa: nine in 10 shoppers confused by car finance options (Verdict), Rated: A

In a survey of 2,000 consumers, 47% of people who had recently bought a car with finance are unable to identify which type of finance deal they signed up for. Zopa estimates that the average car buyer could save up to £11,000 over the course of their lifetime by working out the best finance deal available.

Ratesetter recovering from loan scandal (The Times), Rated: AAA

One of Britain’s largest peer-to-peer lenders appears to be recovering from a toxic loan scandal after its latest results showed it edging towards breaking even.

Accounts for Ratesetter, which links 56,000 ordinary investors with consumer and business borrowers, show that pre-tax losses narrowed by 69 per cent in the year to March.

Wonga customers’ average compensation payout may be just £118 (The Guardian), Rated: A

Customers who were mis-sold loans by the collapsed payday lender Wonga are expected to receive less than 10% of what they are owed in compensation after administrators revealed that only £41m will be put aside for claimants.

Payday loan alternative Savvy secures £20 million funding facility (Finextra), Rated: A

Stockport and Wilmslow based fintech company Savvy.co.uk is to create 25 jobs after securing a £20 million investment.

The funding, from London-based Cairn Capital, will increase lending capacity for the company who provide an ethical alternative to pay-day loans.

MEET THE FRENCHMAN WHO WANTS TO SOLVE THE UK’S HOUSING CRISIS (Business Leader), Rated: A

WHY DID YOU START BLEND NETWORK?

I started working in the financial industry as an FX trader before moving to trading gold and copper, both much more inefficient markets than FX. I realised that the UK property market was a hugely inefficient market in the sense that lenders and borrowers are not meeting. On the one hand, you have very experienced property developers across the country who are trying to access funds to build homes but traditional lenders are no longer active in providing development finance.

Instead, we lend in places such as Coventry, East Anglia, Doncaster, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a very good example of our strategic approach to lending. Last year, we did around 80-85% of our business in Northern Ireland.

Crowdfunding a start up options explained for businesses and investors (What Investment), Rated: A

Crowdfunding a start up brings to mind the statement ‘Nothing worth having comes easy’, never truer than in the case of launching a start-up. Getting a new business off the ground will often require capital. Something which a lot of people don’t know how to go about getting.

These are:

  • Reward based crowdfunding;
  • Equity based crowdfunding;
  • Debt based crowdfunding, and
  • Donation based crowdfunding.

Landlords wary of tax changes (Money International), Rated: A

Half of the 200 landlords approached agreed tax changes and tougher mortgage borrowing criteria have thwarted their plans to buy more properties, while 15% admitted they had been put off buying homes to rent.

A third who still wanted to invest are considering a switch from buy to let to peer-to-peer lending secured against property, while 8% have already done so.

China

PPDAI Stock Soars 7% on Increase in Institutionally-Funded Loans (Capital Watch), Rated: AAA

The stock in PPDAI Group Inc (NYSE: PPDF) closed 7% higher on Wednesday, at $2.83 per American depositary share, after it announced a positive trend in funding of loans by its institutional partners and increased loan origination volume.

For the third quarter, the Shanghai-based company, which operates an online consumer finance marketplace, said in a statement on Wednesday that the volume of loans facilitated by its institutional funding partners jumped to $2.64 billion, up 91% from the second quarter. Total loan origination volume was above PPDAI’s guidance, it said, as it reached $3.51 billion, up 14% from the previous quarter.

European Union

What we learned at this year’s LendIt Fintech Europe (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

At the conference, Business Insider Intelligence identified four emerging themes that we expect to set the tone for the space for the next year: further proliferation of partnerships between banks and fintechs, increased focus on digital banks’ sustainability, accelerated innovation and disruption from small- and medium-sized business (SMB) lenders, and more challenges ahead for the UK’s P2P lenders.

  • CYBG bank and price comparison site GoCompare recently partnered to offer an energy compare and switch service for all of CYBG’s B customers.
  • Barclays bank partnered with SMB finance fintech MarketInvoice last year to give Barclays’ SMB clients access to MarkeInvoice’s solutions. 
  • French Banking-as-a-Service platform Treezor was acquired by Société Générale last year, as the bank looked to enhance its ability to innovate and decrease time to market.
Source: Business Insider

Linked Finance launches ‘Beyond Brexit’ business loans (Bridging and Commercial), Rated: A

The new 18-month loan period will allow borrowers to access working capital facilities of up to €300,000 (approximately £265,194) in just 24 hours.

ID on track to double revenues as it eyes €300m+ of revenue within 2 years (Fintech Finance), Rated: A

ID Finance, the fintech operating in Europe and Latin America, saw revenue growth of over 100% in the first 9 months of 2019 and is on track to double its revenues to €90m revenue this year. The data science, credit scoring and digital finance company is now planning its first equity crowdfunding round via Crowdcube as it targets €300m+ of revenue within 2 years.

Binance Launches New Lending Program Phase (CoinCodex), Rated: A

The Binance cryptocurrency exchange has launched the latest phase of its relatively new lending program. For the program’s eighth installment, Binance is sticking with the model of short-term loans, as users only have to commit their crypto for 14 days.

International

A Guide to What’s Happening in the Fintech Revolution (Bloomberg), Rated: AAA

These underbanked markets, led by countries in Asia and Africa, have inspired fintech innovation that’s leapfrogging the technology available in the developed world. Ant Financial Services Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay in China, Paytm in India, and Safaricom’s M-Pesa in Kenya are some well-known examples.

Source: Bloomberg

Take Facebook Inc.’s plan to launch a digital currency called Libra in 2020. The social network’s gigantic reach—more than 2.4 billion active monthly users—could draw a much wider audience to Libra than has used previous cryptocurrencies. For instance, global remittances by migrants reached a record $689 billion last year, according to the World Bank.

Source: Bloomberg

San Francisco-based 500 Startups staked 43 such companies in the 12 months ended June 30.

Goldman’s $ 1.3B Marcus burn, Neobank £200MM loss; plus 14 short takes on top developments (Lex), Rated: AAA

Goldman is losing $1.3 billion on Marcus, trying to build a Fintech leader. Etrade is going to lose $75 million from cutting trading fees to $0 to keep up with Robinhood. Revolut is losing £35 million on £60 million in revenue, with another £140 million burned by Atom, Monzo, Tandem, and the rest.

Source FT Research and Future of Finance

Generally speaking, from a deposit point of view, these are still all small businesses at £1 billion in assets (e.g., Betterment manages $20 billion).

Source: ARK Invest and Future of Finance

The first is that the Robinhoods and Monzos of the world are 10x overpriced relative to the payments apps. I can sort of buy this — though money in motion is way easier to capture than money at rest. The second is that venture investors think a finance user is worth $1,500 in a digital bank.

Source: Future of Finance

Blockchain: the future of finance (Financier Worldwide), Rated: A

Recent examples of blockchain’s impact on financial markets go well beyond these initial applications or P2P lending or crowdfunding.

The first wave of applications in finance and banking is being driven by easily achievable gains in actively traded assets.

MasterCard incorporated a blockchain payment system providing vendors real time, lower cost settlements on cross-border transactions. Representing a consortium of more than 40 of the world’s largest banks, fintech firm R3 launched a payment system built on DLT platform Corda, to expedite intra-bank transfers.

St. Regis Aspen, a Colorado resort, is a partnership formed with a crowdfunding site, Indiegogo, that in lieu of a traditional IPO completed a private placement via DLT financing real estate. This sale of ‘tokens’ – fractional interests in the underlying property – raised $18m, compliant with securities laws.

Australia

Hot home loan rates starting with a 2 (mozo), Rated: AAA

The RBA has cut official interest rates for the third time this year, and already a handful of lenders have responded by slashing rates across their range of variable rate home loans. Right now, if your home loan doesn’t have a ‘2’ in front of it, you’re missing out.

loans.com.au jumps on October RBA home loan rate cut party (mozo), Rated: AAA

The online lender has announced its response to the 0.25% drop in the official cash rate though, with loans.com.au taking 0.15% off a number of variable rate home loan offers for both owner occupiers and investors.

The changes, which come into effect on October 17, will have an impact on a number of  loans.com.au home loan offers including:

• Essentials Variable loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 3.04% (3.06% comparison rate*).

• Smart Home Loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 2.88% (2.90% comparison rate*).

• ZIP Home Loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 3.08% (3.10% comparison rate*).

• Offset Variable loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 3.12% (3.14% comparison rate*).

OnDeck appoints Robbie Fidler as new national broker chief (IT Wire), Rated: B

Online SME lender OnDeck Australia has appointed experienced commercial lending operator Robbie Fidler as its national broker channel manager.

Asia

SPV 2030: Sharing of risks and reward (The Malaysian Reserve), Rated: A

The growth and success of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is a testament of the viability of risk-sharing contracts, where the investors take on some risks (for higher return) from the ventures they are financing. This way, finance will be grounded in the real economy, which is another core principle of Islamic finance.

MENA

Beehive funds first SME in Bahrain (Arabian Business), Rated: AAA

Dubai-based Beehive, the region’s first regulated peer-to-peer lending platform, has funded its first SME in Bahrain.

Canada

BFS Capital Opens New Data Science and Engineering Hub in Toronto (Financial Post), Rated: B

BFS Capital, a leader in small business lending, has officially launched a data science and engineering hub in Toronto as the company accelerates its plans to develop best-in-class digital financial products for small businesses across the globe.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday October 10 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday December 20 2018, Daily News Digest

US Yield Curve

News Comments Today’s main news: OnDeck to enter equipment financing. SoFi releases video to destigmatize debt. RateSetter sees 47% revenue growth. Funding Circle fund expects lower returns. 360 Finance financials. Today’s main analysis: U.S. yield curve inverts. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Why did OnDeck file suit in Arlington? Fewer Americans rely on cash. More than half of Americans can’t cover a $1,000 […]

The post Thursday December 20 2018, Daily News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

US Yield Curve

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China/Hong Kong

Southeast Asia

Other

News Summary

United States

OnDeck (ONDK) to Enter Equipment Financing Market (StreetInsider), Rated: AAA

OnDeck announced today that it will begin offering equipment finance loans to select U.S. small businesses next year, bringing its heralded technology and digital lending expertise to what has traditionally been a slow-moving, opaque, and complicated process.

Who’s On Deck? And why are they in Arlington? We explain. (Biz Journals), Rated: AAA

At 2 p.m. on a Friday in mid-October, it’s judgment day for 13 small companies from across the country.

The plaintiff is On Deck Capital Inc., a publicly traded online small business lender based in New York that has sued each of the 13 companies for not repaying loans. Its choice of setting: the Arlington General District Courthouse.

New SoFi Campaign Aims To Destigmatize Debt and Financial Insecurity In Powerful “Money Talks” Video (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

SoFi today launched a campaign showcasing some of its members’ most intimate stories around their personal struggles with money. Produced in collaboration with director Tatia Pilieva, the filmmaker most notably known for her sensational short film ‘First Kiss,’ the video captures twelve SoFi members, strangers to each other, meeting for the first time to have open-ended, unfiltered conversations about their lives, their money, and their views for their futures.

The video, along with more about the members featured in the video, are now live at 

US Yield Curve Inverts; Spreads Widening on New FinTech Deals (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

Core CPI rose by 2.2% keeping the Fed on track to raise interest rates next week for the fourth time this year. The market-implied probability of a rate hike next week is ~77%, although the rate hike path in 2019 remains uncertain. The US yield curve saw its first post-crisis flatteningwhich we will look at in greater detail below.

US Yield Curve Inverts for the First Time Post-Crisis

The US yield-curve saw its first inversion post-crisis as the spreads between the yields on 3-year and 5-year Treasuries fell to -1 bps. The spread between the yields on 3-month and 10-year treasuries has been an accurate predictor of past recessions. As the chart below shows, there have been 6 recessions since 1970 after the 3-month – 10-year curve inverted. Currently, the 3-month – 10-year curve is 49 bps away from inversion, but markets are watching every part of the yield curve closely.

Source: Federal Reserve, PeerIQ

Spreads are Widening on New FinTech Deals

LendingClub and CommonBond are out with new securitizations. KBRA has rated the tranches on LendingClub’s latest $272 Mn deal CLUB 2018-P3 A-, BBB, and BB. The $300 Mn collateral pool consists of 17,825 Prime loans with an average balance of $16.8 k, a weighted average coupon of 14.58%, and a weighted average remaining term of 48 months. The weighted average FICO score of the borrowers is 703. The deal has an initial O/C of 9.2% and an excess spread of 9.1%. Both the O/C and excess spread are the lowest for LC’s 2018 prime deals. This deal priced 27-50bps wider than LC’s prior deal in September due to market volatility and widening structured products spreads, according to DebtWire.

More Americans are making no weekly purchases with cash (Pew Research), Rated: AAA

Americans are becoming less reliant on physical currency. Roughly three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) say they make no purchases using cash during a typical week, up slightly from 24% in 2015. And the share who say that all or almost all of their weekly purchases are made using cash has modestly decreased, from 24% in 2015 to 18% today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that comes as some businesses experiment with becoming cashless establishments.

Read the full report here.

LendingTree Survey Finds More Than Half of Americans Can’t Cover a $ 1,000 Emergency with Savings (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Key points

  • Only 48 percent of Americans say they could handle a $1,000 emergency expense using cash or savings in their bank accounts. Tapping savings was the most common strategy for handling an emergency, followed by borrowing from friends or family.
  • Six in 10 Americans have had an emergency in the past year that cost them $1,000 or more.
  • One-third of Americans are currently in debt from an emergency expense they couldn’t cover.
  • Of Americans who had to go into debt to cover a past emergency, a third still owe $5,000 or more for this expense and about 18 percent have emergency debt balances of $10,000 or more.

The majority of Americans would have to turn to other options to pay for an emergency:

  • 16 percent would borrow from family or friends
  • 9 percent would sell something
  • 9 percent would use a credit card
  • 7 percent would work more
  • 6 percent would get a loan or paycheck advance

Read the full report here.

LendingTree Study Finds Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh Are Most Popular Cities for Millennial Homebuyers (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Key findings

  • Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh are the metros where millennials are making up the largest percentage of purchase requests. In Salt Lake City, a majority of the total purchase requests in the area, 51 percent, come from millennials. In Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, 48 percent come from millennials.
  • In Tampa, Fla., Las Vegas and Miami, millennials are making the least purchase requests. Only 30 percent of purchase requests came from people under 35 in Tampa. That number was only slightly higher in Las Vegas and Miami, where 31 percent and 32 percent of purchase requests came from those under 35.
  • San Francisco, San Jose, Calif. and New York are where millennials wait the longest to buy homes. The average age for these three areas was 29.6 years old. This compares with an average of 28.7 years old across the remaining 47 largest metros in the U.S.
  • Salt Lake City, Louisville, Ky. and Cincinnati are the metros with the lowest average age of buyers under 35. In each of these areas, the average age for potential millennial homebuyers is around 28 years old.
  • San Jose, Calif., San Francisco and New York are the places where millennials had the highest average credit scores. In each of these areas, the average millennial homebuyer had a credit score higher than 704. By comparison, the average credit score for millennial homebuyers across the 50 largest MSAs in the country was 656.
  • Memphis, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala. and New Orleans are where millennials had the lowest average credit scores. Credit scores in these three areas were 622, 629 and 634 respectively.

Read the full report here.

When Do People Fall Behind On Their Bills? (LendingTree), Rated: A

Many people live paycheck to paycheck, relying on the next deposit that will hit their account to cover their living expenses, bills and debt payments. Despite many people having no or little savings on which to fall back, the vast majority of Americans (95%) in the largest 100 metros manage to pay their bills on time.

  • More Americans fell behind on their bills in December than at any other time during the 12-month period we reviewed. This timing coincides with spending for the holiday season, suggesting that some consumers stretched past their financial limits to celebrate this festive time.
  • Americans played a bit of catch-up on their holiday debt in January but fell slightly behind again in February. Year-end bonuses possibly helped some consumers pay immediate bills but didn’t resolve over-extension from holiday debt.
  • Many people caught up with their bills in April — right around tax refund time, a sign that many people rely on their refunds to get them current and caught up on payments. (Tax refunds in 2018 were delayed for millions of taxpayers due to extra scrutiny for people claiming certain common credits.)
  • The jump in people current with their bills continued through September. This continued trend suggests that the tax returns, and possibly improving economic conditions over the summer of 2018, helped people manage their existing debts going forward.

Argon Credit Trustee Sues Former Managers, Owners for Fraud (PR Newswire), Rated: A

In the first complaint filed on December 14, 2018 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago, Argon’s trustee Eugene Craneasserts that, “During the course of the Debtors’ limited business operations spanning approximately two years, Argon Credit’s officers and members of its board of managers repeatedly breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty and care to the Debtors and to the Debtors’ creditors by:

(i) scheming to funnel assets away from the Debtors and their creditors,

(ii) transferring assets to insiders;

(iii) double-pledging assets to the Debtors’ secured lender and an insider’s lender;

(iv) knowingly submitting false or misleading financial information to the Debtors’ secured lender, including a false accounts receivable report;

(v) paying themselves exorbitant “commissions” without disclosure to or approval of the Debtors’ board of managers,

(vi) using company funds to pay for personal expenses unrelated to the Debtors’ business operations; and,

(vii) authorizing the Debtors to enter into purported loans with investors which were really contributions of equity and authorizing equity distributions to those investors at a time when the Debtors were insolvent.”

In the second complaint filed against Joseph Canfora’s Margon LLC, James Uihlein’s Little Owl Argon LLC, Mark Triffler’sTriffler Trust, and Barry Edmonson’s Cardinal Trust, Crane’s complaint contends,

“This action arises out of a series of transactions between Argon Credit and the Defendants by which the Defendants purportedly loaned funds to Argon Credit and Argon Credit made supposed principal and interest payments to the Defendants totaling more than $2.5 million on account of those purported loans. However, Argon Credit and the Defendants also entered into simultaneous subscription agreements by which the Defendants received equity in Argon Credit for no additional consideration and which was commensurate with the amount of their purported loans. In reality, these supposed loans were disguised equity contributions and Argon Credit’s principal and interest payments to Defendants were actually equity distributions.”

The Bankruptcy Court filings can be found here and here.

Roostify Offers Enhanced ADA Compliance to Lenders for a Better Consumer Lending Experience (Roostify Email), Rated: A

Some of the design elements incorporated into the platform that support those with disabilities include:

  • The mortgage application allows users to navigate the system using only using their keyboard;
  • Text and images can be resized without the user losing any information or their place in the application;
  • Text and images offer sufficient contrast between foreground and background color combinations for those with visual limitations;
  • Navigational aids exist throughout the application from beginning to end.

Radius Bank Goes Mobile For Micro-Businesses (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Virtual bank Radius Bank — which services small businesses (SMBs), micro-firms and consumers — is rolling out a revamped digital banking platform and a mobile banking app, the company said on Monday (Dec. 17). Resulting from its partnership with FinTech firm Narmi, the upgrades target the customer experience, according to Radius CEO and President Mike Butler.

Entegra Bank Chooses Velocity Solutions to Power Its Small Business Digital Lending (deBanked), Rated: A

Velocity Solutions announced today that its Akouba digital lending platform was selected by Entegra Bank to power the bank’s digital lending for its small and medium-sized business customers. Akouba provides community and regional banks with origination and underwriting services.

LoanStreet Signs Up Workers Credit Union to Use Fintech Loan Participation Platform (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: B

LoanStreet, a Fintech “loan participation platform,” has signed up Massachusetts-based Workers Credit Union to its growing network.

Lending Express Appoints Former Maple Founder Ofer Ariel to Chief Product Officer; Promotes Daniel Katz to Chief Operating Officer (PR Newswire), Rated: B

Lending Express, the technology company dedicated to increasing access to funding for small businesses, today announced the promotions of Ofer Ariel and Daniel Katz to Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer, respectively. This announcement follows a period of impressive growth for the company, and is indicative of its commitment to provide best-in-class service to both its customers and partners.

United Kingdom

RateSetter Announces 2017-18 Revenue Growth of 47% (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

UK based peer-to-peer lender RateSetter announced last week the results of its 2017-2018 financial year, which ended on March 31, 2018. The lending platform reported that revenues were up by 47% (which was £34.3 million) from the previous year (£23.4 million). The company noted that the year-end, there were 44,441 active investors on the platform with loans under management of £700 million.

Funding Circle fund expecting lower returns (AltFi), Rated: AAA

A hit from its European Investment Bank transaction as well as higher UK loss rates have prompted a fall in expected returns for the Funding Circle SME Income fund.

The £332m Funding Circle SME Income Fund saw a fall in its net asset value (NAV) of 1.4 per cent in November as the investment trust’s board said it expected returns for the full year would be lower than previously anticipated owing to a higher expected rate of defaults among certain loan pools.

Orca opens waiting list ahead of 2019 IFISA launch (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

ORCA has opened a waiting list for investors interested in its self-select portfolio and Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA), with plans to launch both products in the first quarter of 2019.

The peer-to-peer lending analysis and investment platform, which first revealed its plans to launch a tax wrapper to Peer2Peer Finance News in October, said the Orca ISA will allow investors to hold multiple P2P loans from different providers in one tax wrapper.

It will offer interest of up to 6.5 per cent.

Transferwise – the power of partnerships (Fintech Futures), Rated: A

Cross-border payments were ripe for disruption and doing more than most to shake up things is peer-to-peer (P2P) specialist, Transferwise. Its number of partnerships with banks is multiplying while, in parallel, it is adding settlement options, most recently for direct access to the euro payment infrastructure through a euro settlement account with the Bank of Lithuania.

At present, with one notable exception, the partner banks that have been announced are challenger or other low-end players. However, it now claims over four million people around the world using its service to transfer over £3 billion each month. In the UK, global head of partnerships, Stuart Gregory, says its share of consumer international transfers is around 15%, putting in on or close to a par with some of the largest UK banks.

P2P property lending platform completes £10m investment round (AltFi), Rated: A

Peer-to-peer property lending platform BLEND Network has completed a £10m late-seed round of investing.

N26 Metal Now Available in the UK (coverageR), Rated: A

N26, the provider of mobile banking services which launched in the UK last month with a free account, is now offering N26 Metal – its first premium membership for UK customers.

For the price of £14.90 per month, Metal members get access to an exclusive partner program, dedicated customer service, and worldwide travel insurance provided by Allianz. In addition, members benefit from free ATM withdrawals in pounds, free payments in any currency, free withdrawals worldwide, and LoungeKey airport access in over 1k destinations.

This ex-Googler wants to help high street banks be more like Monzo (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

The head of innovation at one of Britain’s big high street banks told me earlier this year that he has a mantra when approaching a new problem: “What would Monzo do?”

Traditional banks are struggling to keep pace as Monzo pushes the boundaries. The startup sends smartphone push alerts when you spend money, knows when you’re abroad, lets you freeze your debit card if lost, and offers chatbot customer service — all through the app.

Onfido Sees 342 Pct Sales Growth In 2018 (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Onfido, the global identity verification company, announced Tuesday (Dec. 18) that it achieved 342 percent sales growth in 2018 compared with 2017 and that it has a four-year growth rate of 3,857 percent.

Starling Bank’s Megan Caywood jumps to Barclays’ ship (Fintech Futures), Rated: B

Megan Caywood, Starling Bank’s chief platform officer, is joining Barclays, as she handed in her notice a couple of weeks ago, according to TechCrunch.

China/Hong Kong

How a Chinese anti-virus software maker builds a fintech firm to wrestle with giants (TechCrunch), Rated: AAA

360 Finance,  an online consumer loan platform that spun off from China’s anti-virus service giant 360 Group, has joined a raft of Chinese fintech companies to go public in the U.S. over the last two years.

The company priced its initial public offering at $16.50 per share last Friday, raising $51 million by selling 3.1 million American depositary shares.

Source: TechCrunch

You’ve applied for a Virtual Bank license, what’s next? (Hubbis), Rated: AAA

Hong Kong is preparing for the arrival of virtual banks (VB) — pure digital players that offer banking services solely through digital channels without bricks-and-mortar branches. In an exclusive article from Synpulse we discover the challenges associated with virtual banking.

What is your differentiating proposition?

With HKMA’s recent announcement of receiving 29 applications for VB, competition is expected to be intense.

Focus on Customer Needs

Basic banking services are about fulfilling three main needs of the customer:

  • How do I pay or get paid?
  • How can I borrow?
  • How do I grow or protect my savings?

Capitalize on strong partnerships

FinTechs have traditionally excelled in one particular area (e.g.p2p lending, remittance and FX conversion).

Avoid a Pure Discount Model

VBs can leverage their lower operating costs to provide lower fees, higher deposit rates or other price incentives to attract customers. However, without a clear differentiating proposition, a pure low-cost play will not be sustainable.

Jiayin, a Top Player in P2P Lending Business, Files for $ 57.5 Million IPO on Nasdaq (Capital Watch), Rated: A

A leading individual financial marketplace, Jiayin Group Inc., is seeking to raise up to $57.5 million in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in New York.

ByteDance registers fintech trademarks (Technode), Rated: A

In July, Jinri Toutiao launched a fintech product named Safe Lending. Up to 20,000 users were permitted to borrow up to RMB 200,000 (around $30,000) per person per day. The company claimed the Bank of Nanjing was one of its loan partners.

The product became the subject of investigations by the media in September. ByteDance later shuttered the online money lending service, while thousands of Chinese P2P lending companies shut down in the second half of the year.

PINTEC Partners with China National Investment & Guaranty Corporation to Develop Digital Lending Technologies (Markets Insider), Rated: B

Pintec Technology Holdings Ltd. (“PINTEC”) (NASDAQ: PT) today signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China National Investment & Guaranty Corporation (“I&G”), a leading enterprise in China’s guarantee industry. The two sides will jointly develop the next generation digital lending technologies and nurture a dynamic credit financing ecosystem for small and micro-sized enterprises in China.

European Union

Online Lender Creditshelf Partners with CrossLend to Offer First Digital Securitization of Loans (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Germany based Fintech creditshelf Aktiengesellschaft, an SME financing platform, is launching a new partnership with CrossLend to offer the first digital securitization of SME loans in Germany.

A Visit to Crowdestor in Riga (P2P Banking), Rated: A

On invitation of Crowdestor I travelled to Riga and met the founders of Crowdestor Janis Timma and Gunars Udris. Crowdestor is a Latvian p2p lending platform for SME loans. They launched a year ago. Loans are typically for terms of up to 18 months and interest rates are quite high – the current loan offer by a transportation company seeking expansion capital carries 17% interest rate. The Crowdestor website is available in English, German and Portuguese language. Currently most investors on the platform are Germans, followed by Spanish investors.

Funding Options: From Fintech Petting Zoos To SME Lending Sanctuaries (Forbes), Rated: A

Both financial institutions and fintech startups have made serving SMEs a priority in 2018. However, despite business current accounts like Mettle being created this year, online comparison marketplace Funding Options has helped millions of firms across Europe, especially those that cannot get traditional bank lending because they are early-stage, high-growth or in difficulty, since its launch in 2012.

International

Finastra announces Eric Duffaut as President and Global Head of Field Operations (RealWire), Rated: A

Finastra has appointed Eric Duffaut as President and Global Head of Field Operations. Based at Finastra’s London Headquarters, Duffaut will take responsibility for the company’s entire go-to-market organization including global sales, services and consultancy, as well as overseeing the Finastra partner ecosystem.

Strengthening the Spread: ETHOS Now Live on Nitrogen Network (CoinTelegraph), Rated: A

Token of Ethos.io, a leading cryptocurrency wallet provider and Blockchain Financial Services (BFS) platform, has been officially listed on Nitrogen Network, a new decentralized peer-to-peer crypto lending network.

Nitrogen Network enables market participants to lend and borrow cryptocurrencies on their own terms, all while maintaining control of their holdings and private keys. This supports effective portfolio management and a diverse range of investment views across a wide variety of crypto assets.

Australia

As banks become stricter with lending, could your HELP debt get in the way of getting a home loan? (ABC.net.au), Rated: AAA

As banks rein in lending in the wake of the banking royal commission which revealed “irresponsible lending is endemic in Australia”, those who might have easily secured a home loan a few years ago now face much more stringent criteria.

Banks are looking more carefully at expenses and debts which, for 2.7 million Australians, will include a HELP (formerly HECS) debt.

India

NBFC Vivriti Capital secures Rs 200 Cr from Creation Investments in Series-A equity funding (Your Story), Rated: AAA

Vivriti Capital, a Chennai-based lending platform for corporate entities, has raised Series A equity funding of Rs 200 crores from Creation Investments, an investment management company focused on financial services.

Crowdfunding – A Brief Overview Of The Regulatory Framework (Mondaq), Rated: A

3. Peer-to-Peer Lending or Debt Crowdfunding: Peer-to-Peer Lending (P2P lending) is a form of crowdfunding used to raise loans which are re-paid along with interest. It can be defined as the use of an online platform that matches lenders with borrowers in order to provide unsecured loans. The borrower can either be an individual or a legal person requiring a loan. The interest rate may be set by the platform or by mutual agreement between the borrower and the lender. Fees are paid to the platform by both the lender as well as the borrower.2

4. Equity Crowdfunding:

The SEBI Consultation Paper furnishes proposals for a regulatory framework governing procedure of Security based Crowdfunding methods for Start-ups and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The Directions define a “Non-banking financial company – Peer to Peer Lending Platform”4(NBFC-P2P) as a non-banking institution which carries on the business of a Peer-to-Peer Lending Platform. Peer-to- Peer Lending Platform5 has been defined as an intermediary providing the services of loan facilitation via online medium or otherwise, to the participants6(a person who has entered into an arrangement with an NBFC-P2P to lend on it or to avail of loan facilitation services provided by it). Non-banking institutions other than companies have been prohibited from undertaking the business of Peer-to-Peer Lending platform.7 The Directions provide the scope of activities, prudential norms (the aggregate loans taken by a borrower at any point of time, across all P2Ps, is subject to a cap of Rs.10,00,000/-), operational guidelines, inter alia other regulations.

Southeast Asia

Why the ASEAN P2P lending market will avoid the Chinese pitfalls (ASEAN Today), Rated: AAA

To say that 2018 was a rough year for peer-to-peer (P2P) lending businesses in China would be a gross understatement. It was nothing short of a bloodbath, mirroring in many ways the US sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008-09.

China, despite its economic power, shares the following crucial features with smaller markets in South and Southeast Asia:

  • A large percentage of small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and individuals without access to traditional banking services
  • High mobile penetration among the population
  • Easy access to investor funds, both domestic as well as international

The Southeast Asian approach to P2P lending regulation is more proactive than the Chinese model

In the heydays of P2P platforms in China, the authorities pursued more of a “wait and watch” approach. In marked contrast, the regulatory bodies of Southeast Asian economies have adopted more pro-active steps to regulation.

Korea’s digital banks have two speeds: fast and faster (Asia Money), Rated: A

The average internet speed in South Korea is 26.7 megabits per second, faster than anywhere else in the world, according to French virtual private network developer Le VPN.

No Korean bank has ever been in the mix for this much-coveted prize. Nor did a single Korean firm appear in the latest Forbes rankings of the world’s 50 most innovative fintech companies. Indeed, it’s hard to identify a single well-known and home-grown fintech brand. There’s no Korean answer to, say, China’s Ant Financial, or Singapore-based ride-sharing-to-food-delivery service Grab.

OJK Pledges to Announce Names of Illegal Fintech Firm (Tempo), Rated: A

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) committed to monitoring legal and registered financial technology (fintech) companies of peer-to-peer lending or online loan as an effort to maintain the security for consumers.

Eurasia

Russia Is A Top Five Leader Of Digital Banking In Europe (Forbes), Rated: AAA

Because of the lack of legacy IT infrastructure within banks in Russia, the country has been listed in the top five leaders of digital banking in Europe, according to a new Deloitte and ID Finance report.

Latin America

Vitacon innovates again and launches an investment opportunity starting at USD250 with return of up to 12,8% per year (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Vitacon, a leading construction company that is revolutionizing the way people live in São Paulo, is launching one more investment opportunity for people seeking new options for earning income and diversifying their portfolios. The company, which for the past nine years has been incentivizing the shared economy in its residential developments, is launching the possibility for any investor to invest directly USD250 in a CD, a fixed income security issued by Banco Topázio, with a 24-month maturity, which allows for annual yields of up to 12.8%.

This new method, P2P Lending, is similar to one introduced in 2015, when Vitacon launched the first real estate crowdfunding, which surpassed expectations and created an international benchmark in the field, raising 28% above what was expected for the construction of the VN Cardoso de Melo building in a very prime location of São Paulo, scheduled for delivery next year.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday December 20 2018, Daily News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Tuesday October 16 2018, Daily News Digest

Dow Jones VC Report Q3 2018

News Comments Today’s main news: OnDeck creates subsidiary for bank partnerships. Lendio hits $1B in business loans. Blend Network on track to exceed 5M GBP in lending. Hexindai completes P2P compliance self-inspection report. Today’s main analysis: Bank earnings for JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Why Google and Amazon are not a threat to small banks. Cities […]

Dow Jones VC Report Q3 2018

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

Southeast Asia

Other

News Summary

United States

OnDeck creates new subsidiary for bank partnerships (American Banker) Rated: AAA

OnDeck Capital, an online lender that also provides the technology to JPMorgan Chase’s digital small-business lending platform, is creating a new subsidiary to pursue partnerships with other banks.

The wholly owned subsidiary will be called ODX, according to New York-based OnDeck.

OnDeck, which specializes in online small-business loans, has been working to build its bank partnership business since announcing its deal with JPMorgan Chase in 2015. The nation’s largest bank launched its QuickCapital platform in 2016.

Lendio Tops $ 1B in Business Loans Facilitated Through Its Online Marketplace (PRWeb), Rated: AAA

Lendio today announced it has facilitated $1 billion in financing to more than 51,000 small businesses across the U.S. Since its inception in 2011, Lendio has been bridging the financing gap for small business owners. As a result of access to growth capital, Lendio’s small business clients have burgeoned, generating an estimated $3.8 billion in economic output and creating more than 25,000 jobs in communities nationwide.

Rocky Week for Equities, Strong Bank Earnings (Peer IQ) Rated: AAA

JP Morgan Q3 Earnings

Revenues at JPM grew by 5% YoY to $27.8 Bn, and earnings grew by 24% YoY to $8.4 Bn. Earnings growth was driven by record NII of $14.1 Bn, up by 7% YoY, while fixed income trading revenues dropped by 10% YoY. JPM saw a small increase of 2% YoY in its consumer loan book. Net charge-offs declined by 11% YoY to $1.1 Bn and the provision for loan losses declined by 35% YoY to $0.9 Bn. The bank saw healthy growth of 11% YoY in its digital banking customers to 32.5 Mn. JPM’s ROE for this quarter was 14%, up by 3% points YoY.

Wells Fargo Q3 Earnings

WFC’s revenues were flat YoY at $21.9 Bn, but earnings grew by 33% YoY to $6 Bn. Earnings growth was driven by 1% YoY increase in NII to $12.6 Bn. The consumer loan book continues to decline with a drop of 3% YoY to $440 Bn driven by auto loans. Net charge-offs declined by 13% YoY to $0.5 Bn and the provision for loan losses declined by 19% YoY to $0.6 Bn. Digital banking customers grew by 4% YoY to 29 Mn. WFC’s ROE for this quarter was 12%, up by 3% points YoY.

Citigroup Q3 Earnings

Citi’s revenues were flat YoY at $18.4 Bn, but earnings grew by 12% YoY to $4.6 Bn. Earnings growth was driven by 9% YoY increase in fixed income trading revenue, the first increase since 2017. Citi’s outstanding consumer loans grew by 3% YoY to $309 Bn. Net charge-offs increased slightly by 1% YoY to $1.7 Bn but the provision for loan losses declined by 13% YoY to $1.9 Bn. Digital banking customers grew by 5% YoY to 18 Mn. Citi’s ROE for this quarter was 9.6%, up by 2% points YoY.

Source Peer IQ

Here’s why Google, Amazon aren’t a threat to small banks (American Banker) Rated: AAA

It’s a logical theory that sounds reasonable on its face: Since most small businesses already use Google, Amazon and Facebook for marketing, it will be easy for these tech giants to market loans to small businesses that they already have as customers.

One CNBC headline sums up the sentiment: “Another industry Amazon plans to crush is small-business lending.” The story notes that Amazon has already made billions of small-business loans to thousands of merchants and suggests that the online giant could come to dominate lending. In addition, there are countless fintech startups also seeking to disrupt small-business lending.

That’s because the theory misses a crucial detail: When tech giants and fintech startups target a business segment, they take a programmatic approach of catering to the most common use cases. That’s the opposite of what community banks do.

LendingTree Reveals the Cities with the Most Foreign-born Homeowners (Lending Tree) Rated: AAA

In data for 2017, the Census Bureau found that 13.7% of the U.S. population was foreign-born.

  • Key findings
    Cities with larger foreign-born populations and homeowners have higher home prices. Prices for the top 10 cities average $491,750 compared with $167,560 for the bottom 10.
  • But the lead city has modest home prices. Miami is top of the list with 26% of homes owned by foreign-born residents, but has a median price of just $278,700.
  • Immigrants love the coasts. The rest of the top five are also coastal cities, all in California with 17% and higher foreign-born homeownership rates and home prices above $300,000.
  • Some bargains are available. In addition to Miami, more affordable cities with high immigrant populations include Houston at No. 6 and Las Vegas at No. 7.
  • Cheaper cities are mostly shunned. Immigrants show little interest in bargain hunting in the cities towards the bottom of the list. The percentage of foreign-born homeowners in the bottom five cities is below 3%, despite home prices averaging about $160,000.
Source: Lending Tree

Anju Patwardhan of CreditEase Fintech Fund (Lend Academy) Rated: A

There are many VC firms investing in fintech today but most are based in the US or Europe. Our next guest on the Lend Academy Podcast runs a different type of fund that has its origins in China.

Anju Patwardhan is a Managing Director of the CreditEase Fintech Fund, which has quietly become one of the leading VC firms globally focused on fintech. They only launched in March 2016 and already they have made 45 investments into many of the leading fintech names such as Upgrade, Marqeta, Funding Circle, Ellevest, NAV, Figure, Onfido, DV01 and True Accord just to name a few.

Barclays to challenge Goldman’s Marcus in US retail banking (Financial Times) Rated: A

Barclays is launching a US current account in a move that will put them in a head to head battle with Marcus; the account will be added to their current digital offering in the U.S. which currently includes credit cards, savings and loans to about 13 million customers; “We’re going to launch checking, we’re in the process of doing the build and we’re doing some testing .

We expect to have that in the market next year,” explained Barry Rodrigues, head of cards and payments at Barclays International, to the FT; the company does believe their knowledge in the U.S. market with credit cards can help to position them as they make this push into checking accounts; the company has not released targets for how many accounts they look to attract.

Why Did This Fintech Startup Sponsor A NASCAR Driver? (Benzinga) Rated: A

So how can a fintech startup stand out in an increasingly crowded fintech space? For personal finance and lending startup MoneyLion, the answer is to go where the audience goes—and go around in a loop with them 500 times.

Pedal To The Metal Scaling

That’s why MoneyLion recently announced it was partnering with Penske Automotive Group, Inc. PAG‘s Team Penske to sponsor NASCAR driver Austin Cindric’s Ford Motor Company FMustang for four races this season. It’s an unexpected move from a fintech startup, whose primary marketing channels to date have generally been social media and TV commercials.

6 reasons to invest in your 20s (when all you want to do is spend) (The Next Web) Rated: A

1. Startups, job-hopping, and the gig economy come at a price

Unlike previous generations, we have much more freedom to job-hop. On average we’ll go through at least four different jobs by the time we’re 32.

By 2020, self-employment is likely to triple to 42 million workers with millennials making up 42 percent. This means we can now have our flan and eat it too.

2. Don’t count on social security either

With the number of retirement age citizens (65+) set to increase from 48 million today to 79 million, if reforms aren’t made, social security will start running out by 2035.

4. If you start investing now, you could be a millionaire later

If you want to start off small you can try investing in peer-to-peer lending with a minimum of $25. Instead of going through banks, peer-to-peer lending connects borrowers to lenders. Lenders can finance all or part (along with other investors) of a borrower’s loan at an interest rate of roughly between 5-36 percent.

United Kingdom

Blend Network on track to exceed £5m of lending (Development Finance Today) Rated: AAA

Speaking exclusively to Development Finance Today, Yann Murciano, CEO, and Roxana Mohammadian-Molina, chief strategy officer (left), both of Blend Network, highlighted the company’s significant growth and future plans for the platform.

“We had a target of £5m, which it looks like we are going to exceed, because we will be at more than £4.2m in the next 10 days.

“In the first four months, we provided one facility of £1.3m and one for £1.4m, so this is how quickly we are growing.

Abundance Set To Unveil Fund Raising (Forbes) Rated: A

Green and social infrastructure crowdfunding platform Abundance is set to announce a fund-raising of its own. The platform will this week unveil plans to raise a seven-figure sum to fund its next stage of growth, with an equity issue that will be hosted on its fellow crowdfunding service Seedrs.

New To The UK, Royalty Finance Seeks To Reach The SMEs That VCs And Lenders Pass By (Forbes) Rated: A

But there is perhaps one small corner of the alternative finance universe in which the UK has been behind the curve – namely royalty finance.  Originally developed to service the mining and commodities industries, the concept of royalty finance has been adapted to the needs of SMEs and mid sized companies. US businesses have been able to access this form of funding since the early  1990s, when a fund called Cypress Growth Capital was established to provide an alternative to venture capital,  but to date the idea has  failed to gain much traction in the UK.

But things are changing. Corporate finance companies  offering variations on the royalty finance theme are emerging – including 

FCA sounds redress warning over high cost credit (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: A

The Financial Conduct Authority has written a “Dear CEO” letter to platforms providing high-cost short-term credit – which includes some peer-to-peer lending firms – to check on their creditworthiness assessments, particularly for repeat borrowers, and to assess whether customers are being treated fairly.

It warns that firms must be able to fund any remediation costs from complaints and should inform the FCA if they are unable to.

The letter follows the collapse of payday lender Wonga in August.

China

Hexindai Completes Submission of P2P Compliance Self-Inspection Report (PR Newswire) Rated: AAA

Hexindai Inc. (NASDAQ: HX) (“Hexindai” or the “Company”), a fast-growing consumer lending marketplace in China, today announced it has completed the submission of its P2P Compliance Self-Inspection Report to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Financial Work, completing one of three key steps for compliance with industry reforms from the National P2P Rectification Office.

Hexindai is actively supporting and participating in this compliance process, which aims to foster the stable growth of the P2P lending industry in China. The result of this process will be a set of standards and best practices across the whole industry to protect the interests of both borrowers and lenders.

Now, Hexindai will focus on the next two steps in the process, including an inspection conducted by Beijing Internet Finance Industry Association. This will be followed by verification of inspection results by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Financial Work with field inspection and possible final check by higher level government organizations.

China’s Financial Regulators Issue Anti-Money Laundering Anti-Terrorism Financing Regulations for Fintech Industry (Crowdfund Insider) Rated: A

On October 10th, People’s Bank of China, China Banking & Insurance Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued the “Administrative Measures on Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing for Internet Finance Institutions (Trial)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Administrative Measures”).  The purpose of this document is to regulate the possible anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing of Internet finance institutions, and to effectively prevent money laundering and terrorist financing activities.

The “Administrative Measures” will be implemented from January 1, 2019, and require deeper compliance requirements for Internet finance institutions. At the same time, NIFA should coordinate with other industry self-regulatory organizations to formulate industry rules to achieve effective linkage between supervision and self-discipline management.

European Union

European VC Funding Rises in Q3 but Deal Flow Declines (Crowdfund Insider) Rated: AAA

Source Crowdfund Insider

Dow Jones VentureSource is out with their quarterly report on VC activity for Q3 of 2018. According to their numbers, European VC fundraising increased during Q3 but investment in European companies “showed a notable decline in deal flow activity and investment levels.”

The report states that VC investment for the quarter totaled €3.51 billion across 24 European VC funds. This is a significant increase of 50% versus Q2 of 2018. Additionally, when comparing to Q3 of 2017 both capital and fund closings increased by 90% and 14% – respectively.

Australia

New digital ‘banking alternative’ launches (The Advisor) Rated: AAA

A new digital platform, run in partnership with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, has launched to give Australians a “radically different banking alternative”.

The new digital app, called Up, was created by Melbourne-based technology developer Ferocia and operates under Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s banking licence.

The smartphone banking app was officially launched last week and enables customers to track their money in real time, predict upcoming bill charges automatically and pay them on time, and also offers multiple saver accounts, round-ups on purchases, digital payments (such as Apple Pay and Google Pay) and no international transaction fees.

India

Funding the wanderer (DNA) Rated: AAA

Start-ups in fintech and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms are devising strategies of attracting more millennials towards small-ticket loans ranging from Rs 10,000 – 200,000, which are being mainly utilised towards experiential travel. Entrepreneurs say small ticket loans generally go towards home renovation, home decoration, home repairs, purchase of second cars/bikes, etc.. “But off late, the trend is tilting more towards utilisation of such loans for fulfilling travel ambitions,’’ say entrepreneurs.

“There is no doubt this segment (travel) is rising and more people are opting for this loan. Any customer would love a packaged deal which comes with financial support to go on a vacation, and this will also help them enjoy their vacation well,” says Bhavin Patel, co-founder and CEO, LenDenClub.

Although people going for longer vacations or to expensive destinations take loans that are in lakhs, during long weekends, the frequency of very small loans ranging from Rs 3,000 – 10,000 increases significantly, observes Bala Parthasarathy, co-founder and CEO, MoneyTap. The idea is to supplement their existing cash coffers, without causing any imbalance in their daily lifestyles, say experts.

Making FinTech Model Work for India (Entrepreneur) Rated: A

It’s 2018. We’re facing the impending risk of climate change, rampant wealth inequality, and increasing populism around the world. We need to think beyond quarter-to-quarter profits to survive this. Companies must think about the long-term effects of their work—beyond their bottom dollar.

Find a purpose for your company that will help you soar during the good times, and persevere during the tough. What’s helped me fight fires every day—and get through the hardest challenges—is our mission of powering a new, more equal digital economy in India. A true mission serves a massive need in our society, especially for SMBs navigating the post-GST economy, and has the potential to create millions of jobs for companies looking to digitize and become compliant.

What’s my business model? How does it relate to my mission? What vulnerabilities does it have?

A mission should be more than words on your website’s ‘About’ page. It should lie at the core of everything you do, including your business model. You’re destined to fail—or at least be gravely disappointed—if your mission and business model do not align.

T-Hub startup Anytimeloan secures NBFC peer-to-peer license from RBI (The News Minute) Rated: A

One of India’s fastest growing P2P lending platforms, ATL facilitates instant unsecured loans (personal, education and business loans) to eligible borrowers by connecting them with investors or lenders across India through a 100% digital ecosystem.

With this certification, ATL joins a select group of fintech startups who hold the NBFC-P2P accreditation. RBI follows a very stringent due diligence process while granting this license, which involves eligibility criteria like financial stability, business continuity plan, and how the business will aid in RBI’s larger vision of financial inclusion. The startup says that recognition from RBI is a strong validation of the startup’s sharp business model, processes and compliance with the RBI guidelines.

Africa

How internet is helping revitalise agriculture sector in Africa’s most populous nation (Devdiscourse) Rated: AAA

It looked like the end had arrived for Adewale Fatai’s chicken farm. Money was running out. Built to house 30,000 chickens, the farm was producing fewer than 2,000 chicks. His family had no funds to lend, and Nigeria’s banks weren’t interested.

Instead, he went online.

Two years later, Fatai now has 20,000 chickens. Flanked by thousands of chirping birds at his farm in Nigeria’s southwestern Ogun state, Fatai says his operation was saved by Farmcrowdy, one of a breed of new peer-to-peer lending companies aiming to match farmers with small investors.

Equity of Kenya Sees $ 22 Million FinTech Income This Year (Bloomberg) Rated: A

Equity Group Holdings Ltd., Kenya’s biggest bank by market value, expects its financial-technology unit to bring in as much as 2.2 billion shillings ($22 million) of revenue in its first year of independent operations, according to Chief Executive Officer James Mwangi. The bank “has resolved to make Finserve an independent commercial subsidiary,” Mwangi said in a statement published in the Nairobi-based Sunday Nation newspaper. The unit serves 1.96 million subscribers on its mobile-banking platform, Equitel, he said.

The unit, Finserve Africa Ltd., became an independent entity this year and facilitates cross-border transactions in seven Eastern African nations worth 2 billion shillings each month, according to the statement. It has a startup capital base of 1 billion shillings and its assets are valued at 1.98 billion shillings, Mwangi said.

Asia

SoftBank is the new form of IPO (Krasia) Rated: AAA

With a walloping around US$100 billion check, SoftBank’s Vision Fund is the world’s largest venture capital vehicle, and it’s also considered too big to be a conventional one. The Vision Fund is known for throwing gigantic amount at startups, urging them to compete for more market share at costly expenses.

Online lender Social Finance’s ex-CEO Mike Cagney, after investments from SoftBank in 2015, said that the funding “takes the pressing need of an IPO off the table,” and allow the company to put off an IPO indefinitely.

It seems that, receiving SoftBank investment is the new form of doing an IPO.

The firm in Southeast Asia invested in Grab and is encouraging the ride-hailer to form joint ventures with its portfolio companies to help them enter the region.

Shady online lenders still active in Indonesia despite blacklists (Krasia) Rated: A

Unethical debt collection practices are part of the reason Indonesia’s financial services authority, OJK, has been strictly monitoring the sector. It recently blacklisted 407 online lenders for not registering with the authority. Raja Uang was one of them.

OJK cracks down on all firms who operate without being registered with OJK, but in practice, it’s difficult to ensure they do shut down for good.

Indonesia’s CROWDE raises funding from GREE Ventures (E27) Rated: A

Indonesian agritech startup CROWDE today announced that it has raised an undisclosed seed funding round from Tokyo-based venture capital firm GREE Ventures.

Crevisse Ventures also participated in the funding round.

In a press statement, CROWDE CEO Yohanes Sugihtononugroho explained that the funding will be used to increase the number of farmers that the company aims to help by giving them capital boost.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

Tuesday September 4 2018, Daily News Digest

Marketplace lenders have fared substantially worse on the stock market than other fintechs

News Comments Today’s main news: Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates back Wagestream. Funding Circle plans 300M GBP IPO. P2P lenders take in 300M GBP in second year of IFISA. Hong Kong receives 29 bids for virtual bank licenses. Today’s main analysis: Does fintech has a vicious funding circle? Today’s thought-provoking articles: Samir Desai discusses Funding Circle’s IPO as plan to […]

Marketplace lenders have fared substantially worse on the stock market than other fintechs

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China/Hong Kong

Other

News Summary

United States

As Wonga Collapses, Zuckerberg, Bezos & Gates Back A Fairer Alternative To Payday Loans (Forbes), Rated: AAA

Samir Desai On Funding Circle’s $ 2 Billion IPO And His Plan To Conquer America (Forbes) Rated: AAA

Funding Circle has already facilitated over £5 billion ($6.37 billion) in loans since launching in 2010, mostly from its home U.K. market.

Funding Circle facilitated over £1 billion in loans to small businesses during the first six months of 2018 alone.

It’s now on track to become London’s biggest fintech IPO since global payments giant WorldPay’s bumper £4.8 billion ($6.1 billion) listing in 2015.

Source: Funding Circle

In the U.K. just 5% of businesses say Funding Circle when asked where they would go for finance, according to the company’s data, and 95% continue to chose their banks.

The Risk of a Vicious Funding Circle in Fintech (Bloomberg) Rated: AAA

There are fintechs, and then there are fintechs. Cheerleaders point to payments startups like Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc., whose stock has soared 242 percent in a year, as evidence of a Silicon-Valley-style revolution in the making. But there are sob stories, too: loan platforms LendingClub Corp. and On Deck Capital Inc. are still trading well below their IPO prices. Promises of break-neck expansion often crash into the reality of regulated finance.

Source: Bloomberg

Lending Earnings Insights (2018 Q3) (PeerIQ) Rated: AAA

We remain in the late stages of the credit cycle. The US consumer has benefitted from record low unemployment, rising incomes and home prices, and a lower tax rate. The supply of credit and competition to offer loans is increasing. Lenders are optimistic about consumer spending and debt levels, and are reserving for potentially higher losses in the future.

We see divergent credit performance across FinTech asset classes. Enova (Subprime) and OnDeck (Small Biz) are seeing near cycle-low charge-offs, while LendingClub (Prime) is seeing higher delinquencies on newer vintages. LendingClub also increased its charge-off estimates across loan grades by ~40 bps QoQ.

Card issuers are increasing loan loss reserves at a higher rate than loan growth, indicating expectations of higher losses going forward. Loan loss provisions are increasing at roughly twice the rate of loan growth across card issuers, but overall reserve levels are still low.

Scratch Introduces First Loan Servicing Platform To Align Financial Interests of Lenders and Borrowers (Scratch Email) Rated: A

Scratch, a new financial technology company started in 2015 to transform the antiquated business of getting America’s $13 trillion household debt repaid, introduced the first loan servicing platform to align the financial interests of lenders and borrowers.

The Scratch loan servicing platform empowers borrowers with a simple web application for understanding, managing and paying back their loans while providing lenders accurate, real-time portfolio insights. And, by automating the back-office complexities of loan management, Scratch can devote more resources to giving borrowers the attention and guidance they deserve.

Loan Servicing Crisis Persists

U.S. household debt composed of mortgages, student loans, auto loans, credit cards, home equity lines of credit, and other consumer loans, is at an all-time high and growing daily.

Today, household debt is at a high of $13 trillion and 8 out of 10 Americans carry some type of debt, including mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and auto loans. And everyone who has a loan has a loan servicer.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle plans to raise £300m in London IPO (Financial Times), Rated: AA 

Funding Circle has announced plans to become the first of Britain’s new generation of financial technology companies to go public, in a deal expected to raise £300m and value the peer-to-peer lender at more than £1.5bn.

The initial public offering of Britain’s biggest peer-to-peer lender will provide a significant test of investor appetite for the breed of fintechs that have sprung up in the past decade to challenge high-street banks.  Funding Circle has arranged £5bn of loans to small companies in the UK, the US, Germany and the Netherlands since its launch in 2010 by connecting businesses looking to borrow money with retail and institutional investors willing to lend them money. 

However, the company’s prospective value of more than £1.5bn is above the current value of US-listed peers OnDeck and Lending Club, which have both suffered tumbling share prices since their lPOs.

Funding Circle IPO will be open to platform’s existing investors (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: A

FUNDING Circle has said it expects its existing investors will be able to become shareholders in the company after it goes public.

Funding Circle said that its initial public offering (IPO), if it goes ahead, would aim to raise around £300m, with at least 25 per cent of the company’s issued share capital to be placed on a free float.

In a blog post on its website, also on Monday, the P2P lender said that its customers would have the opportunity to apply to participate in the IPO and become a shareholder in Funding Circle via an intermediaries offer.

Don’t be blinded by the wizardry of tech darling Funding Circle (London Evening Standard) Rated: A

Given that Funding Circle’s flotation comes just days after the collapse of that other trailblazing fintech, Wonga, it’s hard not to compare the two.

Both were launched to fill the gaps in the lending market where traditional banks feared to tread. Both used tech wizardry to check they were lending to the right people at the right price. Both brilliantly deployed digital technology to make their services simple and fast to use.

Hopefully, for future investors, the similarities end there.

Funding Circle to host cryptocurrency event to promote women in fintech (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: B

FUNDING Circle is to host a panel event focusing on cryptocurrency, described by the organisers as “one of the most interesting but least understood areas of fintech.”

The event is being held in connection with FinTechWomen, a London-based meet-up group, and is sponsored by Funding Circle.

UK sub-prime lenders shrug off political cloud (Nasdaq), Rated: AAA

UK sub-prime investors are shrugging off Wonga’s cloud. Customer complaints and a regulatory clampdown forced the payday lender to stop making loans. The likes of Amigo Holdings and Non-Standard Finance have different models, and regulators’ blessing. Yet, with Wonga out of the picture, they too risk becoming the focus of public ire.

Investors love it. Amigo’s return on equity will be around 40 percent this year, using Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, while it and Non-Standard Finance should grow revenue on average by more than 20 percent each year up to 2021, analysts reckon. NSF, which has a more diversified business including unguaranteed loans, is valued at over 17 times forward earnings. Amigo’s shares were priced at 12 times forward earnings even after a selloff promoted by disappointing results on Thursday. The consumer finance sector on average trades at less than 11 times forward earnings, according to Eikon.

Hedge fund Kreos Capital is first in line for Wonga payout deal after lending the collapsed payday loan company around £34m (This is Money) Rated: A

A Mayfair hedge fund is at the front of the queue to be paid by collapsed Wonga as fears grow that thousands of its hard-up customers will get nothing.

Kreos Capital lent Wonga about £34million two years ago and is understood to be still owed around £10million by the payday loan company.

Under the arrangement, it is thought to be in line to collect that sum ahead of other creditors.

P2P lenders record £300m intake in second year of the IFISA (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

ALMOST £300m was invested across Innovative Finance ISAs (IFISA) in the previous tax year, HMRC data reveals.

The latest ISA statistics from the taxman shows £290m of subscriptions in IFISA for the 2017/2018 tax year across 31,000 accounts.

P2P lenders saved £9,355 on average.

Zopa revealed it received more than £150m in its IFISA during the previous tax year.

The end of the Cash Isa? Number of new accounts hits 18-year low (Moneywise), Rated: A

The data shows that savers subscribed to 10.8 million Isa accounts during the 2017-18 tax year, down from 11.1 million in the previous tax year. This represents a fall of 10%.

P2P marketing clampdown ‘may restrict IFISA takeup’ (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

Stuart Law, who heads up the business P2P lender, warned that the strong take-up of the IFISA could be hampered by the FCA’s proposed marketing restrictions for the sector.

Under the proposed changes, platforms would be restricted to marketing to those who are certified as sophisticated or high-net-worth investors or those that certify that they will not invest more than 10 per cent of their net portfolio in P2P agreements.

Northern Irish housebuilder secures £250,000 from P2P platform (Development Finance Today), Rated: A

County Down Developments has received a £250,000 facility from Blend Network for the development of four luxury apartments in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

The loan from Blend Network came after the housebuilder was turned down for a loan by Barclays.

Mattress start-up Casper offered credit in UK without permission (Financial Times), Rated: B

A US online mattress start-up backed by rapper 50 Cent has been forced to stop offering credit to UK customers, after it emerged it had been doing so without permission from the regulator.

Casper, a five-year-old company that is on a major European expansion drive, was allowing UK customers to buy on credit from Swedish bank Klarna.

China/Hong Kong

China’s Fintech Giants Have The Money And Means To Dominate Despite The Wider Slowdown (Forbes), Rated: AAA

China has experienced a fintech explosion in recent years, with top companies dominating the industry. It’s not an accident that 

HKMA Receives 29 Bids for First Round of Virtual Bank Licences (Regulation Asia) Rated: AAA

Standard Chartered, WeLab, Zhong An Bank and HKT among several banking, technology and telecom firms applying for virtual banking licenses.

Twenty-nine financial and technology firms, including Standard Chartered and WeLab have submitted applications to obtain Hong Kong’s first online-only banking licenses.

Tencent-backed Airwallex to join push for Hong Kong virtual bank license (SCMP) Rated: A

The company shifted its headquarters to Hong Kong from Melbourne earlier this month as it prepares to submit a virtual banking license application, along with partners, ahead of Friday’s deadline.

Airwallex co-founder and chief executive Jack Zhang said the company will team up with a traditional bank and other local partners as part of the application process, although he declined to reveal their identities.

Another reason for the relocation to Hong Kong is proximity to major clients, including Tencent, online travel operator Ctrip, e-commerce JD.com as well as traditional lender Bank of East Asia.

Stable earnings growth expected by mainland banks, but bad-loan worries linger (SCMP), Rated: A

And Beijing’s crackdown on the peer-to-peer lending sector – the shadow banking system that saw rampant illicit and risky behaviour continue in the first half of this year – has helped increase demand for corporate lending levels too.

The country’s big four banks – Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of Chinaand Bank of China – reported profit rises of between 5.2 and 7.9 per cent in the three months ending June.

China’s state banks to boost lending as Beijing fans economy (Nikkei), Rated: A

First-half earnings showed the lenders rallying after several years of low growth. Collective net profit rose 5.7% year on year to 532.1 billion yuan ($77.9 billion), while the lenders’ average ratio of bad debt fell 0.06 percentage point in six months to 1.52% at the end of June.

European Union

INSTANTOR OPENS UP BANK API – PROVIDING UNIQUE ACCESS TO HALF A BILLION PEOPLE (Fintech Finance), Rated: B

Today Instantor, the Swedish fintech company making financial decisions easy, announces, WDSK, The World Domination Starter Kit. The WDSK is an initiative to support start-ups and scale-ups to develop next-generation products by giving them access to Instantor´s Bank API with no associated costs for new Instantor customers. By using Instantors bank API, developers will have access to transactional data from over 300 banks in 25 countries, with the potential to reach half a billion people. Instantor´s bank API has an unrivaled reach, and the WDSK initiative includes access to several markets outside new Open Banking legislation. The authentication and the end user’s interaction with banks are handled by Instantor, and the data can be accessed once the end user has given their consent.

International

Robo-advice not dead: GlobalData (Financial Standard) Rated: A

The analyst suggested robo-adviser may be ahead of their time, given high net-worth demand for robo-advice is on the rise among the next generation of investors.

“While robo-advice is here to stay, it will take time to cement itself. The digitally-savvy next generation will embrace an automated service and big banks should capitalize on this. However, a big brand is not enough to justify much higher fees,” Woldemichael said.

To succeed, incumbents will have to provide a level of service, and prices, that are genuinely competitive with those offered by startups.”

Australia

Collapse of UK payday lender Wonga sounds warning for Aussie fintech vigilance (Australian Financial Review) Rated:AAA

The collapse of Wonga, one of Britain’s most high-profile fintech lenders, provides salient lessons for Australia, which considers the UK a template for financial technology policy and where tighter laws to protect vulnerable customers from payday lenders appear to have stalled.

Wonga, built around a slick app allowing customers to get expensive loans via their mobile phone, was “notorious for its extortionate interest rates and was a toxic symbol of Britain’s household debt crisis”, said The Guardian last week.

The payday lender “failed because it was too greedy and at times crossed the ethical line”, it said, quoting prominent UK financial columnist Martin Lewis, who described Wonga’s loans as “the crack cocaine of debt – unneeded, unwanted, unhelpful, destructive and addictive”.

Micro lender makes big difference (Latrobe Valley Express) Rated: A

Her heartfelt story was told at Good Money’s one-year anniversary last week during what Carol described as a “life-changing event” after borrowing money to buy essential appliances like a new fridge and washing machine.

The low to no-interest lender was set up in July last year in partnership with Good Shepherd Microfinance and the National Australia Bank, following a $2.3 million investment from the state government.

More than 2900 people made enquiries in the hub’s first year, and the store has provided more than 500 no and low-interest loans for household appliances, car-related expenses, household furniture and costs such as medical and education expenses.

India

China’s FinUp, existing investors back digital lending startup SlicePay (VC Circle) Rated: AAA

SlicePay, a digital lending platform which caters to college students and young professionals, has raised an undisclosed amount in an extended Series A round of funding led by Chinese firm FinUp Finance Technology Group.

The company said in a statement that existing investors Blume Ventures, Japan’s Das Capital, and Russia’s Simile Ventures had also participated in the round.

A person close to the development who did not wish to be named pegged the deal at $14.9 million (around Rs 105 crore at current exchange rates).

Asia

Southeast Asia’s startups suffer from Series B funding crunch, says Kredivo’s Gar (Deal Street Asia), Rated: AAA

Having recently raised what is estimated to be the largest Series B funding round for a fintech firm in Southeast Asia, Indonesia-focused lending platform Kredivo says the process was far from smooth sailing.

The company was forced to look beyond the region to raise the majority of its fund, as it found that there were simply very few investors in the region that specialized in doing Series B investments.

MENA

Tel Aviv Climbs on List of Top 10 Undergraduate Programs for Entrepreneurs (CTech) Rated: B

Tel Aviv University is among the top ten global undergraduate programs in terms of producing venture capital-backed entrepreneurs, according to a report published last week by Seattle-based market research company Pitchbook. Pitchbook ranked Tel Aviv in eighth place, up from ninth last year, above Yale, Princeton, and Brown.

Two other Israeli universities made the top 50 list: the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology came in at 14, while the Hebrew University of Jerusalem placed at 35.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

Monday April 23 2018, Daily News Digest

Marcus lending

News Comments Today’s main news: Top customer-rated lenders by loan product. Kabbage, Ingo Money partner on SMB loan disbursements. RateSetter offers 100 GBP cash incentive to ISA investors. TransUnion to buy Callcredit in Europe for $1.4B. Today’s main analysis: Bank earnings. Today’s thought-provoking articles: P2P lending vs. stock markets. Using psychometry for loan disbursement. Don’t fear the robo-advisor. Bank earnings. Fintech leaders […]

Marcus lending

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China

European Union

Other

News Summary

United States

LendingTree Announces Top Customer-Rated Lenders by Loan Product for Q1 2018 (Markets Insider) Rated: AAA

LendingTree, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace, today released its quarterly list of the top customer-rated lenders on its network based on actual customer reviews for the first quarter of 2018.

The top lenders for the first quarter by product are:

Mortgage Category

#1 Winner:
Howard Bank

Personal Loans Category

#1 Winner:
First Midwest Bank

Top 3 Badge:
Lending Club
Upgrade

Business Loans Category

#1 Winner:
OnDeck

Auto Loans Category

#1 Winner:
iLendingDIRECT

Kabbage and Ingo Money Partner to Get Small Businesses their Loan Funds Faster (Small Business Trends) Rated: AAA

Kabbage and Ingo Money have teamed up to expedite the payout of loans into the accounts of small and medium-sized businesses in real time. The move is important news for small businesses in need of a fast loan payout to capitalize on new opportunities or continue operations.

Thanks to the new partnership, when businesses get a loan from Kabbage, the Ingo  Money technology will be used to deliver the funds to the applicant’s account right away. The loans are going to be paid out using Ingo Money’s push platform with push-payments-in-a-box technology.

The partnership was announced on pymnts.com at which time Kabbage President Kathryn Petralia explained the importance of accelerating the delivery of funds.

Strong Bank Earnings, The Copernican Revolution in Banking (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

Goldman Sachs delivered its highest revenue in 3 years, also driven by a boost from its fixed income trading business. The bank continues to invest in Marcus and has originated $2.3 Bn in loans life-to-date and has $17 Bn in deposits. Marcus is only one part of GS’s broader lending strategy. We note in the slide below from GS’s earnings call that Goldman has substantially increased its loan book from $64 Bn at the end of 2016 to $81 Bn at the end of 2017 by expanding collateralized lending to high net-worth clients and securities-based lending.

Source: PeerIQ

Bank of America’s total revenue grew by 3.7% to $23.3 Bn driven by its Consumer business which saw profits grow by $0.8 Bn to $2.7 Bn, and 32 straight quarters of loan growth. Average loans increased by $22 Bn to $280 Bn driven by growth in mortgages and credit cards. Provision for credit losses increased by $97 Mn to $935 Mn, driven by credit card seasoning and loan growth. The net charge-off ratio increased slightly to 1.27%. Bank of America is the leader in mobile banking and active mobile banking users increased 12% YoY to 24.8 Mn.

 

DON’T FEAR THE ROBO! (All About Alpha) Rated: A

Technology advances have infiltrated every corner of finance, including the world of wealth management. While few can argue with the positives of automated, algorithm-based portfolio management platforms, the advent of the cost-efficient, dispassionate robo-advisor has struck fear into the heart of many a financial advisor and fund manager, who see these technology options as a threat to their business practice.

FIRST, WHAT ARE SOME BENEFITS OF A ROBO?

Lower fees. Most of these robo advisors charge less than 1%, with some south of .20%, versus the standard investment advisor fee range of 1-3% on a client’s portfolio.

Elimination of emotional trading. With a robo advisor executing a passively managed program, there is no chance of active management decision-making being affected by human emotional reaction to markets.

Index-like performance with tax efficiencies and global access. Most robo platforms feature ETFs that aim to produce results like an index, but with lower expense ratios than their equivalent counterparts found in mutual funds. For individuals focused on low cost but benchmark performance in a portfolio, a mix of ETFs can be a desirable option long term.

How Barclays US is using AI (Tearsheet) Rated: A

Barclays — the bank behind popular co-branded cards including Uber, American Airlines, JetBlue and a host of other retail partners — is using customer data to suggest products and understand the root causes of customer complaints. It’s an approach large banks like Capital One and JPMorgan Chase as well as startups like Credit Karma and MoneyLion are using to push insights and recommendations that are most relevant to the customer’s spending behavior and product preferences.

With all this data gathering, how do you avoid creeping out the customer?
We do a lot of testing, we are very thoughtful about products we develop and ways we communicate with customers. We don’t want to be in a situation where the customer is “creeped out”. We try to be very sensitive to that. We do a lot of data analysis and co-create experiences and products with customers to get a sense whether something will resonate or not. It’s an interesting time. It becomes straddling between convenience and relevance for the customer and going too far, [the sense of which] is different for each customer.

 

Lead Bank CEO: Tech, innovations help better clients, which makes a better bank (Kansas City Business Journal) Rated: A

Lead Bank CEO Josh Rowland is leaving no stone unturned on the technology front to help consumers gain financial strength and in turn create loyal, lifelong customers.

6th Avenue Capital Tips Off First “Merchant Madness” Promotion (AltFi), Rated: B

6th Avenue Capital, LLC (“6th Avenue Capital”) announced today the launch of its first “Merchant Madness” promotion. Throughout the month, and coinciding with the annual NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, 6th Avenue Capital will award points for all new ISOs, Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) submissions, approvals and funded deals.

In addition to the new Merchant Madness promotion, 6th Avenue Capital also recently announced competitive underwriting guidelines, buy rates and incentive programs for 2018.

United Kingdom

P2P lender RateSetter offers ISA investors £100 cash incentive (AltFi News) Rated: AAA

RateSetter is offering new investors up to £100 for opening a new Innovative Finance ISA with the p2p lending platform.

Lending Works set for further growth after passing £100m milestone (Financial & Business Insights) Rated: AAA

Peer-to-peer lender Lending Works has passed £100 million in terms of the amount of money lent, cementing its position as one of the biggest UK platforms of its type.

Some 20,000 customers – over 16,000 borrowers and nearly 4,000 lenders – have used the platform to date and every penny of capital and expected returns has been delivered to lenders on time.

Gone in 98 minutes! Blend Network sees surge in property loans (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: A

A PEER-TO-PEER lending platform aiming to be “Goldman Sachs of P2P” has reached £2m of lending in less than four months, with its latest development loan getting backed within 98 minutes.

The platform launched in January and currently offers average returns of 12.11 per cent on property-backed development loans outside London.

A new challenge for business banking (Money Week) Rated: A

There are a few providers already in business. CountingUp is a new service that integrates a business account with automated bookkeeping. Income and expenses are automatically categorised, and it can produce profit-and-loss accounts, raise invoices and file taxes. Sole traders will pay £9.95 a month; limited companies £19.95. Cash can be deposited via the Post Office for a £1 fee or via Paypoint for a 2.5% commission. Cash withdrawals cost £1.

Also in the works is CivilisedBank, which gained its banking licence in May last year, but released it earlier this month to give itself more time to develop its technology platform. CivilisedBank proposes a branch-free service for more established companies, and will focus on customer service by employing up to 80 “local bankers” for businesses with a turnover of more than £1m. It hopes to provide savings, loans, current accounts with overdrafts, and foreign exchange. It will also offer savings products to non-business customers.

Meet Andrea Linehan, commercial director with Grid Finance… (Business Irish) Rated: A

The recent warning that banks are no longer making the effort to get to know small- and medium-sized businesses when they apply for a loan, struck a chord with Andrea Linehan.

Linehan, the commercial director with Grid Finance, is keen to stress that Grid’s model is much more business friendly, with staff around the country eager to dig into the fine details of a business hungry for capital.

China

LexinFintech to Invest RMB1 Billion in Partner Cooperation over Next Three Years (Benzinga) Rated: AAA

LexinFintech Holdings Ltd. (“Lexin” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ:LX) announced that it expects to invest RMB1 billion in cooperation with its partners over the next three years, to better serve its customers and to expand the use of credit services.

European Union

TransUnion expands into Europe with $ 1.4 billion Callcredit deal (Reuters) Rated: AAA

U.S. credit reporting agency TransUnion (TRU.N) on Friday said it will buy UK consumer data provider Callcredit for 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) from private equity firm GTCR, expanding its operations into Europe for the first time.

The deal comes at a time when credit-checking services are growing, in response to the proliferation of non-traditional lenders to consumers, such as payday loan providers and online lenders.

Fintech in Germany (Lexology) Rated: AAA

As the largest economy in the European Economic Area, the German market offers many opportunities for fintech innovation. Although some of the initial disruptive energy has been mitigated by regulatory challenges and a soft trend towards consolidation, a second phase of solid and mature business development is on the horizon.

Important players in the market include:

  • N26 – an app-based direct bank;
  • Kreditech – offers data-based bank lending;
  • Raisin – offers a pan-European marketplace for savings products;
  • Spotcap – offers loans for small and medium-sized enterprises;
  • Auxmoney – operates an online platform for peer-to-peer money lending services;
  • Smava – offers a loan comparison platform;
  • Liqid and Scalable – both offer online portfolio management to retail customers;
  • Exporo – offers an equity crowdfunding platform for real estate investment and bitbond, a bitcoin-based peer-to-peer lending platform; and
  • Finleap – while not a fintech company itself, it offers a fintech company builder ecosystem.
International

SPRING MEETINGS 2018 GLOBAL VOICES: INTERVIEW WITH IMAD MALHAS (World Bank Live) Rated: A

As part of our Spring Meetings 2018 Interview Series, we will be talking with Imad Malhas, ​CEO, IrisGuard, on how technology can help in the financial inclusion of displaced people.

Australia

Money makers: Why I told the Dragons “no deal” (Money Week) Rated: A

“It was clear the loan products for small businesses were just not good enough,” says Moshal. He, and joint CEO Beau Bertoli, 34, set out to solve that problem in 2011 with Prospa, their Sydney-based online lender. Last year, Prospa provided over A$500m (£273m) in small-business loans, which are funded by bundling the loans together and selling them on to institutional investors. Interest rates start at around 12%, stretching into the mid-20s depending on risk.

Prospa’s draw is its speed in processing applications, with funding coming the same day. “We aren’t necessarily cheaper than a bank, but we offer speed, convenience and more access to credit,” says Bertoli. A A$25m funding round last year valued the business at A$235m, and the lender is now testing the waters for a stockmarket listing.

India

SoftBank-backed fintech firm True Balance raises $ 23m bridge round (Deal Street Asia) Rated: AAA

Gurgaon-based digital payments firm True Balance has reportedly raised $23 million in a bridge round from a clutch of foreign institutional investors.

According to a report in The Economic Times, Japan-based Line Ventures Corporation, Korean search engine Naver, Korean lender Shinhan Bank, TS Investment and other investors participated in this latest round.

P2P Lending Vs Stock Markets: The ideal Investment for you (Money Control) Rated: AAA

Investment in Financial Assets has been increasing in India. High return assets such as stocks and Peer to Peer (P2P) lending are increasingly sought after by investors.

It depends on the knowledge and risk profile of the person. While P2P lending is simple, stocks are pretty complex and require a lot of knowledge. However, both have the potential to provide good returns.

Indian households tend to have the highest savings in the world – at about 30 percent of income. Surprisingly, this does not translate into investments in the same proportion. Only about 3.2 crore people invest in the country’s stock markets – that is less than 3 percent of the population.

Africa

Using Psychometry In Its Loan Disbursement Process, Nigeria’s P2P Lender KiaKia Is Bringing Down The Loan Default Rate (Wee Tracker) Rated: AAA

Although news reports from the Q4 2017 show that banks are increasingly becoming open to lending more money even as lenders are expected to loosen credit scoring criteria in Q1 2018, they recorded an 8 percent increase in bad loans recorded in 2017.

Indeed the market is vast for Kiakia and other competing online loan services. Statistics from Nigeria interbank settlement system shows that there are over 31 million verified bank accounts in Nigerian banks.

For Kiakia about 75% of this number has never accessed any form of consumer or business credit from any financial institutions.

Asia

Robo-advisors offer low-cost growth opportunities, says GlobalData (Fintech Finance) Rated: A

Nomura Asset Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan-based Nomura Holdings, has recently agreed to buy majority stake in Tokyo-based robo-advisory services provider 8 Securities Inc and a minority stake in Hong Kong headquartered parent company 8 Limited for JPY2.7bn ($25m). Expect major international asset managers to build similar distribution channels via the purchase of other established robo-advice FinTechs, says leading data and analytics company GlobalData.

Compared to most robo-advisers, 8 Securities has been in the market for a while. Chloe, its robo-advice platform, was the first in Asia to be offered via a mobile app and it currently has a presence in Hong Kong and Japan.

Latin America

Brazil Fintech Nubank Launches Facial Biometrics “AccessoBio” (Crowdfund Insider) Rated: AAA

Brazilian fintech startup Nubank announced earlier this week the launch of its new facial biometrics feature, AccessoBio. According to various reports, the fintech firm will now use the AccessoBio tool to help prevent identity fraud in credit card transactions.

ZDNet noted that Nubank believes the introduction of biometrics to its technology is a positive for customers due to the fact it does improve the mobile-based experience around the credit card requests and reduces the possibility of false rejects while reducing identity fraud possibility.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

Thursday March 8 2018, Daily News Digest

Purchase APR

News Comments Today’s main news: CommonBond receives AAA securitization rating. Ranger Direct returns suffer. Victory Park Capital posts record returns from balance sheet investments. Today’s main analysis: LendingTree mortgage offers report for February 2018. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Can big tech stop the compensation bubble? What’s driving venture capitalist’s attention to B2B fintech? The evolution of modern fintech. United States […]

Purchase APR

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China

European Union

International

India

News Summary

United States

Online Lender CommonBond Receives First AAA Rated Securitization (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

CommonBond, an online lending platform servicing the student loan market, has received its first triple A rating for securitization. Moody’s has assigned provisional ratings of (P)Aaa (sf) to Class A-1 and A-2 notes to be issued by CommonBond Student Loan Trust 2018-A-GS (CBSLT 2018-A-GS). DBRS rated the loans AAA as well. The transaction was CommonBond’s sixth securitization at $233.75 million bringing the total to $1.22 billion.

LendingTree Mortgage Offers Report – February 2018 (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

  • February’s best offers for borrowers with the best profiles had an average APR of 4.22% for conforming 30-year fixed purchase loans, up from 3.93% in December. Refinance loan offers were up 38 bps to 4.13%.
  • For the average borrower, purchase APRs for conforming 30-yr fixed loans offered on LendingTree’s platform were up 25 bps to 4.80%. The loan note rate hit the highest since March 2016 at 4.70% and was also up 25 bps from January. We prefer to emphasize the APR as lenders often make changes to other fees in response to changing interest rates.
  • Consumers with the highest credit scores (760+) saw offered APRs of 4.68% in February, vs 4.95% for consumers with scores of 680-719.
Source: LendingTree

The $ 5.7 trillion question: Can big tech stop the comp bubble? (INTL FCStone), Rated: AAA

INTL FCStone Global Macro Strategist Vincent Deluard:  “The $5.7 trillion question: Can big tech stop the comp bubble, resist higher yields, and deliver the growth?”  

  • Compensation, especially stock-based comp, is exploding at large tech companies
  • The tech rally rests on a foundation of low interest rates, rising stock prices, and quick revenue growth
  • Many big tech companies are becoming too big to grow
  • Rising interest rates and, God forbids, lower stock valuations could cause the entire edifice to crumble
Source: INTL FCStone

Millennials are seeking non-traditional banking (Digital Journal), Rated: A

A wake-up message for banks: if you want to remain competitive you need to embrace digital multi-channels and appeal to tech-savvy millennials.

A generational change is happening, and businesses have to accept that ‘millennials’ are expecting most products and services to be offered digitally. Financial products, including banking, are not immune from this trend. Two separate reports highlight this tendency.

A review by Intelligent Finance has found that the biggest factor that attracts millennials to select one bank over another is an easy-to-use smartphone app, with most wishing to use online banking via a smartphone. In contrast, Baby Boomers stated that face-to-face customer service was the key determinant (with rude service being highlighted as the main reason why this generation might take their money to another bank). In contrast, millennials are most likely to exit from a bank if they did not like the smartphone app or if the bank suffered from a cyber breach.

19 of the top ex-bankers in fintech (efinancialcareers), Rated: A

It’s becoming more common for bankers to quit the traditional financial services in favor of financial technology, either co-founding a startup or landing at an established fintech firm. Some crash and burn and come crawling back to banking with their tail between their legs, but many have found great success in the fintech space.

The following are 19 of the top former bankers working in fintech today (in no particular order).

John Mack, a member of Lending Club’s board of directors

Mack stepped down as chairman/CEO of Morgan Stanley in 2011. Since then, he has invested in various fintech companies, including Lending Club (on whose board he sits), Orchard and Dataminr, which sends social media-based alerts to traders. He also participated in a $10m initial funding round for New England Funding Technologies (NEFT), which created the mPowerCredit credit-rating platform.

Dominic Gamble, founder of Findawealthmanager.com

After starting out as a sales-trader at Credit Agricole, Gamble worked at Credit Suisse for seven years before he moved to Deutsche Bank in 2010. However, a year later Gamble left to set up his website, Findawealthmanager.com, which helps high-net-worth investors to research and evaluate financial advisers.

Points awarded for new ISOs and more; Prizes include a Nintendo Switch (6th Avenue Capital), Rated: A

6th Avenue Capital, LLC (“6th Avenue Capital”), a leading provider of small business financing solutions, announced today the launch of its first “Merchant Madness” promotion. Throughout the month, and coinciding with the annual NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, 6th Avenue Capital will award points for all new ISOs, Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) submissions, approvals and funded deals.

  • The breakdown of points* awarded per category is as follows:
  • New ISOs/ISOs submitting first MCA application – 1 point
  • New MCA submissions – 1 point
  • Approved submissions – 2 points
  • Funded deals – 3 points
  • *California submissions excluded.

Points will be awarded from March 1, 2018 to March 30, 2018 and tallied at the end of the month. Prizes will be awarded to the top nine finishers as follows:

  • 5th through 8th place – Amazon Echo Dots (4)
  • 1st through 4th place – Parrot Mambo Drones (4)
  • 1st place – Nintendo Switc and Parrot Mambo Drone

Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein On Their #FinTechForChange Call Against Assault-Style Rifles (Hypepotamus), Rated: A

How did you decide as a company to take a public stand on this issue?

As a technology leader and financial services company, we believe we have a unique responsibility and opportunity to help prevent future tragedies from occurring. Doing nothing is still a choice. We choose to do something to drive positive change and be an example to others.

How data analytics drives better real estate investing (Housing Wire) Rated: A

For Auction.com, the largest real estate marketplace, innovative technology enables us to provide a superior level of functionality and data analytics on a host of different types of real estate in the 3,000+ counties we serve — helping build stronger relationships with our buyers and sellers, and making us a trusted partner throughout the auction process.

Buyers and sellers demand greater data capabilities

In a world increasingly driven by big data, the real estate professionals who effectively utilize robust data analytics to make more informed decisions typically realize greater levels of success. Just as stock market investors conduct due diligence and use varied data sources prior to purchasing a company’s stock, real estate investors should do the same when buying property. Likewise, sellers come to the marketplace with one goal in mind – selling a property at market-price in the least amount of time. Data analytics serves as a catalyst to ensure that both of these needs are met.

World Economic Forum leads creation of fintech cyber security consortium (The Star), Rated: A

The World Economic Forum has led the creation of an industry consortium focused on improving the cybersecurity of financial technology companies, as collaboration between fintechs and financial institutions grows.

The consortium’s founding members include Citigroup Inc, online lender Kabbage, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Zurich Insurance Group and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the companies said on Tuesday.

The mortgage market risk no one’s talking about (BROOKINGS), Rated: A

After the crisis, Congress and financial regulators increased regulation of the credit risk associated with mortgage lending, including the enforcement of stronger underwriting standards. But according to new research published in the Spring 2018 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, a boom in nonbank mortgage lending means the mortgage market is still exposed to liquidity risk that very few people are talking about.

What is Blockchain Technology? A Beginner’s Guide (Invest in Blockchain)

The very primitive form of the blockchain was the hash tree, also known as a Merkle tree. This data structure was patented by Ralph Merkle in 1979, and functioned by verifying and handling data between computer systems. In a peer-to-peer network of computers, validating data was important to make sure nothing was altered or changed during transfer. It also helped to ensure that false data was not sent. In essence, it is used to maintain and prove the integrity of data being shared.

Source: Invest in Blockchain

Women in NYC Tech: Angela Galardi Ceresnie of Climb Credit (Alley Watch), Rated: A

Today we speak with Angela Galardi Ceresnie, COO of Climb Credit, the smart student-lending platform. After undergrad and roles at Citi and American Express, Angela took her financial acumen to the startup world in 2013 to cofound Orchard Platform, an investment platform for the peer-to-peer and online direct lender, with Matt Burton, Jonathan Kelfer and David Snitkof. During Angela’s time at Orchard, the company had raised over $40M in funding, backed by some notable investors including John Mack, Thrive Capital, and Spark Capital. In 2016, Angela transitioned to Climb Credit to work alongside the founding team to help it scale. Angela is an active member of the NYC tech ecosystem and continues to give back to the community through her involvement.

 

What are the advantages of being a woman in tech?

We have a unique perspective that we can bring to the table, what has historically been, a primarily male-dominated field, and that allows us to make useful observations and a significant impact as long as we stand behind our ideas. There is also no shortage of support from other women in the industry.

iintoo Returns Net 15.95 Percent on Exited Deals (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Real estate investment management company iintoo investments Ltd. (“iintoo”) announced a 15.95 percent average annual return on investment, net fees, and $3 million in regular distributions to investors since its founding in 2015. The returns are based on iintoo’s six exited investments to date, with a total asset value of $50 million, all of which exited ahead of schedule. With assets totaling $560 million and a global community of 32,000 members, New York-based iintoo opens up access to real estate investments that were once exclusive to professional funders and high net worth individuals.

Unlike a crowdfunding platform, iintoo works directly with project developers to vet and create business plans to maximize the chances for success.

RealtyShares Survey Shows Many Americans Believe Commercial Real Estate is Critical to Improving Local Communities (Business Wire), Rated: A

RealtyShares, a leading online marketplace for real estate investing, today announced the results from its Commercial Real Estate Investing Survey.

The survey found that a quarter of U.S. adults (25%) felt commercial real estate investment has the biggest impact on enhancing the reputation of a community. Roughly 1 in 5 of those who have or are currently investing in commercial real estate have done so for reasons that may support their community, like helping a friend or family member with capital for a commercial real estate investment (20%) or needing a facility for their own business (17%).

While some are already involved, the survey revealed fifty-three percent of Americans would invest in commercial real estate within their communities if given a chance. For those who have never invested in commercial real estate, affordability and access were the major roadblocks. Sixty-one percent believe they lack the necessary funds, while 19 percent don’t know how to invest. This may be creating an investing gap, as nearly 9 out of 10 Americans (89%) have never invested in commercial real estate, according to the report.

A Guide to Commercial Real Estate Crowdfunding (Commercial Property Executive), Rated A

Charles Clinton, co-founder & CEO of investing platform EQUITYMULTIPLE, delves into the mechanism behind commercial real estate crowdfunding and underlines the most important factors an investor must consider for long-term success.

What opportunities does real estate crowdfunding offer investors?

Clinton: By moving real estate syndication online, real estate crowdfunding has begun to change that old paradigm. Individual investors can now invest in private market real estate transactions at low minimums (our investment minimum at is typically $10,000 per offering) and start allocating a portion of their portfolio into real estate without taking on the burdens of direct ownership.

Investors have full transparency into what properties they’re investing in and the low minimums help facilitate diversification. The best platforms also pre-screen the real estate companies and investments that they present, easing the selection burden on investors.

What are the benefits of crowdfunding investment compared to traditional instruments?

Clinton: Strong yield—after years of near-zero interest rates, investors have been forced to look for yield in new places. Less volatility—these investments are illiquid and non-traded, as opposed to public stocks, traded REITs or cryptocurrencies (a topic on everyone’s mind). While illiquidity has its drawback, it also reduces market correlation, making direct real estate investing less subject to market swings and, in aggregate, exhibit less volatility.

Potential for outsized returns—because private real estate markets are inefficient, there is potential for market-beating returns by investing in markets and submarkets that are underserved by traditional sources of capital, and in properties with untapped potential. Downside protection is also an advantage. Real estate—as an irreplaceable resource with tangible value—is also less vulnerable to recessions. The economy will expand and contract cyclically, but a growing number of humans will always need places to live and work.

Then we have tax advantages. Real estate investing platforms allow individual investors to share in the same unique tax advantages as institutional real estate investors—namely write-offs for depreciation, and a new 20 percent deduction for investments made through an LLC, courtesy of the recently-signed tax bill.

QuantumReverse Expands Its Team (PR Newswire), Rated: B

QuantumReverse, the technology company that is building an advanced reverse mortgage LOS, announced the addition of four industry veterans to its team. QuantumReverse’s team now boasts over 50 years of combined experiences in the reverse mortgage technology space.

Triad ranks among the best places for new small businesses (Tiad Business Journal), Rated: B

The Triad area ranks among the 50 best places for new small businesses, according to a new study by online loan marketplace LendingTree.

Interview with Yann Murciano, CEO of Blend Network (P2P-Banking), Rated: A

Blend Network has already lend £1.5 million GBP to 6 project across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Norfolk with an average fixed return of 12.2% p.a.

What are the three main advantages for investors?

  1. Access to niche markets
  2. High returns
  3. Strong due diligence and credit risk assessment

What are the three main advantages for borrowers?

  1. Access to finance
  2. We bring knowledge and understanding of developers’ true requirements
  3. No exit fee for early repayments
United Kingdom

Ranger Direct’s returns still suffering from Princeton proceedings (Peer2Peer Finance News), Rated: AAA

RANGER Direct Lending’s (RDL) ongoing legal dispute with its Princeton holding pushed its net asset value (NAV) return down to 0.43 per cent in January, the investment trust has revealed.

RDL has been locked in arbitration proceedings with Princeton since last year over its exposure to bankrupt lender Argon Credit, and without these costs it said its returns would have been 0.68 per cent.

The update shows its NAV is down from 0.48 per cent in December.

VPC posts record returns from balance sheet investments (Peer2Peer Finance News), Rated: AAA

VICTORY Park Capital (VPC) Specialty Lending Investments has reported that gross revenue return from its balance sheet investments hit an all-time high in January.

Its balance sheet loans produced returns of 1.08 per cent in January, compared to its marketplace loans which produced 0.04 per cent.

80 per cent of its portfolio was in balance sheet loans as of 31 January, the company said.

Fintech lender iwoca pledges £100m for Northern SMEs by 2020 (AltFi), Rated: A

European small business lender iwoca has announced today its intention to pledge £100m in lending to micro and small businesses in the UK’s Northern regions by 2020, as it fights to counteract the withdrawal of credit by UK banks.

The UK neobank market has reached a critical juncture (Business Insider), Rated: A

Starling Bank and Monzo became the top two banks in terms of customer satisfaction, according to consumer finance site Smart Money People, knocking incumbent first direct out of the number one spot for the first time. Additionally, the percentage of UK consumers willing to use a digital-only startup bank fell during 2017, from 78% in the first half of the year to 54% by the end of the year, according to a survey by RFi Group.

Do SMEs favour equity and alternative finance over debt? (Specialist Banking), Rated: A

At the beginning of 2017, SMEs in the UK accounted for 99.3% of all private sector businesses and 60% of all private sector employment in the UK.

Last year saw a substantial increase in the value and number of SME equity deals (up 79% and 12% respectively) in the UK, as well as continued growth in the value of SME asset finance deals (up 12%) and P2P lending (up 51%).

This was at the same time that traditional bank net lending declined to £700m – down from £3bn the year before.

Forget the Lifetime ISA, we need an ‘Everything ISA’ (City Wire),  Rated: A

A report by the Association of Taxation Technicians (AAT) has criticised the number of ISAs available that brings ‘unnecessary complexity, bureaucracy, and confusion’, said chief executive Mark Farrer.

‘Some ISAs have age limits, some do not, some have a maximum savings limit of £20,000 per annum, one has a £4,128 limit, another £4,000, and the Help to Buy ISA offers a £50 bonus for every £200 saved, up to a maximum of £3,000,’ he said.

Farrar also pointed out the ‘mind-boggling interaction’ between different types of ISAs that means the total saved into a Lifetime ISA (Lisa) – a maximum of £4,000 a year – has to be deducted from the total (currently £20,000) that can be saved into a cash or stocks and shares ISA.

Checkout.com Secures a Place on Tech City’s Future Fifty, (PRNEWSWIRE), Rated: B

Checkout.com, a leading international online payment solutions provider, has been included in Tech City’s renowned Future Fifty programme for 2018.

China

Property Tax In China By 2019? (supchina), Rated: A

Meanwhile, there is no tax on real estate. If you buy an apartment — even if it sits empty — it does not cost anything. Although there has been talk of a property tax for many years, there has been little action aside from a few experiments in local markets. That might be about to change, judging by this Sohu report (in Chinese):

  • At this morning’s press conference at the annual political gathering known as the Two Sessions, Vice Finance Minister Shi Yaobin 史耀斌 told reporters that his ministry and other government departments were “drafting and improving the real estate tax law,” while former Finance Minister Lou Jiwei 楼继伟 said that a draft bill may be reviewed by the legislature this year.
  • One important detail that has not yet been worked out: How will the value of property be assessed — based on appraisal, market value, or some other indicator?
  • Local governments will collect and have the benefit of property taxes.
  • The Party’s biggest worry is, I believe, that a property tax will be an excessive new burden on ordinary households whose only major investments are in real estate.
  • A possible solution mentioned in the Sohu article is leaving the first 160 square meters of a person’s property tax-free, but placing a levy on floor space in excess of that and on additional real estate owned by the same person.
  • “A property tax is a potential game-changer for a real estate industry sometimes called too big to fail for the Chinese and world economies,” says Bloomberg.
European Union

EU proposes crowdfunding ‘passports’ in boost for fintech (Reuters), Rated: AAA

The European Commission has proposed crowdfunding “passports” for the European Union in a draft law that forms part of efforts to boost growth in the financial technology sector.

“An EU crowdfunding license would help crowdfunding platforms scale up in Europe,” the EU’s financial services commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said in a statement.

International

What’s Driving VCs’ Attention To B2B FinTech (PYMNTS), Rated: AAA

According to the analysis, which was released last week, an 18 percent increase in FinTech funding in 2017 led the industry to see $27.4 billion worth of investments. FinTech funding spiked 31 percent to $11.3 billion in the U.S. alone, and the U.K. market’s funding deals nearly quadrupled in value to $3.4 billion.

The volume of deals increased, too, with nearly 2,700 investment rounds closing last year.

B2B FinTechs are playing an especially prominent role in this trend, analysts noted. Anecdotally, these firms have been talking for years about the industry’s potential to make significant disruptions in areas like corporate finance, small and medium-sized business (SMB) lending and more.

The alternative finance market saw a sudden boom, and a similarly sudden period of volatility as big industry names like Lending Club, OnDeck and Kabbage struggled to continue growth momentum. Kabbage was hit with a lawsuit last year initiated by an SMB borrower, and Lending Club’s CEO resigned in 2016 following an investigation into improper loan sale practices.

Fintech – The Evolution Of Modern Financial Technology In The 21st Century (Valuewalk), Rated: AAA

Financial procedures have evolved 

India

Nirav Modi fallout: As banks tighten purse strings, fintech can fill the void (India Times) Rated: AAA

As banks scramble to tighten their credit disbursal process, the ones most affected would surely be the small businesses. The now oft quoted figure from the Economic Survey this year has revealed that the amount of credit or loans disbursed by banks amounted to Rs 26,041 billion as on November 2017, but 82.6% of this was cornered by large enterprises. There is, however, now a robust alternate source of finance for small businesses to tap into.

“Non-Bank Finance Companies (NBFCs) stepped up financing of MSMEs after demonetization. NBFCs can be a very powerful vehicle for delivering loans under MUDRA. Refinancing policy and eligibility criteria set by MUDRA will be reviewed for better refinancing of NBFCs,” said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the Union Budget for 2018-19.

Digital lenders call for easing of regulations (The Times of India), Rated: A

The Digital Lenders’ Association of India (DLAI) has presented a set of policy recommendations to the finance ministry, including easing of funding sources for digital lenders, expanding access to the micro and small enterprises (MSMEs), easing paperless transactions, and opening up lending data.

DLAI, formed in late 2016, comprises of 42 alternative lending startups including CapitalFloat, Lendingkart, Indifi, and KredX. It was formed to develop and promote the needs of these players.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

Friday August 4 2017, Daily News Digest

immediate payments

News Comments Today’s main news: SoftBank invests $250M in Kabbage. SoFi begins search for IPO-focused CFO. MarketInvoice has record trading day. George Banco acquired by Non-Standard Finance. Yirendai made $40M net profits in Q2. ID Finance partners with Da Vinci Capital on $200M fintech fund launch. Lendingkart Group raises $10M in debt funding. Today’s main analysis: Square Q2 shareholder letter. Immediate payments […]

immediate payments

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China

European Union

International

Australia/New Zealand

India

Asia

Israel

News Summary

United States

SoftBank invests in US online lender to small business (Financial Times), Rated: AAA

SoftBank is investing $250m in Kabbage, one of the biggest US online lenders to small businesses, in a deal that could provide the firepower for a potential takeover of OnDeck Capital, a rival digital lender.

Kathryn Petralia, co-founder of Kabbage, told the Financial Times that the deal would finance growth in the company’s direct lending operation, which has provided nearly $3.5bn of funding to more than 100,000 small businesses in the US.

There has been speculation that Kabbage is planning to make a bid for OnDeck, a rival online lender that went public in 2014 and has since suffered an 80 per cent fall in its share price, hit by growing losses, rising defaults and higher funding costs.

SoFi Hints at IPO, Reports Record Results (WSJ), Rated: AAA

Social Finance Inc. posted record earnings and loan volume in the second quarter, as the privately held company’s chief executive hinted that it is moving closer to an initial public offering.

In a letter to investors reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, SoFi Chief Executive Mike Cagney sounded more optimistic about a potential public offering, as opposed to previous forums in which he said no deal would be coming in the foreseeable future.

(LT Editor: Here’s the letter again–in case you missed it yesterday).

Source: SoFi

Goldman Sachs is Going Big on Lending (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

The firm created GS Select to reach clients of nearly 4,000 independent investment advisors from Fidelity Investments. Clients will be able to borrow from $75,000 to $25 million backed by their investment portfolios.

What’s interesting about this move is that it could be expanded to other RIAs and financial advisors not just through Fidelity. We’ve seen this type of model before with self described “Lending as a Service” fintech companies, but this time it’s a big bank that has built this technology.

Source: Lend Academy

Square  Q2 2017 Shareholder Letter (LendIt), Rated: AAA

In the second quarter, our top-line results reflect our continued ability to attract larger sellers and increase product usage through cross-selling. Total GPV grew 32% year over year, and GPV from larger sellers grew 45% year over year. Transaction-based revenue increased 32% year over year—the same rate as GPV, which is a result of our ability to maintain transaction revenue margin. Subscription and services-based revenue nearly doubled year over year. Strong top-line growth, lower risk loss rates, and ongoing operating expense leverage drove another quarter of significant EBITDA and margin improvement.

We grew Square Capital loan volume 68% year over year and further diversified our investor base.

 

Source: Square Q2 2017 Shareholder Letter

Read the full report here.

An Australian Entrepreneur And Ron Suber Want To Fix America’s Student Debt Crisis With A Fintech Solution (Benzinga), Rated: A

A trillion-dollar black cloud of student debt hangs over multiple generations of Americans. Student debt is delaying marriages, major purchases, home ownership and general enjoyment of life for millions of people. There’s more student debt than even credit card debt.

Enter Credible CEO Stephen Dash. The Australian entrepreneur is taking inspiration from his home country’s approach to offer student borrowers a marketplace of easier options to get and refinance loans. Australia has an income-based debt repayment system, and Credible’s tech helps borrowers refinance to make affordable payments.

loanDepot’s Groundbreaking Tech Spurs Demand for New Innovation Lab (PR Newswire), Rated: A

loanDepot, America’s lender, today announced details of its new standalone tech campus, the mello ™ Innovation Lab. At this unique facility, the LD tech team will continue to innovate and expand mello, the company’s proprietary digital-lending technology.

With loanDepot’s goal to transform the lending industry, its mello ecosystem is shaping lending’s future as it expands its online and offline consumer relationship model. mello’s technology includes an intuitive web-based consumer portal, a state-of-the-art, mobile point-of-sale system, and a fully-digital mortgage loan application experience. The company has invested $80 million to date on its digital-first technology strategy.

loanDepot’s mello exists within a larger next-gen lending ecosystem that is boosted with the integration of digital-marketing tools and by third-party data enrichment that ensure greater accuracy, speed and certainty throughout the origination experience. On a massive scale, mello is changing the loan origination process into a digital consumer experience, making it faster, easier, and more accurate.

USAA lets members bare their financial souls to Alexa (American Banker), Rated: A

USAA went live Wednesday morning with a virtual assistant that works with Amazon’s Alexa voice interaction device and its corresponding shopping app. Now, USAA members — at least the first 400 that sign up at USAA Labs — can ask Alexa a range of questions about their accounts, balances, spending and transactions, and the bot will answer with specific details from the member’s USAA card and bank accounts.

In so doing, USAA is joining a small group of financial institutions — including Capital One, American Express and several credit unions — that have created Alexa Skills, as the chatbots that work with Alexa are called.

US CFTC Launches Initiatives to Promote Fintech in the Futures and Swaps Markets (Lexology), Rated: A

First, the CFTC announced Project KISS—“Keep It Simple, Stupid”—as a forum to examine how its existing rules might be applied in less costly and burdensome ways. Second, the CFTC launched LabCFTC as a way to promote responsible fintech and regulatory technology (“regtech”) innovation. Together, these initiatives appear to be a significant part of the CFTC’s response to calls for streamlined regulation from the industry, the White House and some members of Congress.

Project KISS

The CFTC website specifically invites public input on the following five “KISS Initiatives”:5

  1. Registration—the process of becoming regulated by the CFTC as any of the several entity types that the agency regulates
  2. Reporting—all reporting obligations, including swap data and recordkeeping
  3. Clearing—clearing services in connection with various contracts and transactions
  4. Executing—the execution of futures and swaps transactions
  5. Miscellaneous—any topics not specifically enumerated above

LabCFTC

This initiative is intended to enhance the agency’s involvement in fintech and regtech7 solutions and to support the goals of (1) providing regulatory certainty for fintech innovators and (2) enabling more efficient regulation through the use of emerging technologies. LabCFTC contemplates a variety of means to accomplish these objectives, including:

  1. Proactive outreach to and collaboration with the fintech industry to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the CFTC’s current regulatory framework as applied to new technologies
  2. Participation in research and engagement with academia and professionals to harness and promote the advantages of fintech/regtech for the CFTC and the markets it regulates
  3. Collaboration with other financial regulators at home and abroad and the sharing of information about promising fintech applications and their potential risks
  4. The tracking of fintech developments to ensure that CFTC regulation supports rather than impedes innovation

Money360’s just getting started (Bankless Times), Rated: A

The company closed $143 million in loans in Q2, bringing its total to more than $350 million. It is on pace to top the $500 million mark before the end of 2017.

Many D.C.-area homeowners are guilty of this financial no-no — financing renovations on credit cards (The Washington Post), Rated: A

A May study by Hearth, a financial technology start-up that provides support for homeowners making renovation decisions, found that 12 percent of Americans planned to finance their renovation with a credit card, which is one of the most expensive ways to finance the cost.

The Hearth Home Renovation Survey, which asked 2,000 homeowners about their remodeling plans for the coming year, found the number of people planning to use a credit card to pay for their renovation is even higher in the Washington region at 16 percent.

In this region, 52 percent of homeowners prefer to pay with savings or cash, compared with 62 percent nationally. D.C.-area residents are also more likely to finance their project with a loan — 32 percent — compared with 26 percent nationally.

Computer says no: robo-advice is growing but we still don’t trust it (The Conversation), Rated: B

People are open to receiving financial advice from robots, our studiesshow, but there might be a way to go to in convincing people to trust them over a human.

We surveyed 138 people about their attitudes to, and preferences for, superannuation advice from a human or a computer. Unsurprisingly, most stated they would prefer to deal with a human across a broad range of financial decisions.

Some did prefer the computer – these tended to be younger people, and those on higher incomes.

Ideas to Help Cash-Strapped or Underbanked Consumers (Southeast Missourian), Rated: B

With the inception of new types of loans, cash-strapped customers can borrow a certain amount from alternative lenders. These loans entail borrowing money against your next paycheck. Unlike traditional payday loans, these lenders allow their customers a fair grace period to make their repayment, making it easier for borrowers to repay and meet their other financial needs. The traditional lenders, on the other hand, require borrowers to repay their full loan amount with their next paycheck.

Peer-to-peer funding is an alternative to acquiring financial aid. This entails letting other businesses invest in your business venture. Finding willing investors is not a hard process itself as you can acquire them by applying online. Small businesses can source one to five-year loans. The loans are available from widely known businesses like Lending Club.

Private Lenders to Gain Insight from Industry Experts (Benzinga), Rated: B

American Association of Private Lenders (AAPL) will hold its eighth annual conference Sunday, November 12 through Tuesday, November 14 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The keynote speaker will be Daren Blomquist, Senior Vice President of Communications at ATTOM Data Solutions, formerly RealtyTrac, curator of the nation’s largest fused property database. The AAPL annual conference is one of the largest national events for private lenders and will include a full slate of speakers, resources, education and networking. More information can be found at .

First Associates Loan Servicing Opens a New 1000-Seat Operations Center in Baja California (Benzinga), Rated: B

First Associates Loan Servicing announced today the opening of their new 1000-seat capacity operations center in Baja California, Mexico. This state-of-the-art center will support the continued global expansion of First Associates and enable the company to continue delivering first-class service and security for their clients.

United Kingdom

RateSetter Milestone: Investors Fund £2 Billion of Loans & Have Earned More Than £76 Million in Interest (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

RateSetter recently announced its lenders have now delivered more than £2 billion in loans to people and businesses across the UK and in doing so have earned over £76 million in interest. According to the online lender, 94% of its lenders are individuals looking for a decent return on their money by investing, and accepting some degree of risk, rather than settling for the pitiful interest rates offered on bank deposits.

P2P business platform MarketInvoice marks record trading day (AltFi), Rated: AAA

The company had more invoice advances on 1 August than any other day.

The trading platform saw £4.1m  in invoice advances to UK businesses on Monday, a record setting day for the firm.

Usually £3.2m is the average amount that is advanced in a day. The increase in trading is largely do to MarketInvoice Pro, an invoice discounting facility.

RateSetter-backed lender acquired by Non-Standard Finance (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

RATESETTER investors are likely to get repaid early by George Banco following the acquisition of the guarantor loans provider by Non-Standard Finance.

Approximately £30m of RateSetter lending is currently outstanding to George Banco and many lenders will be repaid early as a result of the refinancing.

Blend Network launches with vow to be the “Goldman Sachs of P2P” (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

Blend Network will offer asset-backed property loans to retail and high-net-worth individuals, as well as hedge funds and other institutional investors. P2P specialist F&P will act as introducer for all of its loans, although Blend Network’s chief executive Yann Murciano said that he would be open to further partnerships in the future, as the business scales up.

P2P lending looks less than attractive on a forward-looking basis (AltFi), Rated: A

But, and yes, there is an important caveat, I am beginning to sense an important tipping point. Returns of between 4 and 6% pa from the big platforms – with an emphasis on the lower range of that spectrum – haven’t changed too much (in fact they’ve slightly fallen back). But I’m increasingly thinking that these returns are now inadequate for the potential of increased risk.

If one comes from a lending POV (point of view) then I would argue that the current returns are woefully inadequate, given where we are in the lending cycle.

  • The big banks are starting to increase their provisioning for bad debts
  • Here in the UK we’ve probably reached Peak Unsecured Lending with the BoE bearing down on all lenders about risk, worried senseless about a downturn in consumer spending as Brexit grinds on
  • The car lending market is quite clearly close to a systemic meltdown
  • ‘challenges’ are already appearing within the P2P space, most recently at Ratesetter where its wholesale lending capacity is being wound down
  • The housing market looks more vulnerable than ever before, with the very real possibility that we’ll see a steady drip feed of small price declines
China

Yirendai Made $ 40M Net Profits in Q2 and Dividend for the First Time (Xing Ping She), Rated: AAA

Yirendai, the first US-listed Chinese internet finance company, has recently issued its financial report for the Q2, 2017. In the second quarter of 2017, Yirendai has reached the loans volume of $1.22bn, increasing by 18 percent from the last quarter, especially increased 80 percent from the same period in 2016. By the end of second quarter, the accumulated loans transaction of Yirendai was up to $7.1bn.

Yirendai’s main revenue was charged for service fee from borrowers and lenders. As a result, its income scale is increasing rapidly with the fast growth of loans volume. In the period, Yirendai has made net income of $176 million, increasing by 16 percent from the last quarter and 61 percent from the same period of last year.

Tencent and national development banks to practice the national “Internet +” strategy (163.com), Rated: A

(Hereinafter referred to as “National Bank”) and Tencent (hereinafter referred to as “Tencent”) in Shenzhen Tencent headquarters signed the “Internet +” development of financial strategic cooperation agreement. “.. In the future, the two sides will be in the Internet + precision poverty alleviation, Internet financial innovation, domestic and international credit financing, Kechuang enterprise cultivation, information technology applications and many other areas of long-term, stable, in-depth and sustainable strategic cooperation. Chairman of the State Development Bank Party Committee, Vice President Zhang Xuguang, Director of the China Development Bank Shenzhen Branch Wu Liangdong, Vice President of Tencent Xie Qinghua, Tencent Internet + Strategic Cooperation General Manager Zhang Wei attended the signing ceremony of strategic cooperation.

European Union

ID Finance Teams Up With Da Vinci Capital to Launch $ 200 Million Fintech Fund (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Marketing fintech firm ID Finance announced on Wednesday it has joined forces with former Elbrus Capital fund manager, Yuri Popov, and asset management Da Vinci Capital to launch FinTech Credit Fund, which is described as a $200 million debt finance fund aimed towards fintech companies with a focus in alternative lending.

ID Finance also reported that the Fund will initially focus on projects within the CIS and European markets. Funding will be provided to companies involved in consumer/SME lending, with balance sheet and marketplace lenders being eligible.  Projects offering analytical solutions for credit scoring based on Big Data, AI and machine learning, as well as SaaS and PaaS solutions and payment services are of particular interest to the Fund and align with the investors’ areas of expertise.

International

GIC to invest in US talent agency (Straits Times), Rated: A

Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, along with Canada’s largest pension fund manager, will invest US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in American talent management agency WME-IMG.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, in a separate statement, said it would invest about US$400 million for an 8 per cent stake in WME-IMG, which owns brands like Ultimate Fighting Championship and the Miss Universe Organisation.

The US firm also counts the SoftBank Group, Silver Lake Partners and Fidelity Investments among its investors. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Australia/New Zealand

Harmoney’s loss is really a gain (AltFi), Rated: AAA

New Zealand peer-to-peer lender Harmoney’s revenue climbed 63 percent this year, edging the company closer to profitability.  While still loss-making, Harmoney has halved its losses from $NZ14 million last year to $7 million this year.

As well as climbing revenue, its financials were helped by a 15 percent drop in marketing costs, suggesting the company has grown out its brand recognition to a point where it feels comfortable paying less for advertising.

To date, Harmoney has lent more money than any other Kiwi P2P platform.

Find right blend of technology and human touch (Money Management), Rated: A

A new whitepaper by CoreData and HUB24 titled ‘The modern face of advice’, argues that while technological tools were reshaping the wealth management industry, the role of advisers remained critical and the relationship they built with their clients remained more relevant than ever.

The paper, which is based on interviews with advisers, said technology used in advice practices continued to mature and costs, including platform fees and management expense ratios were decreasing to boost bottom line results of firms.

Robo-advice could play a role in tapping into the estimated $2 trillion worth of unadvised savings in Australia but awareness was still in its infancy. However, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) ‘RG255: Providing digital financial product advice to retail clients’suggested robo-advice was here to stay.

India

Lendingkart Group raises $ 10 million in debt funding (Medianama), Rated: AAA

Lendingkart Finance Limited has raised $10 million in debt funding from Kotak Mahindra Bank, Aditya Birla Financial Services, and other financial institutions. The funds will be used to expand its operations to 700 cities and restock its loan book.

Retail banking may lose 55% of business to fintech (livemint), Rated: AAA

The retail banking sector could lose up to 55% of its business to fintech firms if it does not up the ante in terms of investment in digital transformation, according to a new study titled ‘Enterprise Digital Transformation: Evaluating Indian Enterprises’, brought out jointly by research firm Frost & Sullivan and software lobby body, Nasscom.

 

Havas Media bags integrated media mandate of Faircent.com (Exchange 4 Media), Rated: A

Havas Media Group, India has bagged the integrated media duties of Faircent.com, India’s largest peer to peer lending platform. The account will be handled out of the agency’s Gurgaon office.

Digital Disruption: Lending Trends Turn the Next Leaf! (DQ India), Rated: A

Lending in India is hard as only a fraction of people have access to organized credit. Less than 50% of SMEs get access to bank  finance. The lack of access to credit is forcing people to depend on money lenders at high rates of interest. In India, of the over 1.3 bn population, 600 mn is working class, out of which 150 million has access to credit and 20 million have scores acceptable  to banks.

P2P lending provides investors higher returns than investing in mutual funds/ stock markets, which are linked to the stock market and come with a risk of losing money due to their inherent volatile nature. With the lower interest rates, traditional investment tools like FDs and RDs look less attractive to customers.

Peer-to-Peer loans give regular monthly income to the investors in the form of EMIs.

Now own a piece of prime real estate investing a few thousands (India Times), Rated: A

RealX, a pune-based fintech start-up, has completed India’s “first fractional ownership” deal in real estate sector. The platform has bought a commercial property in Karad (Maharashtra) by pooling in investments from about 19 investors, RealX officials claimed.

RealX is an ecommerce platform which will allow property sellers and agents post their saleable property. Registered buyers, on the other side of the platform, could invest in these projects. The minimum investment threshold, currently, is Rs 5 lakh per investor.

Asia

Immediate payments key driver of banking revenue (The Asset), Rated: AAA

Sixty-six percent of banks with live IP systems in place see it as a revenue driver for their institution, which compares to less than 50% for companies without IP systems in place. Moreover, for all banks 53% say that IP will drive revenue growth for their organization, 61% believe that IP will enhance their level of customer service and 60% expect IP to reduce costs.

While 65% of surveyed institutions stated that open APIs would benefit their customer-facing proposition banks differed in their implementation strategy. The majority (55%) of banks opted for immediately creating open APIs and interfaces for developers, while a minority (45%) took a ‘wait and see’ approach.

Source: The Asset

Mastercard and PayPal expand Partnership in Asia (The Asset), Rated: A

The deal will expand PayPal’s presence at the point of sale and enable Masterpass for Braintree merchants in the region. Additionally, both companies will collaborate to create opportunities to leverage Mastercard’s new payment flow technologies, providing increased value to Mastercard cardholders, financial institutions, and PayPal customers. PayPal will also have the opportunity to give consumers and small businesses across Asia-Pacific the ability to cash out funds held in their PayPal accounts to a Mastercard debit card.

Israel

All of Israel’s FinTech innovation geniuses have left the country and taken their brilliant ideas with them (Finance Feeds), Rated: AAA

Israel was never a center of actual trading, but was always synonymous with the brilliant minds that invented every ancillary service from digital marketing and conversion funnels that have brought tremendous efficiency to retail brokerages, Plus500 being a case in point, to social trading networks that have prospered on a gigantic scale across China – read eToro’s efforts with PingAn as very much an example where other social trading ventures wilted and disappeared.

Mr Mandelzis secured $40 million in venture capital from Sequoia Capital and sold the company to ICAP in 2007 for $250 million which became the subject of a Kellog Business School case study.

Where is Mr Mandelzis now? New York.

Optimove consolidates, mines and models customer data, dynamically grouping customers into micro-segments, and forecasting their future behavior and value.

Optimove is headquartered in New York, and is a completely American company.

Social trading has died a death. There is very little evidence of the large firms that used to dominate, and most of that technology came from Israel.

The only one in existence is eToro, which is a social investment platform.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor