Staff Writer

·Aug. 18, 2017

Fintech a Part of NAFTA Renegotiation

President Trump is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and fintech is a part of the discussions; President Donald Trump requested the renegotiation with a key focus on US workers; Vanessa Rubio, undersecretary of Mexico's finance ministry, told Reuters that discussions on financial services have also been important and said, "We are not yet sure what will end up in the text of the new agreement, but we are sure that we need to have a discussion about new services, above all about the fintech industry." Source

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Fintech News Roundup USA

·Aug. 18, 2017

Original Tech Launches Credit Technology Software

The fintech company is graduating from the Y Combinator's summer 2017 class and will be presenting at Demo Day next week; the company was founded by former Blend employees and offers similar technology for loan applications; different from Blend, it seeks to serve a broader target market than just mortgage loans and it is also focusing on mid to small market companies; it offers a white label software service that can be used to improve online loan applications. Source

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Fintech News Roundup Real Estate USA

·Aug. 18, 2017

DreamFunded Expands Its Real Estate Investment Offerings

DreamFunded is launching new offerings under Reg CF; real estate investments on the platform will now be available for any investor; its first Reg CF offering is a fix and flip real estate loan secured by a first mortgage with a minimum investment of $500; the loan is offering 10% interest paid monthly. Source

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Fintech News Roundup USA

·Aug. 18, 2017

Personal Loans: The Keys to Success in a Competitive Market

Competition in the personal loan market has become quite heated since the financial crisis; banks of all sizes, and credit unions now have to compete with the likes of emerging fintech companies who have originated billions in loans; at LendIt USA 2017 Ken Lin of Credit Karma did a keynote presentation on some of the keys to success in this highly competitive market; helping to understand the trends of the last few years (higher defaults and increased APRs) can first give you a better understanding of current market conditions; the keys to success to overcome and reverse those trends are to continuously refine your underwriting models, solve real customer pain points and find a way to win on mobile; keeping ahead of the curve is not easy with so many players but making improvements to certain areas could go a long way. Source

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Europe Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 18, 2017

Technology Debate Continues in the UK Mortgage Market

There was a recent technology debate held at the Connaught Hotel hosted by Mortgage Solutions and Capita Mortgage Software Solutions that focused on some of the newer technology coming to the mortgage market; a key piece of the conversation focused on the use of APIs which would help to connect brokers and lenders and cut down on repetitive work; according to Mortgage Solutions, the individuals at the event thought that some lenders might be close to rolling out an API but large scale adoption was still potentially years away; other technology discussed included chatbots, artificial intelligence to help read through bank statements and how the open banking initiative will affect the industry. Source

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Europe Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 18, 2017

Follow Up Friday: Fintech Bank Licensing in Europe

Europe provides some interesting examples for fintech bank chartering and licensing as companies SoFi and Varo lead the way in the United States; two top companies to watch include Tandem and Klarna; fintech company Tandem recently acquired a bank, Harrods Bank, which will provide it with GBP80 million ($103 million) of capital and a banking license if the transaction is approved; Klarna has also been a fintech banking leader in Europe; the Swedish payments company recently received a banking license and has reported deals with Permira, Visa and Brightfolk. Source

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 18, 2017

Jack Ma-Backed Yunfeng Leads $1.7bn Purchase of MassMutual Asia Unit

Yunfeng Financial Group (Yunfeng FG) said it would be the main investor in a $1.7 billion acquisition of insurer MassMutual International's Hong Kong unit; Yunfeng FG will hold 60% of MassMutual Asia and the rest will be owned by other investors such as Ant Financial, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Ltd and China's internet giant Sina; the deal will add insurance products to Yunfeng's existing fintech-focused financial services. Source

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 18, 2017

Lend Academy Article: Five Key Takeaways from the Interview with the CEO of ZhongAn Insurance

At Lang Di Fintech (LendIt's Chinese event), Peter Renton, the founder of Lend Academy, conducted an interview with ZhongAn Insurance CEO Jeffrey Chen; they talked about how the biggest insurtech company uses big data and artificial intelligence to measure risk, the scale of ZhongAn's business, regulatory issues and the future of the company; the article provides five key takeaways from the interview. Source

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 18, 2017

Japan’s Largest IT Firm NTT Data Unveils New Blockchain Consortium

NTT Data, Japan's largest IT services firm, has announced a new blockchain consortium; 13 participating members including three of Japan's megabanks: the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho and the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation; other notable participants represent industries such as insurance, logistics, and import and export trade; the consortium's objectives include exploring the lead up to and validation of the feasibility of blockchain applications; the consortium will be officially launched on August 30 and expected to last until March 2018. Source

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Asia/Pac Fintech News Roundup

·Aug. 18, 2017

Indonesian Fintech Startup Amartha Helps the Rural Unbanked

Amartha is an Indonesian fintech startup focused on using the peer-to-peer business model in rural areas of Indonesia; Amartha originally started as a microfinance institution in 2010, but that business model did not work; they moved to a peer-to-peer model where individual Indonesian investors fund the loans; they focus on small rural villages and to assess borrower risk they blend demographic profiling and psychometric tests to determine the probability of repayment; they currently have 5,000 investors and generate returns of about 15% to 17% structured as a profit-sharing scheme. Source

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