Facebook's data and privacy rules have slowed business development plans for insurtech firm, Admiral; many fintech firms have sought to use social media profiles in crowdfunding with little success for various reasons; insurtech firm, Admiral, will now be forced to end its plans to use Facebook social media posts and likes for consideration in auto insurance underwriting; Facebook says use of the information is a violation of its data privacy rules. Source
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Latvian marketplace lender Mintos and Creamfinance have partnered to list loans originated in Denmark and the Czech Republic; Creamfinance Financial Planning Director, Georgijs Ustinovs, said, "High investor demand for Creamfinance loans was our main motivation for adding a new market to the Mintos platform."; Mintos noted that the annual return to investors should reach 11%. Source
Wealth Migrate is claiming to be the first real estate online investing platform that has incorporated blockchain technology; the company focuses on cross-border real estate investing; blockchain is being applied to defining and recording smart contracts and a decentralized, unalterable record of investment transactions. Source
The Federal Council of Switzerland is seeking to make the regulatory framework more flexible for fintech companies; they have instructed the Federal Department of Finance to devise a policy statement setting such a direction; recommendations to be considered include: (a) setting a maximum of 60 days for holding money in a settlement account, which will make settlements better aligned with crowdfunding project funding deadlines, (b) creating of an innovation sandbox in which a platform can accept funds up to CHF 1 million, and (c) establishing a new fintech license, with fewer restrictions than on traditional banks. Source
Korea's Financial Services Commission just issued a guideline that limits most individual investors from committing more than 10 million won ($8,750) to P2P investments in a year; those individuals who have earnings over 100 million won ($87,500) can still commit up to 40 million won to P2P; Korean P2P platforms are complaining that investments in any equity project or loan portfolio tend to be skewed to a few individuals who invest more than 10 million won (60% of investors fall into this category on average across platforms there), therefore the new regulation will drive up funding costs; regulators say this over-concentration of funds from few investors is precisely the trend they hope to curtail. Source
A new study entitled the World FinTech Report (WFTR) from Capgemini and LinkedIn finds that half of the banking customers worldwide use at least one fintech service or product; the report shows that younger customers and emerging markets adopt fintech more frequently, as China and India lead the way with 75% of customers using fintech; other important statistic from the report show that 17.4% of investment management customers rely on fintech solely, 46% of banking customers use more than one fintech firm and 60% of traditional financial firms view fintech companies as long term partners. Source
A new UK bank referral scheme began this week with a focus on nine of the region's largest banks; Lend Academy provides more details in their article; the referral scheme will require banks to refer small businesses to alternative lenders if they are denied credit; creates more opportunities for banks to partner with alternative lenders and also significantly expands credit access for businesses. Source
This week a new referral scheme, that has been in the works for two years, launched in the UK. It was...
UK marketplace lender, Funding Circle, has reported a record month for loan originations in October; the platform originated £95 million worth of loans in October, reporting its highest ever monthly origination volume; the firm's previous loan origination volume record was set in September with £75.2 million in loans; the small business lender now has total loan originations of £1.62 billion. Source
Bank holding company, CRB Group Inc., has received venture capital investment of $28 million from Battery Ventures LP, Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital; the large investment in a bank is unusual for venture capitalists which have mainly been known for early stage financing in new fintech startups; CRB Group however has been considerably growing its digital banking capabilities making the investment attractive for fintech venture capitalists; New Jersey-chartered, Cross River Bank, was founded in 2008 and has since partnered with numerous fintech startups to offer industry leading services for lending and payments; the bank is expected to use the investment to continue building on its industry leading fintech services; because the bank is FDIC regulated the VC investors will be limited in some of their investment activities. Source