Betterment is looking to cater to their wealthier clients as they make portfolios more personalized; they launched the Betterment Flexible Portfolio which allows customers to shoes how assets weights are allocated; the typical Betterment client uses the asset weights set by the robo advisor, but this feature is meant to personalize the wealth clients portfolio; the move will try to help the company to position themselves as a full service firm that can cater to different levels of clientele, not just the younger investor. Source.
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Todd is the host of PitchIt: the fintech startups podcast, a weekly interview show featuring emerging fintech founders and leading venture capitalists. He is responsible for leading the content team which covers fintech through daily & weekly email newsletters, editorial, virtual events, and in-person conferences. He has been covering fintech, banking, and venture capital for more than 15 years, including speaking regularly at industry events.
Online mortgage lender Lenda has plans to make the mortgage process last 30 minutes from start to finish; right now the company takes about 2 weeks to complete the process and has made more than $200mn worth or mortgages to date; Jason van den Brand, its co-founder and CEO, tells American Banker, "The big banks are working on technology that was built in the '70s. We cater to the customer who lives on their phone, laptop and tablet and shops online and compares online."; the biggest impediment is the appraisal process as that is still human intensive; the company has also been testing digital signatures by connecting via video chat with a notary. Source.
Citi recently announced an upgrade to their mobile app to help add features and streamline the app offering; the new app features more financial management tools, you can open an account on your device and pay bills; they also added a 360 Financial View tool to give the customer a full understanding and view into all their accounts, Citi and non Citi accounts; the app is part of a broader digital strategy the bank has been pushing in recent weeks. Source.
Online consumer lender Upstart has reportedly set out to raise $100mn in their latest fundraising round; the round would put the valuation north of $500mn and upwards of $1bn; the company did not confirm the American Banker report but did say they anticipate completing a finals round in the next year; the company reach profitability last year and the value of loan transactions increased threefold according to a spokeswoman. Source.
There is a new trend occurring at big banks, CMOs are becoming the driving force behind the change in marketing and a cleanup in digital media ads; most people still use and trust banks, even after the financial crisis and the recent bad news of big fines or scandals; recently the focus in banking has shifted to customer experience and marketers have become as big a part of the product teams as they are of the marketing teams; customers are starting to expect their experience to be more personalized, focused and more impactful to their lives; marketers have moved beyond their role of storytelling and moved into a more active role on how to drive the best experience for the different customers. Source.
Jack Henry & Associates banking division recently signed up their seventh community bank in as many months; the banks have contracted the company to use their Windows-based banking platform; Jack Briner, president and CEO California International Bank, tells Banking Technology: “When evaluating core providers, we could tell that Jack Henry & Associates would be the best partner for our bank. The advanced technology and forward momentum that Jack Henry Banking provides will give our bank the integrated and robust capabilities needed to get ahead.” Source.
American Banker reported on the mixed results of a SourceMedia survey of individuals in the banking, payments and mortgage sectors about the MeToo movement; most respondents said it would impact their industry in some capacity, though they were split on whether the impact would be positive or negative; there was a clear divide on gender lines as most women thought changes would be positive, men respondents mentioned false accusations and some brushed it off as not a big issue; there is some concern that this could force men to hire less women and not mentor women in the workplace for fear of being accused; clear workplace guidelines and a more diverse executive team could bring about real positive change; the MeToo movement is clearly forcing a lot of industries to rethink how they structure their workplace for all employees. Source.
Coinbase announced they will add support for ERC20 tokens, the technical standard behind ethereum blockchain tokens; they don’t have plans to add any new token yet but is building out their technology to do so; "This is an infrastructure upgrade that will enable us to support many more assets in the future," a Coinbase representative told Business Insider.; the company did caution that they will wait regulatory clarity before adding any assets. Source.
Tencent and Alibaba have built firms that enable them to write significant checks and have crowded out private equity and venture capital firms; SoftBank is the only other regional player on a similar level; they are not always driven by returns like traditional investors and this allows them to define success differently; some private equity firms are beginning to wonder if they are beginning to abuse their power; if a company receives investment from one of these giants they are also not held to the same pressures of a traditional investor like going public; these giants are helping to push innovation across the region and globe, but many are starting to ask at what cost. Source.
Banks have begun to implement new technologies to help verify who the customer is, though the new GDPR rules in Europe could complicate usage; the General Data Protection Regulation, which will restrict how companies collect and store data, allows for customers to ask for their data to be removed and non compliance results in huge fines; banks have started to slowly add new technology but they are still figuring out where to limit storage; new companies are trying to sell services into bank that allow them to collect information but store it in a certain way to be compliant; with new technology being developed so rapidly, governments need to ensure they keep up with innovation and clearly tell the market how to comply. Source.