UK based Zopa has warned investors that defaults on high risk loans are rising; Zopa increased originations to high risk borrowers in 2016 and introduced their Zopa Core and Zopa Plus Products; the company originally expected default rates for 2016 at 4.14 percent but have revised that number to 4.93 percent; they also raised their estimates for 2017 loans to these borrowers to be 4.86 percent from 4.52 percent. Source.
JoinedNov. 30, 2016
Articles1,635
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.
Customers using Zelle within their banking app have fallen prey to a scam where they send money for tickets but never receive the ticket; since the transaction is instantly done the scammer then closes their account and by the time the bank fully settles the payment the money is gone; banks in the Zelle network, and Zelle itself, have said do not send money to anyone unless you know and trust them; when money is lost customers are asking who should be responsible for replace the funds, should the bank refund them or Zelle; the relationship between the banks and Zelle is not entirely clear from the user perspective, with more frauds occurring customers are starting to ask more questions. Source.
SunTrust Bank, Ally Ventures and Amazon Alexa Fund teamed up with others to raise $16mn for Greenlight Financial Technology; Greenlight makes smart debit cards for kids and college students to spend more wisely; The company also offers a mobile app complete with parental controls so parents can teach their kids how to spend; this is a further jump into financial services for Amazon as it looks to enter the space through the partnership model. Source
TD Bank has run into a number of issues since updating their online banking and mobile app experiences; customers have had issues accessing their accounts, transferring funds and paying bills; the issues point to a problem among banks as they try to figure out how long new product releases should be tested before releasing to market; the bank has tried to ease customer complaints by responding on social media but that has only made problems worse; with the amount of competition for customers increasing in banking the traditional players will need to better prepare the beta testing phase. Source.
While Alibaba’s Sesame Credit has increased access to loans in China the government recently told them to stop a national rollout of the program; John Gapper from the FT writes that there are three main issues behind social credit scores in China; technology companies have a more liberal attitude than banks when it comes to data; social credit scores seem to promote spending and more credit where as a traditional FICO score rewards a user for self control; the scores are proprietary to the companies who created them like Alibaba did with Sesame Credit. Source.
Digital banks have been presenting themselves as a more transparent fairer option than the traditional players; what these newcomers are finding is to scale and reach profitability they will need to figure out a way to lend that doesn’t strike the same tone as customers get from their typical bank; Tandem, Monzo, Starling Bank, Revolut and N26 have all started to roll out lending options in a variety of ways by using a tailored data driven approach; figuring out where the balance lies is the key piece if these banks are truly going to disrupt the banking system. Source.
The pilot occurs after a successful proof of concept in September with BNP, Commerzbank and ING; they hope to expand later this year with more banks, credit insurers and enterprise planning and logistics providers; they are looking to address risk mitigation, payables finance and receivables finance; “The technology ran fast and smoothly and the positive results showed us we are on the right track and ready to take the next step by entering into a pilot," said Ivar Wiersma, head of innovation at ING Wholesale Banking, to CoinDesk. Source.
According to new data from the Federal Reserve mobile payments have seen a big growth among consumers but fraud has also risen; the shorter clearing period looks to have opened banks on the Zelle network to more potential for fraudulent transactions; Zelle has been using multi-layer and multi-factor authentication during the enrollment process; as banks look to innovate to suit their customer needs they are also looking at newer ways to protect themselves against threats that are evolving just as quick. Source.
Silicon Valley startup accelerator 500 Startups partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Huobi to incubate blockchain projects; Edith Yeung, a partner at 500 Startups, said to CoinDesk, in partnering with Huobi Labs, "Our teams will learn so much especially around the ins and outs of how a digital exchange works."; the companies will help startups to develop business plans, create and refine marketing strategies, fundraise and develop white papers. Source.
BlackRock, the world’s largest investment group, is setting up an AI research lab; the move is part of a wider industry trend by asset managers to use AI and machine learning for investments; the lab is meant to help their current teams and clients better understand how best to utilize the new technologies; “Big data offers a world of possibilities for generating alpha [market beating returns] but traditional techniques are not good enough to analyse the huge volumes of information involved,” said David Wright, head of product strategy in Europe for BlackRock’s scientific active equity division, to the FT. Source.