President Trump’s pick to head the FDIC, Jelena McWilliams, has spoken favorably about ILC charters in the past; ILC charters exist in a handful of states, most notably Utah who has seen a spike in inquires about applications; charters can allow fintech companies to bypass state by state licensing; ILC charters are an controversial way for fintech companies to act like banks and with the national charter proposed by the OCC in limbo more companies might look to take this route. Source.
JoinedNov. 30, 2016
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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.
A record number of Americans experienced identity fraud in 2017, that represents an 8 percent increase from 2016; according to a study by Javelin 16.7 million people were hit by identity fraud; the rate of increase for identity fraud has slowed from 2016 but Americans that were notified about a breach also went up 30 percent; fraud prevention has become one of the main topics in fintech and banking as companies look to leverage new technologies like AI and blockchain for solutions. Source.
Banks like Capital One have been investing in creating a cafe style space where people can come to drink coffee and work while also having interaction with a bank but not in the traditional branch way; the idea is to have the bank maintain a presence, get deposits but not have a full branch; “If you can imagine people popping these things up — the competition for community banks would get overwhelming,” said Robert Mahoney, CEO of the $2.5 billion-asset Belmont Savings Bank in Massachusetts, to American Banker. Source.
Zelle has quickly made a name for themselves in p2p payments, now BNY Mellon is looking to leverage the company for business payments; "There are rapid changes in the payments space," Carl Slabicki, director and product line manager for immediate payments at BNY Mellon, said to American Banker. "If you want to remain relevant and allow your clients access to new payment systems, you need to be quicker to market with a faster payment solution.”; b2b payments have no been easier to automate but BNY is hoping to help move the process in that direction. Source.
Messaging app Symphony will be integrated into OpenFin’s platform in hopes of creating a competitor to Bloomberg; “By enabling Symphony to run on the OpenFin operating system, we are making it easy for our mutual customers to unify the Symphony desktop experience with their other OpenFin-based apps," Mazy Dar, chief executive of OpenFin, said as reported by Business Insider; with the integration they are hoping to create a lower cost product and eat into some of the dominance that Bloomberg has over the market. Source.
Goldman Sachs is currently in discussions to buy personal financial management app Clarity Money according to reporting by American Banker; they plan to roll the company in their Marcus brand; this is the latest move by the wall street titan to build out their consumer focus; Clarity Money uses AI to help consumers make better financial decisions by lowering bills, finding better credit cards and creating a savings account. Source.
Radius Bank in Boston has been partnering with fintechs for the last few years in an effort to build relationships for the long term that benefit the bank and fintech company; “We’ve built a culture inside this company that believes in the future of virtual banking, and the demands clients are going to put on us to be an Amazon-like experience for them,” says Radius CEO Mike Butler to American Banker; the bank is looking to use fintech companies to build this experience as they are unable to build all of this in house. Source.
The UK recently visited China on a trade mission and signed a number of fintech deals worth more than $1.8bn; the deals are looking to create a deeper partnership between the nations and potentially create more than 850 jobs; deals include Innovate Finance and NIFA's memorandum of understanding, CurrencyCloud and X-Transfer's partnership and UK fintech R5FX's collaboration with Shanghai Clearing House. Source.
The UK fintech sector has shaken off the worries of Brexit to take in the second highest amount of capital from VC’s in 2017; they have overtaken China and only trail the US in terms of VC funding; according to data from Innovate Finance UK fintech investment was up 153 percent in 2017 from the year earlier; 24 per cent went into challenger banks, 21 percent into money transfer and foreign exchange, 17 percent into alternative lending and financing and 11 percent into personal finance/wealth management; VC investment globally reached $14.4bn across 1,824 deals, representing an 18 per cent decrease from 2016. Source.
Overstock has been building out their FinanceHub for the past few months to include Overstock credit cards and insurance products, loans by LendingTree, Prosper and SoFi, a robo-adviser for automated investing and a discounted trading platform; Raj Karkara, Overstock VP of loyalty and financial services, tells TearSheet, “Consumers don’t want to sit and sign 50 documents, they just want to go online and get through the steps they need to take to move forward.”; the moves made are part of a broader strategy for the retailer to become a full service fintech firm that caters to their clients needs. Source.