BB&T announced last week that they were committing $50mn to fintech; the company plans implement what they are calling intelligent automation; plans include AI & machine learning, robotics processing automation, chatbots and virtual assistance & conversational commerce according to TearSheet; the company also announced they are looking at transforming branches and looking to move as much of their business to the cloud. 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.
In this week’s PeerIQ Weekly Update the company covers the recent spate of bank earning reports, securitization news and issues another round of hiring updates; banks have seen a continued drop in fixed income and commodities trading revenue, picking up the slack has been lending and wealth management; Citigroup and Morgan Stanley had strong reports while Goldman Sachs and American Express missed the mark; SoFi is issuing a $720mn securitization deal, Moody’s rated the A classes AAA; PeerIQ also lists five new hires stemming from the $12mn round last summer. Source.
The UK saw 5.5 percent fewer startups begin in the last year; startups have found getting funding to be increasingly hard and only 53 percent survive their first three years; most business owners are starting companies on the side and tend to have a full time job as well; the government has tried to help with programs like Start Up Loans which lends money to emerging companies; startup owners not only find business to be hard but end up debt in many cases as they can never really get sales off the ground. Source.
Yahoo Finance launched a new savings app called Tanda which allows groups of five or nine people to save money; the app pools money from the group each month and each member of the group gets access to the pool at different months; the company charges a fee on the first two payouts but offers a bonus to users who can wait for the money; the pool can reach $2,000 and Tanda has partnered with Dwolla to vet users. Source.
Mission based digital banking startup Varo Money secured their second significant round of the last two years by raising $45mn; investors in the round include The Rise Fund, led by U2 ‘s lead singer Bono, and Warburg Pincus who also helped to lead their first round; Varo applied for a national bank charter in July and plans to use the money for hiring, product development and marketing. Source.
Looking to make their consumer lending product more appealing Goldman Sach’s Marcus is now offering loans for home improvement; the bulk of their loans have thus far been originated for debt consolidation; with more banks entering the space and the non bank lenders who have come on the scene since the financial crisis Marcus is looking to differentiate their initial offering; this is a trend across the fintech market as competition has forced firms to try to make products unique. Source.
As banks look to update legacy technology or partner with fintechs they have turned to consultants for advice; consulting firms like BCG, Accenture and the big four accounting firms, KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and EY have all been called upon to help structure deals or provide banks with advice on regulatory updates; financial institutions are relying on these consultants to help banks implement the technology changes and to adapt quicker as they can help bring knowledge from data scientists or app designers. Source.
Consumers have submitted hundreds of complaints about the p2p payments app because they are unable to sign up or access money that was sent to them; the reason behind the issues is Zelle’s security structure is very similar to that of a bank; if something doesn’t match perfectly or the users bank is outside the Zelle network then its possible they will not be able to sign on; Zelle initially launched inside their bank network only, but in September they launched their stand alone app and thats when the issues began; the company is looking at improving the process but says they will not compromise their security. Source.
The Open Banking Implementation Entity or OBIE chose regtech firm Contego to support OBIE’s identity proofing and verification processes; Nigel Spencer, head of support services at OBIE, tells Banking Technology that Contego delivered a “bespoke solution that combines automated identity checks with the added security of face-to-face verification” and this made the firm “the obvious choice”.; the company can customize their solution and deliver in real time via API. Source.
The new CFPB director Mick Mulvaney is planning to rollback a key regulation that will allow payday lenders to charge very high interest rates; the current rule was set to be enacted soon and allow for lenders to become compliant by the middle of 2019; the rule limited the amount of money or the amount of times a person could borrow from these short term lenders; with the removal of the rule payday lenders can go back to operating like they did prior to the CFPB; many fear that lower income Americans will become mired in debt. Source.