In 2017 the CFPB saw a ton of regulation and a battle for the successor to former director Richard Cordray; this coming year could be even more tumultuous as acting director Mick Mulvaney looks to undo many of the regulations Cordray put in place and the ensuing court battle over who is the rightful director; recent rule like the arbitration rule have been reversed and they payday lending regulation could be next to go; with a number of regulations in need or more clarity or a court decision the next 12 months could prove crucial for the future of the agency. 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.
The European Commission is developing new legislation that will help fintech companies, in particular crowdfunding sites and online lenders, operate and scale across single market member states; the idea is meant to create a digital single market, removing what some countries add on within their jurisdiction; this move could help propel funding for fintech companies and increase their ability to compete with companies in the US and Asia. Source.
Continuing their strategy of moving to balance sheet lending platforms the fund sold their entire holding in Prosper marketplace loans; the holding amounted to 4.1 percent of the company’s net asset value or NAV as of October 31st; the company also said they were able to reinvest all the process form the Prosper sale into balance sheet investments and have increased their balance sheet exposure to 79 percent of the fund. Source.
Startups like Propy, ShelterZoom and RealBlocks have begun letting people buy and sell real estate using the blockchain; Eric Piscini, principal, banking and technology consulting at Deloitte tells American Banker, “Maybe banks will be leaner because they won’t need to have as many people as they used to, to manage those processes.”; using blockchain technology can help to make the entire process of buying or selling real estate more efficient; banks will need to focus on other value added services outside of just lending and servicing; the power of blockchain technology is beginning to be felt all across the financial landscape. Source.
TearSheet put together 5 interesting charts helping to provide greater explanation to certain areas of fintech; the charts include where and how banks spend on innovation, Goldman Sachs job listing, ethical concerns in using AI, mobile wallet traction and the top reasons for borrower dissatisfaction; the charts helped to reveal that Goldman is working hard to become a technology company, mobile wallet traction is quite low and interest rates by online lenders is the second biggest reason for borrower dissatisfaction. Source.
The Trump administration is looking to potentially name the chair of the National Credit Union Administration to lead the CFPB; J. Mark McWatters has been seen as being a bigger credit union advocate over banks; bankers are concerned because his public record has indicated he lobbies more for breaks that favor credit unions over banks; while a decision is yet to be made bankers are hopeful that the administration will consider those from the banking community as well. Source.
Open source projects have started at Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase in the past year, there is a thought that this is the start a new wave of open source banking; Accenture found that 99 out of 100 payments executives at banks said they plan to make big open banking investments by 2020; open source projects like Linux has help the tech industry develop into what it is today; banks like CBW Bank, who is run by former Google engineer Suresh Ramamurthi, already have a marketplace where developers can build banking apps using their APIs; open source banking can also help to keep banks more secure as the big tech giants have been helped a lot by using open source applications. Source.
Business Insider takes a look back at one of the biggest trends in finance from 2017; Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs have become one of the main ways for companies in the blockchain space to raise capital; more than $3.5bn was raised using this method; some of the top raises include $153mn by The Bancor Protocol, $232mn by Tezos and $257mn by Filecoin. Source.
In this week’s WeiyangX Fintech Review reported by Crowdfund Insider they cover the rumors that the CBRC suspended online lending by private banks; private banks were only permitted to be in operation for the last 3 years and this news is reported to be done because of concerns over stability at the banks; a charity crowdfunding platform, Fenbeichou, was accused of fraud; the PBOC released new rules for mobile payment security including all QR code providers now need a permit. Source.
With open banking set to go live in Europe next month US banks will be keeping a close eye on how the process works; US banks have started to share data with fintechs through different partnerships for different reasons; the time is coming where the industry will have to look at open banking as a regulatory standard and some think the banks should really be the ones to set the parameters; coming up with a potential global set of standards is something that could really benefit all parties involved; “You need to globalize that at consistency so you don’t have different standards for each country in Asia, for example,” said Cynthia Murray, a managing director at Bank of America, to TearSheet. Source.