The UK’s Parliament Treasury Committee said the needs to keep a close eye on a disagreement between banks and independent ATMs; with banks closing branches the worry is people living rural communities won’t have access to cash if they are unable to use these ATMs; the argument came about when the Link scheme said they were looking to lower the cost of withdrawal from 25p to 20p to stay competitive because operator like Visa were undercutting them; the Regulator is looking to ensure access to cash as that is still the main way people in these areas transact; as banks have closed ATMs, independent ATMs have grown significantly and are a crucial part of the financial system. 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.
With cryptocurrency market caps rising and futures markets being adopted 2017 saw hedge funds pour over $2bn into the space; the figures come from a Morgan Stanley note sent to clients with research included from Autonomous NEXT; the note also shows 84 of 100 crypto related funds started in 2017; this year has helped the market to begin being more widely accepted by traditional institutional investors. Source.
In an interview with AltFi, Mambu CEO Eugene Danilkis explained he thinks the UK is the fintech hub of Europe; the digital banking platform sees this as the case partly because the UK government has done a great deal on bring more competition into the banking system; with the government support you have seen dozens of banking applications submitted and new entrants like Starling Bank, Atom and OakNorth have success; Mambu provides software to incumbents and startups, telling AltFi, “Incumbents will have to think like fintechs in order to develop channels of servicing clients quickly, seamlessly and creatively.” Source.
eToro partnered with CoinDash to develop a set of social trading products built on blockchain technology; eToro CEO Yoni Assia tells Banking Technology, “With thousands of new coins in the market, it can be difficult for mainstream investors to navigate this new space. The CoinDash team is enabling users to better analyse their investments in cryptocurrencies, and to learn from others.”; the eToro marketplace has more than 4.5 million users in over 170 countries, they allow users to trade based on copying or following other individual’s portfolios and recently added access to cryptocurrencies. Source.
Insurtech startup Lemonade raised $120mn led by Softbank with backing from Allianz, Sequoia Capital and Google Ventures; the company has licenses in 25 states across the US and has sold more than 80,000 policies since launch last year; “By combining big data and AI with a seamless user experience, Lemonade is truly revolutionizing the insurance industry,” said David Thevenon, a senior investment professional at SoftBank, to the Financial Times. Source.
In their latest edition of Confessions, TearSheet talks to an analyst at a startup attached to a large bank about innovation, trying to get tech talent and why more fintech companies should partner with banks; about half of the talent at the startup came form inside the bank and as the analyst points out it was more because of convenience as hiring from the outside could take months; banks have trouble keeping top talent because the projects are not as interesting as projects at Google or Facebook; other areas discussed include default rates ticking up, marketing practices and expanding product offerings. Source.
Fiserv partnered with TransUnion to use their CreditVision Link software to help asses risk in their auto loan origination system; Fiserv is specifically looking to identify higher risk borrowers as they look to reach more of the underbanked; Steve Chaouki, executive vice-president and head of TransUnion’s financial services business unit, says the integration “enables lenders to score approximately 95% of the US adult population” as reported by Banking Technology. Source.
A senior Chinese regulatory official said the country needs to come up with better legislation to monitor the market; "FinTech innovations that feature internet, big data and artificial intelligence are exerting profound influence on capital markets," said Huang Wei, assistant chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, at a forum reported by Xinhua; the regulations need to catch up with innovation and ensure that investors are protected. Source.
UK based challenger bank Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group announced they would increase minimum salaries by 11 percent in an effort to boost pay to their female workforce; the bank released news that men were paid 37 percent more than women, mostly due to men being in higher paying roles; the bank signed up for the government’s Women in Finance Charter to help increase their proportion of women in senior roles to 40 percent by 2020 and 50 percent in the long term. Source.
A little over a year ago Goldman Sachs launched their consumer lending platform Marcus as part of a digital strategy...