The VPC Speciality Lending investment trust sold it’s exposure to Avant loans and their equity stake as it continues a move out of the sector; the fund has been shifting to a balance sheet strategy for quite some time and this is another indicator of that move; they also sold their equity exposure in Australian point of sale lender zipMoney. 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.
Blockchain consortium R3 and 22 partner banks are working to build a real time cross border payments solution on Corda; the project started last year and the banks are actively providing feedback; this is occurring while R3 and former partner Ripple are involved in a legal dispute over a previous agreement. Source.
After turning a profit in 2016 Assetz Capital has continue that trend in the first half of 2017 by posting a seven figure pre tax profit; “We have reported considerable growth and stability over the past four years, and now that profitably has been consistently achieved in parallel to that strong growth, we continue to go from strength to strength,” said Stuart Law, CEO of Assetz Capital, to AltFi; this shows a trend in the UK of secured P2P lenders having a better track record to profit. Source.
The European Commission has announced a €30bn investment initiative for blockchain technology; the funding is part of the Horizon 2020 Initiative which helps commit capital to projects in security, climate, clean energy and the digital economy; “Artificial intelligence, genetics, blockchain: science is at the core of today's most promising breakthrough innovations,” said Carlos Moedas, commissioner for research, science and innovation according to CoinDesk. Source.
With the recent hack of Equifax still top of mind for regulators and consumers alike, there are individuals beginning to explore potential solutions including blockchain technology; Bloom and Open Identity Exchange are working on protocols and standards that could be used by any entity to create an ID system on the blockchain; having such a system would allow for more security from hackers and help to verify individuals; while there are current limitations to the technology there are many groups looking to solve these issues and a potential government led initiative could speed up development. Source.
Leading home solar financed Mosaic has partnered with PeerIQ on latest securitization; Mosaic used the PeerIQ platform to allow potential ABS buyers to have insight into their complete set of loan-level data; the partnership will allow for more transparency, streamline diligence and execution. Source.
The new client house branch will allow retail, business and private banking customers to enjoy coffee and receive personal service; “A client house to me should feel like home,” comments Erik Van Den Eynden, CEO of ING Belgium, to Banking Technology; the branch has all the banks’ typical functions and meeting rooms complete with screens for video conferencing; the company will attempt to open about 15 by end of 2020. Source.
Personetics Act will be offered to banks as a way to help their customers pay off their student loans ahead of schedule; the tool will use the Nudge Theory by identifying students who can repay loans quicker and helping them to do so or automatically pay more than the usual payment for them; David Sosna, Personetics’ co-founder and CEO tells Banking Technology, “we’re able to identify windows of opportunity for customers to make these extra payments with no effort on their end.” Source.
Some of Europes largest online lenders have started to grapple with the idea of potentially becoming a bank; Funding Circle says it has no plans to do so, Zopa on the other hand says they are becoming a bank; other online lenders like YOUnited Credit in France and Raize in Portugal have thought about becoming a bank but thus far see the flexibility of not being a bank as an advantage; the banking market overall is going through quite the change and the definition of a bank is sure to be examined. Source.
There is significant pain points for commercial clients of banks as they typically need to resend documents many times; as banks become more tech driven they have begun to solve these issues and clients are seeing the benefits; JP Morgan Chase has created Data Once and even smaller banks like Peapack-Gladstone Bank in NJ have new features for their clients; banks of all sizes see how the changes can impact client relations. Source.