Cloudvirga Raises $50M in Series C Funding Student Loan Genius Raises $3.5M in Seed Series Prime Financing HSBC Partners with...
Mastercard expands cryptocurrency program to allow more firms to issue cards on its network Inside Betterment’s move into banking with...
Almost a third of venture capital investment in the UK was done by the European Investment Fund (EIF) and since the Brexit decision was made this funding source has been turned off; while the British government has attempted to fill the void they have fallen short; "The pullback of the EIF puts the UK at a structural disadvantage compared to other European countries," Fred Destin, a London-based venture capitalist tells Politico; the EIF accounted for $2.7 billion worth of investment into 144 companies from 2011 to 2015 in the UK; the EIF has said they are just doing more diligence on the companies from the UK but the reality is that they have completely pulled back; the British Business Bank has announced plans to offer over $450 million in investments but venture capitalists have said they are unsure if the government can afford to do this in the long term. Source
OakNorth, a successful new challenger bank in the UK, is calling on the UK Treasury to use Brexit as an...
Firm says the platform is the first to introduce hire purchase loans for businesses; the firm has developed the product in collaboration with former wholesale lending partner Corporate Asset Solutions who will serve as a distribution channel; RateSetter will take full security over the specified asset and the platform says its hire purchase agreements will range up to GBP750,000 ($993,000). Source
Payment processing giant Stripe has “rebuilt bank transfers from the ground-up” for businesses in the UK, EU and Mexico.
The bank has seen behavior in the unsecured personal loan market getting out of control; lenders are trying to battle each other to offer cheaper loans in an uncertain time; Paul Lynam, chief executive of Secure Trust, said, "The competition becomes excessive; lenders tend to continue to fight for market share, which means lower pricing."; this is not the first time Secure Trust has pulled back on unsecured consumer loans; in 2006 they ceased originations only to come back in 2009. Source
Martin Kissinger, the founder of Lendable is just 28 years old; he has built Lendable into a successful business that has lent £80 mn to 20,000 borrowers; the company had a growth rate of 430% in the last year and provides funds to borrowers in as little as two hours; article profiles Kissinger’s past work experience and more about Lendable. Source
UK based Zopa has warned investors that defaults on high risk loans are rising; Zopa increased originations to high risk borrowers in 2016 and introduced their Zopa Core and Zopa Plus Products; the company originally expected default rates for 2016 at 4.14 percent but have revised that number to 4.93 percent; they also raised their estimates for 2017 loans to these borrowers to be 4.86 percent from 4.52 percent. Source.
TransferMate provides B2B payments infrastructure as a service, enabling companies to send and receive cross-border payments faster, easier and at a lower cost.