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UK debt crowdfunding platform Property Crowd has announced the launch of its innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA); the minimum investment for the IFISA is 5,000 British pounds ($6,220) and the account will target returns of 7% to 10%; Property Crowd will compete for investment across the alternative debt market however its offerings vary slightly from traditional P2P lenders since the firm's debt products include structured real estate bonds. Source
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has granted full authorization to Proplend; the FCA continues to review authorization applications, primarily focusing on secured lending platforms; Proplend is a secured commercial real estate property P2P lender offering three tranches for investors; returns on the platform range from 5% to 12% with loans of 250,000 British pounds ($307,718) to 5,000,000 British pounds ($6,154,350); the platform has funded 11.5 million British pounds ($14.16 million) of loans since inception with zero defaults; it has plans to offer clients an innovative finance individual savings account however it will likely not be available until 2018. Source
On Tuesday, the b2b2 SaaS provider Provenir introduced Provenir AI, a no-code AI credit risk underwriting platform.
Peter Ryan of the software provider Temenos believes PSD2 has the potential to offer banks the personal touch they have lost; allowing consumers to share their data via APIs can allow banks to learn more about their customers and offer tailored products; while some banks have been proactive there is a fair share of the market who fear open banking; better understanding of the potential in PSD2 will help banks embrace what’s ahead. Source.
According to a report by Which almost 92 percent of consumers have not heard of open banking; slow adoption by banks is one reason for the low numbers; another reason is many people have started to use non bank services for payments or other tasks, the term open banking is still relatively new; banks are starting to innovate, by building or partnering, and open banking will only help to push innovation forward. Source.
PwC is out with new research saying alternative asset volumes will double by 2025; alternatives will make up about 15 percent of global assets under management by 2025 because investors are looking for diversification and reduced volatility; Rob Mellor, PwC asset management partner, tells AltFi, “We have seen the rise of the multi-strategy alternative manager and an increasing trend for traditional active managers looking to add alternative strategies to their product range.” Source.
A recent Bank of England survey claims that British banks can expect consumer borrowing to evaporate in the first quarter...
Qonto is a french startup building a modern business banking solution, aiming to become "The banking alternative for entrepreneurs and startups" according to its website; the company raised $1.7 million from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures and Alven Capital; Valar Ventures has also invested in digital bank N26 and TransferWise; Qonto wants to provide a wide variety of services including allowing receipt uploads to make filing taxes easier; they plan to integrate with other fintech products to transfer money and manage payments; launch is currently slated for April. Source
The Quadrata launched their first major product, a low code Web3 passport for defi KYC, after forming eight months ago in Aug. 2021.