Funding Circle’s SME Income Fund has closed a funding deal with Citibank; according to the AltFi, “Under the terms of the agreement Citibank London will provide £50m of funding into the transaction, by entering into a senior, floating rate loan. The fund will contribute a portfolio of existing UK small business loans at par, and in return shall receive ?the approximately £50m of cash to be deployed in accordance with its investment policy, and junior notes.” Source
Banking alternative Revolut is launching international medical and dental insurance for £1 a day; the company is using your phone’s location to automatically turn insurance on and off; there is a limit to the service if you are one to travel for months at a time but you can pay up front for the service annually; the company partners with Thomas Cook Money for their insurance product. Source.
Curve lets customers consolidate their credit cards into one Curve card; Curve was previously in beta and available to business users only; the fintech company stated that they have 50,000 people on the waitlist and had 100,000 beta users; Curve offers a free version of the app and a premium version for £50. Source
UK based challenger bank Monzo announced what their plans are for 2018; three specific areas they wanted to highlight were launching a feature to help customers manage bills, ending their prepare program and helping customers to switch to their payments platform; as the company continues to build out new features they said they plan to keep updating clients on a month by month basis. Source.
Open Banking, seen as a potential game changing regulatory change, is set to launch in the next few days in the UK; Open Banking requires banks to allow fintechs and other third parties to have access to customer data if the consumer agrees to grant access; the new law will allow for a safer data exchange, in the past consumers shared their login details and third parties scraped the data, and standardize access across the UK and Europe; while banks have pushed back on the coming change this will allow customers to better control their information and tailor services to their lifestyles. Source.
BNP Paribas Asset Management was able to complete a fund distribution test using blockchain technology; the test used BNP Paribas Securities Services’ blockchain programme, Fund Link and FundsDLT; as AltFi reports the test was able to show Fund Link connecting to other blockchains and the transaction completed each part of the fund trade process, from order delivery to trade processing; this continues a trend from BNP Paribas Asset Management as they have also launched a specialist fund for fintech investment and began updating their legacy technology. Source.
Marqeta has hired its first employee in London as it aims for a 2018 European launch; the firm provides payment card technology and works with other fintech firms such as Square and Kabbage; they have raised a total of $76 million, which includes a recent $25 million investment which was led by Visa; CEO Jason Gardner stated in a Business Insider interview, “The use-cases we see here in the US and Canada are very similar to the use-cases we see in Europe. Since our inception [we] have always seen ourselves as a global issuer-processor and Europe is obviously an enormous market.” Source
TransferWise is privately launching a borderless account and debit card; the move is beginning to draw comparisons to other fintech companies like Revolut; the account will be rolled out in a small launch then a full launch thereafter; the account will give you access to local bank details for the UK, US, Australia and Europe, as well as allowing you to hold and convert 28 currencies; the move is not seen as replacing the current account but is instead a partner account; the account would allow people working in different countries to convert to their local currency without the hassle of additional fees or having to join a local bank. Source.
UK based fintech firms helped push technology investment in the UK to all time highs in 2017; fintech firms accounted for almost half of the £3bn invested; leading fintech firms TransferWise, Funding Circle and Monzo helped push the investment number as they all raised significant rounds; Eileen Burbidge, Partner at Passion Capital, tells AltFi, “"It's a testament to our exceptional entrepreneurs that the UK tech sector continues to produce companies that are leading in the development of cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and fintech.” Source.
According to research from the Financial Conduct Authority, two-thirds of outstanding lending as of November 2016 was to consumers with credit scores in the top 30%; this shows little difference from two years prior as unsecured consumer lending grew at double-digit rates in 2016 and 2017; however data showed that borrowers are staying in debt longer. Source