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.
Orange is a large French telecom company and recently announced plans to launch their own bank; the company is hoping to capitalize on the movement to online banking and is the first telecom company to launch a bank; they are targeting 2 million clients in ten years which would represent 25% of the online banking market; 25,000 of their current customers have expressed interest in the new offering (out of its 21 million mobile clients). Source
Financial Times highlights TransferWise and Funding Circle who are growing their market share in the UK; Transferwise has collected $280 million from investors and Funding Circle has surpassed high-street banks in net new lending; Funding Circle lent £114 million in the three months to September; Samir Desai, co-founder and chief executive of Funding Circle stated, "If I was a big bank, I would be really worried about this..." Source
A new report from Numis entitled The State of AI in 2017 explains the potential AI and machine learning for wealth managers; as AltFi reports, “AI enables asset managers to deliver to the mass affluent a degree of personalisation and service quality previously reserved for high net worth clients.”; the technology can also help to improve quality, decrease cost and help to make most of the asset management industry into robo advisors. Source.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lend Academy interviews the CEO of BBVA’s new SME online lending initiative called Trustu; Vinacua discusses their innovation centers, how they interact with startups, why they decided to launch a platform, the social underwriting component of the underwriting and more. Source