The short-term consumer lender has originated over €5bn ($5.8bn) since launching in 2008; the company has focused on markets in Europe and the Americas; the company’s mix of funding sources includes bond issuance and bank deposits from the acquisition of TBI Bank; Moody’s also recently upgraded their corporate rating from a B2 to a B3. Source.
The UK based online real estate platform raised a £7mn ($9.2mn) series A round led by Berlin Hyp; in addition to the capital infusion Berlin Hyp struck a strategic partnership with BrickVest; the deal will allow BrickVest to continue building their technology, growing their investor network and increase dealflow. Source.
Aviva purchased a majority stake in robo-advisor Wealthify only 18 months after their head of retirement solutions criticized automated advice; Wealthify will sit alongside other Aviva products and services through the insurer’s digital hub, MyAviva; the insurer sees this as another important step in their digital strategy. Source
AltFi takes an in-depth look at the oldest P2P lender Zopa and how they are positioning themselves for the future; recent partnerships with the Saffron Building Society and the coming PSD2 regulatory changes are key ingredients to the company’s future; Zopa also has plans to introduce a number of new products when it launches their bank in 2018. Source
In a recently recorded speech, Rhydian Lewis said that the company expects to be profitable in 2018; the p2p lender was previously profitable in financial years 2014 and 2015; the company is also celebrating its seventh birthday and has facilitated £2.1bn in loans, connecting 57,000 lenders with 388,000 borrowers. Source
LendInvest Co-Founder & CEO Christian Faes challenged the UK government to put more support behind small scale developers at the Conservative Party Conference; “There is a clear monopoly in the sector,” says Mr. Faes; to even the playing field LendInvest and others say more regulatory action can help to tip the scales in favor of property entrepreneurs. Source
The LendIt content team that created the agenda for our upcoming European event on October 9 & 10 share:
- The main trends that are happening in European fintech today.
- What is different and similar when it comes to fintech in Europe, USA and China.
- How LendIt Europe is going to work and what attendees can expect.
- The networking opportunities for attendees at LendIt Europe.
- How Brella, our 1-to-1 networking tool, works.
- Some of the highlighted sessions at the show.
- How attendees will be able to get the most out of their two days at LendIt Europe.
Starling Bank is launching a business account focused on entrepreneurs, sole-traders and small business owners; the account is free to set up and will like to a number of features including payments and their Marketplace product for accounting based services. Source.
After launching as savings product two years ago the app only bank is approaching £1bn ($1.3bn) in deposits; after disclosing in March they were at 17,000 customers and over £500mn ($663mn) they have seen a significant acceleration in growth; they also reported growth in small business loan applications and mortgages. Source.
The UK’s biggest robo-advisor has seen assets under management grow to over $798mn and customers exceed 25,000 at the end of 2016; however the company also reported a 5 percent increase in losses and a 10 percent increase in operating expenses; building up scale to eventually make money looks to be the biggest challenge for the growing fintech company. Source.