On June 16, 2022, Circle Internet Financial Ltd announced the launch of its fully reserved euro-backed stablecoin.
HSBC has shared insight from the development of its HSBC SmartSave app which it developed within the Financial Conduct Authority's Regulatory Sandbox initiative in partnership with Pariti; the app provides personal finance management services using algorithms and four customer plans; overall the app has proved successful, saving customers 63.17 British pounds ($78.80) per month; of the four service plans HSBC reported "Rounding Up" to be the most popular, allowing customers to round up purchases to save spare change on transactions. Source
Funding Circle has announced changes to its borrowing rates for small business loans as of November 7; rates will be lower for higher credit quality borrowers and higher for the lower credit quality loans; says with the new rates, investors can expect an average annual return of 7%. Source
Giles Andrews launched Zopa, the industry's first peer-to-peer lending platform, in 2005; he has now taken on a new role as the chairman of MarketInvoice; MarketInvoice provides P2P financing for small business invoices giving them an alternative source for working capital; Giles Andrews will help the firm scale its business and reach its 2017 goal of 2 billion British pounds ($2.48 billion) in lending. Source
Stockholm, Sweden has announced it will be opening a fintech hub; leading developers of the Stockholm Fintech Hub include Matthew Argent of BLC Advisors, KPMG, NFT Ventures and Invest Stockholm; the Stockholm Fintech Hub is currently seeking partners and will be led by a steering committee including the Fintech Hub's developers; motivation from the developers for a fintech hub was driven by an ecosystem of fintech startups and high growth companies in the country; according to lead developer, Matthew Argent, the Stockholm Fintech Hub will seek to maintain standards and evolve the support ecosystem that provides resources for fintech companies. Source
In an interview with AltFi, Mambu CEO Eugene Danilkis explained he thinks the UK is the fintech hub of Europe; the digital banking platform sees this as the case partly because the UK government has done a great deal on bring more competition into the banking system; with the government support you have seen dozens of banking applications submitted and new entrants like Starling Bank, Atom and OakNorth have success; Mambu provides software to incumbents and startups, telling AltFi, “Incumbents will have to think like fintechs in order to develop channels of servicing clients quickly, seamlessly and creatively.” Source.
In their recently completed review, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was particularly worried about some platforms using customer money to buy loans from rival platforms; FCA CEO Andrew Bailey explained that platforms don't have enough loans to present so in turn they use investor money to buy up loans from a rival platform; this is worrisome as investors are not being told the correct risks; Mr. Bailey did not disclose any platforms by name and said the issue was not widespread but worth keeping an eye on. Source
A comprehensive 380-page document was released that explained the policy and future legislation.
The London-based startup that focuses on millennials raised 450,000 British pounds in seed funding from Passion Capital, with participation from Jason Butler; the funds will be used to build out the team and continue product development on Finimize MyLife; the company's Finimize MyLife product is a free online financial advice platform for millennials that provides anyone with a detailed and personalized financial plan guided by research and algorithms. Source
The Ranger Direct Lending Fund has reported plans for share issuance totaling 200 million British pounds through 2017; the Fund currently has a 40 million British pound issuance planned for December; it also raised 30 million British pounds in July and 23.2 million British pounds in November of 2016; according to a statement from Ranger Direct Lending, "The company believes that debt instruments originated or issued by direct lending platforms are an attractive and growing asset class that have the potential to provide higher returns for investors than other, more widely available, fixed income products."; growth from the asset class and potential returns are factors driving the new issuances. Source