Business Insider reports on the UK Treasury's first International Fintech event; the UK's Chancellor Hammond is scheduled to speak about growing and strengthening fintech amid the challenges presented by Brexit; the CEOs of Funding Circle and TransferWise will also be speaking at the event. Source
Innovate Finance is planning to move from Canary Wharf to a new location in the Square Mile; the industry body also plans to provide space for startups; Mark Boleat, the City of London's policy chairman, also noted they plan to bring broader and faster wireless coverage in order to attract small businesses stating that the Square Mile was a "natural place for fintech to coalesce." Source
The Financial Conduct Authority's Director of Strategy and Competition Christopher Woolard has reported some concerns over fintech regulations globally; in a speech at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London, Woolard specifically discusses fintech sandboxes noting concerns about establishing them before any government regulatory standards are in place and suggesting that countries institute some guidance before introducing sandbox initiatives; the UK has been a leader in sandbox innovation and the country plans to publish a full report in May on its first sandbox initiative. Source
As a fund with access to 355 venture capital funds the European Investment Fund (EIF) was able to analyze European venture capital activity from 1996 to 2015 in their new report; the report points out that new funds performed almost as well as seasoned funds in selecting winners when economic times were good; on the contrary when economic times are not as fruitful the skilled venture capitalists were better at picking companies and avoiding big losses; the big takeaway from the report is that the real skill involves avoiding the big disaster investment in tough economic times. Source
UK online lender Funding Circle has announced it will be slowing its property lending with plans to fully end the product by mid 2018; the firm is primarily focused on SME lending and says the refocused strategy will help it to increase SME lending and shift its resources for international expansion; property loans have previously only been available to UK borrowers and the product has accounted for approximately 5% of the company's revenue. Source
Innovate Finance and the Financial Conduct Authority have published a preview report on the UK Fintech Sandbox with a full report planned for May 2017; the preview report provides insight on the benefits of fintech sandboxes and how they can promote innovation while also helping to facilitate regulation. Source
Consumer online lender 4finance has announced it will be using FICO TONBELLER Cloud Solution to monitor for anti-money laundering; the new solution will help the firm comply with the 4th EU Anti Money Laundering directive; 4finance is a European online consumer lender operating in 17 countries with total loans of over EUR4 billion ($4.24 billion) since its founding in 2008. Source
Fleximize is a SME revenue-based finance provider; offers financing from GBP250,000 ($310,000) unsecured and GBP500,000 secured ($621,000); funds from the facility will be used to increase lending capacity; anticipates GBP100 million ($124 million) in funding by 2019; lending in 2016 was GBP40 million ($49 million), up 132% from 2015; company also plans to expand their product set and tech platform. Source
Crowdlending platform Lend raised CHF3.5 million ($3.47 million) from Polytech Ecosystem Ventures and other angel investors; the round will help the platform to continue building out their brand, upgrading their automation and increasing their marketing spend for Switzerland; Lend launched in January of 2016 and has thus far funded 300 loans; in addition to the funding Lend was also able to secure two new team members, Dr. Stefan Jaecklin, former head of Oliver Wyman Switzerland, and Dr. Luzius Anderegg, senior software developer at software company Ergon Informatik. Source
Zopa was the industry's first peer-to-peer lending platform, launching in the UK in 2005; Lend Academy talks with Jaidev Janardana from Zopa about his role as CEO over the past 18 months and how the business is changing with the firm's new banking initiative; Zopa will be taking advantage of some unique market opportunities with its banking services; the firm will not be offering current accounts but plans to integrate open banking to provide its clients more offerings beyond borrowing and lending. Source