Consumer lenders who are repaid from borrower’s salaries have raised $232mn recently in the UK; Insurer Legal & General are set to announce a $53mn Investment into SalaryFinance for their US expansion; other market leaders in this segment include Neyber who recently raised $179mn in debt financing; the companies have built relationships with more than 50 groups in the UK and tying repayment to salaries helps to keep defaults extremely low. Source.
With U.K. credit card interest rates at new highs, campaigners want there to be more caps on the rates. The rates are the highest they’ve been in twenty years.
The updated guidance document makes an explicit reference to crypto assets, crypto exchange providers, and custodian wallet providers.
Only 98,192 account switches took place in Q2 2020, down 65 percent from Q1 when more than 280,000 switches took...
Almost 50 percent of UK adults used mobile banking in 2018 and 10 percent live an almost cash free life;...
According to a new study by Accenture 40 percent of consumers in the UK trusted banks, up from 29 percent...
Revolut will now offer its customers investment at property platform Bricklane; investors can invest in Bricklane tax efficient individual savings accounts for a minimum of 100 British pounds ($122); Bricklane investors receive rental income and capital appreciation from the properties they invest in. Source
In the midst of getting ready to launch in a few weeks the UK digital bank Tandem is now unable to launch with savings accounts; the bank was approved in 2015 for a banking license so long as they fulfilled a number of criteria including hiring a board, building out sufficient technology systems and raising enough capital to cover losses; the final point is where the bank was unable to comply, they fell short of raising enough capital and now are forced to launch without the savings feature; Tandem was expecting 29 million British pounds ($36.1 million) from House of Fraser, the UK department store chain that was bought by China's Sanpower Group, but Sanpower was worried about capital restrictions coming out of China so they pulled the funding. Source
UK Digital Bank Kroo is delighted to announce they have been granted their full banking licence by the Bank of England. Kroo is only one of 2 banks to have been granted a banking licence with a personal current account since August 2016.
The startup will open up their new bank to 10,000 "co-founders" to begin using their banking services with hopes of a public release in 2017; the bank is looking to help people manage their money and not bombard them with product sales; founder and deputy CEO, Ricky Knox, says this is its "first step" and that it plans to "grow into a full-service bank" in 2017. Source