The UK's Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) is actively involved in industry research and is currently doing three alternative finance surveys; much of the research is in conjunction with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), providing insight for its crowdfunding consultation period; CCAF is surveying crowdfunding investors and crowdfunding borrowers; CCAF has also announced it will now be doing a survey on blockchain and cryptocurrencies; as part of the FCA's regulatory study, CCAF is working with 25 crowdfunding and P2P lending platforms in the UK to gain greater insight into the crowdfunding ecosystem. Source
Qonto is a french startup building a modern business banking solution, aiming to become "The banking alternative for entrepreneurs and startups" according to its website; the company raised $1.7 million from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures and Alven Capital; Valar Ventures has also invested in digital bank N26 and TransferWise; Qonto wants to provide a wide variety of services including allowing receipt uploads to make filing taxes easier; they plan to integrate with other fintech products to transfer money and manage payments; launch is currently slated for April. Source
Landbay has received its individual savings account approval from HM Revenue and Customs; follows the firm's full Financial Conduct Authority authorization in December; plans to launch its innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA) in February; the IFISA will allow tax-efficient investing in the firm’s residential property loans. Source
The bank has seen behavior in the unsecured personal loan market getting out of control; lenders are trying to battle each other to offer cheaper loans in an uncertain time; Paul Lynam, chief executive of Secure Trust, said, "The competition becomes excessive; lenders tend to continue to fight for market share, which means lower pricing."; this is not the first time Secure Trust has pulled back on unsecured consumer loans; in 2006 they ceased originations only to come back in 2009. Source
P2PGI will be increasing its allocation to asset-backed loans in its investment trust; the firm will primarily focus on secured real estate loans however it will also be increasing its allocation to invoice credit lending and other secured lending investments; the increased focus on secured loans follows a previous announcement on targeting UK originated loans. Source
Nutmeg will offer clients five portfolio options with automated rebalancing to client risk profiles; platform is also updating its fees to a two tiered fee structure; new fees are 75 bps on the first 100,000 British pounds ($120,310) and 35 bps on anything above that; the individual investment strategies also include fees ranging from 13 to 22 bps; the changes follow private market capital investment of 42 million British pounds ($50.53 million) in 2016. Source
Government-owned British Business Bank has added challenger bank OakNorth to its Help to Grow program; allows the company to receive loan funding of up to 2 million British pounds ($2.43 million); OakNorth is the first challenger bank to join the Help to Grow program; the funding follows a recent announcement of three new executive hires for OakNorth to support anticipated lending of 500 million British pounds ($608.39 million) in 2017. Source
Marketplace lending platform Flender has reached its investment goal on Seedrs; firm has received investment of 500,000 British pounds ($608,680); the firm's crowdfunding campaign will close on January 17 and it plans to launch in the first quarter of 2017; the platform will provide innovative business credit services that facilitate lending through a borrower's social network. Source
Italian invoice trading platform Workinvoice has packaged 5 million euros ($5.31 million) worth of receivables financed through its platform in a securitization vehicle; the receivables portfolio was purchased by Italian portfolio manager Factor@Work; the securitization deal represents a new source of capital interest for the invoice receivables market. Source
ClearBank has received its license for digital banking services in the UK; firm is run by Nick Ogden who also has payment services experience with WorldPay and CashFlows; the UK currently leads the challenger bank market with approximately 42 digital only banks. Source