The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has set up an asset management startup hub to help companies as they move between pre-authorization and authorization; the hub will help new entrants to better understand regulations, increase engagement and help to increase the quality of companies. Source.
HSBC is looking to test the new app to help in preparation for the coming open banking regulations; the app will allow customers to look at all their accounts including loans from 21 different banks; Becky Moffat, head of personal banking and advice at HSBC, tells Banking Technology “Through our Beta app we want to give our customers a complete and joined-up view of their financial life.” Source.
Acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika confirmed that the fintech charter was open to commercial firms like Walmart & Google; this is a departure from former OCC head Thomas Curry who said the charter was designed for companies primarily involved in financial services; Mr. Noreika talked through this issue and others wile speaking at a fintech conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Source.
Trustly shares how how loan companies can best differentiate themselves from others and details their partnership with Lendify. Source
According to Peer2Peer Finance News, "The inaugural Peer2Peer Finance News Power 50 list aims to identify the big names in the industry who have helped it grow into a force to contend with over the past decade and who will play a key role in its future."; rounding out the top 10 include executives from RateSetter, Zopa, Funding Circle as well as Christine Farnish from the P2PFA, Bruce Davis, co-founder of Abundance, Mark Carney, governor, Bank of England and Andrew Bailey, chief executive, Financial Conduct Authority. Source
Zopa's Chief Product Office Andrew Lawson told investors last week they launched a new credit risk scorecard; the scorecard is meant to better help the platform assess borrowers and what is behind their approval/denial; Zopa has seen higher than expected losses and has also cut down on lending to higher risk customers; Lawson explained how the new model will use traditional credit methodology mixed with data science. Source.
Zopa launched a pilot with provide Uber drivers with low credit scores car loans; however the partnership didn’t attract the amount of customers it had hoped; Zopa stated in the FT article, “The pilot was interesting, but demonstrated that the potential opportunity was limited for us, and we had other priorities.”; Bryan Zhang, co-founder of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance discusses one of the problems in the industry today, attracting borrowers . Source
The CBRC issued a warning that the surge in consumer loans could pose a risk to the country's lending system; they noted that lenders should not try to push up the consumer leverage ratio and they should take lessons from the US subprime mortgage crisis; recent reviews of loan books show misuse of loans for housing down payments and banks need to stay closer to lending regulations. Source.
Trading cryptocurrencies has shown itself to be quite a lucrative business, at the same time the exchanges where trading occurs underscores how risky trading might be; exchanges can lack basics controls on know your customer (KYC), fraud prevention and more; there have also been a number of significant thefts or hacks where millions were lost; while the risk is real it has now slowed the market's growth as total value of all digital currencies has soared to over $140bn. Source.