News of CFPB Director Cordray’s departure could see regulations on payday lenders lessened; one of Director Corday’s main missions was to crack down on predatory lenders; Director Cordray plans to leave at the end of the months and no long term successor has been chosen yet. Source.
The $5.8 billion in receivables sold to Synchrony according to a TechCrunch article, “also includes Synchrony’s acquisition of $1 billion in participation interests in PayPal receivables held by certain investors and a chartered financial institution.”; the two companies have partnered since 2004 to offer PayPal users branded credit cards; Synchrony will now be the exclusive issuer of the PayPal Credit online consumer financing program. Source
The CEO and Co-Founder of Younited Credit talks banking, technology, Brexit, and his international expansion plans. Source
Glint is based in London and today revealed their product offering; it is a multi-currency account, app and card that lets users store money in gold; funds are converted back to fiat currency at the point of payment for those who choose to store their money in gold; the company is regulated by the FCA. Source
Intrinio CEO Rachel Carpenter said the mission of her company is to make raw data fields available; they recently partnered with Nasdaq to include their real-time data feeds within the marketplace; they offer over 150 different data APIs and have built the company to bring Warren Buffet’s investment ideas to life in software; individuals can access the data for $75 a month and companies pay a custom rate. Source.
The weekly WieyangX Fintech Review, as reported by Crowdfund Insider, covers recent fintech updates from China; the People’s Bank of China has made plans for a unified credit platform by end of 2017; Chinese fintech Rong360 had their subsidiary Jianpu Technology listed on the NYSE, becoming the sixth IPO recently; JD Finance, through their subsidiary Jing Dong Xu Hang Online Lending Information & Intermediary Service Ltd., is finally getting into the P2P Lending market. Source.
China’s central bank announced new regulations to curb risk in the asset management space; the new rules are an attempt to unify regulatory areas, prohibit asset managers from guaranteeing returns and have them set aside 10 percent for provisioning; “The central bank is trying to thread a very fine needle,” said Andrew Polk at Trivium China, a Beijing consultancy. Source.
UK based Digital Bank Monzo is planning a crowdfunding round to give customers a greater share of ownership; the round will look to raise between $13mn and $40mn; while they will use the round for hiring it is meant to provide customers “a genuine sense of ownership”; the crowdfunding round follows the recent $94mn private equity backed fundraising. Source.
PayPal is connecting with Acorns, an automated savings/investing platform; users will be able to contribute and manage their account from the PayPal app; the first users will get access today which will expand access to all US users by early 2018; PayPal previously has invested in Acorns, leading a $30 million round. Source