RateSetter saw pre tax losses jump to $31mn from $7.1mn due to a bad loan to an advertising company; RateSetter also saw revenues jump by 38 percent as well as increases in customers and borrowers; the bad loan was absorbed by the lender as they explained it fell outside their credit policy and it was unfair to put the losses on their investors. Source.
Deposit Marketplace Raisin has seen their investor count top 100,000, bank partners top 40 and deposits cross $4.5bn; the bank partners are in 18 different european countries and customers hail from 32 different countries; with interest rates so low their deposit marketplace offers savers a significant boost in interest and they have seen customers earn more than $41mn in excess interest thus far. Source.
Bittrex customers are unable to withdraw money from the cryptocurrency exchange and they have not heard from the company as to why this is occurring; the main issues appear to be involving verification of identities when they try to withdraw the money; the issues have been going on for close to 30 days for some customers and the company said the issue has only affected a small number of accounts. Source.
Coinbase has been the top cryptocurrency exchange for the US market as it’s process makes signing up and buying bitcoin simple; they have seen accounts jump from 5.5 million to more than 13 million in less than a year; their success has not been without growing pains with a number of outages occurring and customers lodging complaints that no one was available to help them; recently they also came to an agreement with the IRS to hand over records of customers involving more than $20,000 which was a compromise from a year long battle. Source.
The Futures Industry Association, the main futures industry group, is sending a letter to the CFTC expressing concerns over bitcoin futures; the FT saw a draft of the letter and it states that they did not allow for proper public transparency and input; futures brokers are concerned over holding more risk and have expressed concerns to the FT that they will not immediately clear the products. Source.
According to Christopher Ward, head of product management for PNC’s treasury management division, “We’re ready, we’re in process of implementing APIs with customers. I would proffer most customers are not ready for it.”; Bank of America also stated they are ready for open banking; however many banks aren’t as prepared and being ‘ready’ for open banking is up to interpretation; the article from Tearsheet shares other perspectives on open banking and how some banks might be missing the point of open banking. Source
The P2PFA has announced changes to the standards for its members which will be put in place next April; the new rules, according to Christine Farnish, Independent Chair of the P2PFA are “…built around the principles of transparency, integrity, honesty and competence.” Source
The San Francisco based online marketplace for consumer loans has gone public down under in the biggest tech IPO of the year on the Australian Exchange. Source
- Meet Tim Russi, President of Auto Finance at Ally Financial
- London fintech business WorldRemit valued at close to £500 million as it raises $40 million
- Funding Circle passes $5 billion lent globally, including $1 billion lent to US businesses
- KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Consumer Loan Underlying Bond (CLUB) Credit Trust 2017-NP2
Billie is an invoice finance platform that launched earlier this year; the round was led by Creandum with participation from existing investors Speedinvest and Global Founders Capital; the company focuses on complete automation with no human interaction; It was co-founded by Matthias Knecht and Christian Grobe; Billie also secured a refinancing facility from a major German bank.