The student focused digital bank, BankMobile, has created an online magazine entitled Paradigm Money; the effort is an attempt by the bank to build brand awareness and help current customers manage their money; the site has news, opinion, interviews and advice for customers; Ash Exantus, BankMobile’s director of financial education, tells TearSheet “We wanted to create a site that was independent from the bank that’s not promoting our products or services, but as a place other people can go for financial news and financial literacy.” Source.
In an interview with the Financial Times Revolut’s CEO Nikolay Storonsky talks about the firm’s successes and how he has built the company; they have raised more than $80mn in capital and are currently valued at more than $415mn; the company has gained a reputation for working long hours and having high demands from Mr. Storonsky; the hard charging CEO believes his style has helped the company grow to where it is today, more than 600,000 users and considered one of the hottest fintech companies sin market today; they interview also covers his time as a trader, his upbringing and who he learns from in business today. Source.
BlackRock, the world’s largest investment group, is setting up an AI research lab; the move is part of a wider industry trend by asset managers to use AI and machine learning for investments; the lab is meant to help their current teams and clients better understand how best to utilize the new technologies; “Big data offers a world of possibilities for generating alpha [market beating returns] but traditional techniques are not good enough to analyse the huge volumes of information involved,” said David Wright, head of product strategy in Europe for BlackRock’s scientific active equity division, to the FT. Source.
Silicon Valley startup accelerator 500 Startups partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Huobi to incubate blockchain projects; Edith Yeung, a partner at 500 Startups, said to CoinDesk, in partnering with Huobi Labs, "Our teams will learn so much especially around the ins and outs of how a digital exchange works."; the companies will help startups to develop business plans, create and refine marketing strategies, fundraise and develop white papers. Source.
Danny Masters ran JPMorgan’s commodities trading business in the 1990s; he is a strong believer in ICOs as a better mousetrap compared to IPOs stating, “I’ve raised for companies — angel, friends and family, series A, series B stuff — and it's a real pain in the arse. It's slow, it's time-consuming, it's duplicative. It's a really heavy duty process. I know some great companies who've raised £5 million, £10 million and they've spent thousands of man hours doing it.”; he also notes that there is a lack of quality ICOs and they have funded only a dozen; Masters setup a fund called Global Advisors which pivoted to crypto in 2014. Source
According to new data from the Federal Reserve mobile payments have seen a big growth among consumers but fraud has also risen; the shorter clearing period looks to have opened banks on the Zelle network to more potential for fraudulent transactions; Zelle has been using multi-layer and multi-factor authentication during the enrollment process; as banks look to innovate to suit their customer needs they are also looking at newer ways to protect themselves against threats that are evolving just as quick. Source.
The investment will be deployed over three years and allow the bank to compete with other digital banks and fintechs; it marks an increase of 40% from Lloyd’s previous three-year expansion plan; Lloyds also hopes the investment will help cut costs. Source
LendingClub grew revenue and announced settlements in two class action lawsuits. Source
Anyfin is based in Sweden and allows users to refinance existing loans using a photo of a loan statement; the round was co-led by Accel and Northzone and included Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital along with other angel investors; Anyfin is currently only available in Sweden but they have ambitions to expand further into Europe. Source