Conversational AI provider Clinc has launched a new self service platform for banks called Spotlight; Spotlight will help financial institutions train and deploy conversational AI at their firms; the platform is available in more than 80 languages and can be integrated into contact centers, mobile apps, Alexa, Google and Facebook Messenger; they are already working with USAA and Isbank in Turkey. Source.
Banks have started to utilize new technology like AI as a tool to help build efficiency into their processes; one issue that has arisen is regulators questioning whether or not the bank is missing suspicious activity when using new technology; Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, thinks if the technology is better explained to regulators it could help solve this issue; AI driven providers like ThetaRay, ZestFinance, Merlon Intelligence, QuantVerse and Attivio all have products that can help bring down time spent on malicious activity and better identify issues. Source.
Leaders at the Federal Reserve, the OCC and the CFPB spoke at the Consumer Bankers Association annual conference about the need to be more flexible when applying oversight to bank & fintech partnerships; “We need to do a better job of educating our supervision staff, in some cases, in terms of interpretation of the guidance,” said Dan Quan, who leads the CFPB’s Project Catalyst, as reported by American Banker; they also talked about better coordination to ensure consistency in oversight. Source.
One of the co-founders of Funding Circle USA is stepping down and will become Chairman. Source
From the beginning of 2017 Ant’s consumer lending business has doubled; this is a result of growth in their Huabei and Jiebei business units; Chinese regulators have recently made it harder for companies like Ant to create ABS; according to data from Bloomberg, Ant Financial’s ABS Sales account for a third of issuance by all Chinese corporate issuers. Source
- RateSetter celebrates 5,000 ISA account openings in first month
- Future Finance Closes €40M Funding Round
- Square Seeks BitLicense to Bring Bitcoin Buying to NY
- Fundbox wants to be PayPal for Small Businesses
- Binance Unveils Blockchain for New Crypto Exchange
- PayU, Kreditech launch instant cardless EMI with PayU Monedo in India
Lend Academy digs in to the complex topic of valuation with this Q&A piece conducted with Houlihan Lokey. Source
UK based Tandem Bank has acquired financial management app Pariti; the app has more than 95,000 users that will now be transferred to Tandem Bank; Pariti users will still be able to access their accounts through the Tandem app. Source.
Speaking at EthCC, an Ethereum conference in Paris, JPMorgan’s Amber Baldet talked about the concerns of private and public blockchain builders; “These problems really aren't so far apart, it's just that people are trying to solve the problems in different ways,” says Baldet as reported by CoinDesk; she doesn’t think public and private blockchain need to be so different, what everyone wants is the ability to interoperate; CoinDesk went on to interview Amber about building connectivity, feedback loops and more. Source.
Beginning in June ads promoting cryptocurrencies and ICOs will be banned on Google; this follows a recent ban from Facebook; both companies have a large share of internet ads and combined collected 60% of online ad spend in 2017; many cryptocurrencies fell on the news. Source