Lightning Labs announced it had raised $2.5 million and at the same time released a beta version of their technology; one of the criticisms of bitcoin is that it can handle a limited number of transactions per second; some believe that bitcoin should increase its block size to process more transactions; Lightning Labs is working on the Lightning Network to add another layer of transactions to sit on top of the blockchain network which would allow for more transactions to take place. Source
Small business lender Fundbox believes their new credit and payment product will help to solve the cash flow issue at small businesses; “We want to do for [small-business] B-to-B commerce what the entire credit card infrastructure has done for B-to-C commerce,” said Prashant Fuloria, chief operating officer of Fundbox, to American Banker; one of the biggest reasons for some of these issues is there is no credit scoring equivalent for small businesses; Fundbox Pay allows businesses to get paid immediately and gives those invoiced 60 days to pay at no charge, allowing businesses to handle the seasonal cash flow issues without too much pain. Source.
Monzo has added the first batch of partnerships to their marketplace by striking deals with digital wealth investment accounts and online lenders; companies include Scalable Capital, Wealthify, Wealthsimple, WiseAlpha, Zopa, Bricklane.com and Octopus Choice; Monzo will not be making a commission from any of these agreements; the company has also opened up an interim third-party API to comply with open banking regulations. Source.
- How Citizens Bank is reaching millennials
- Bank Fintech Partnership More Than Just a Good Idea
- Developing The Application of Anti-fraud Technology to Enhance Financial Risk Management
- Merchant Advance Capital Closes $30 Million Debt Facility
- ETHLend creates the first Fully Gamified and Decentralized Credit Profile
The patent shares how a platform could be built on the blockchain which could generate credit ratings based on a borrower’s behavior; the system would also leverage more data sources than current credit rating systems and provide more transparency to borrowers on how scores are calculated. Source
The bonds have a minimum investment of £2,000 and offer investors a 5.37% return per year until 2023; the offer will close at or before 12 pm on March 29th; Christian Faes, co-founder of LendInvest stated, “We are delighted to be coming back to the market so soon after the successful issue of our first oversubscribed bond in August 2017.” Source
A Medium post outlines some of the most interesting players in real estate tech, also known as PropTech across the globe; Opendoor, PeerStreet, RealtyShares are just a few of the names making the list which covered companies in many different niches. Source
The Co-founder and Head of Business Development at SALT Lending introduces us to the world of asset-backed cryptocurrency lending. Source
UK based Funding Circle recently signaled they were looking to go public this year and now investors are wondering is this the start of a UK fintech IPO trend; rumors have swirled around Zopa, LendInvest, Monzo and others, but thus far not many have gone forward with a listing; there is concerns over the ability of the businesses to make a profit and have lessons been learned from U.S. fintech IPOs; while there has been a few small listing thus far time will tell whether or not the big fintech firms will make the leap. Source.
The Senate passed a banking bill meant to roll back some of the financial regulations imposed after the crisis, but its fate is uncertain in the House; Republicans in the House want a further rollback of regulations; the bill is intended to help smaller banks avoid burdensome federal oversight and raises the definition of systemically important to $250bn from $50bn; the bill also makes adjustments to parts of the Volcker Rule and eases mortgage rules for smaller lenders. Source.