Cross River Bank is leveraging its fintech customers to grow its payment transaction services; the firm has digital lending partnerships with 17 companies and is the issuing lender for some of the industry's top marketplace platforms; the firm's business relationships have helped to expand its payments system customers with many of its customers naturally migrating to Cross River Bank's payments system; the firm's CEO Gilles Gades says its payments activity could double next year with help from existing relationships with Stripe and Google Wallet providing access to Mastercard Send; in payments, Cross River currently manages approximately 2 million transactions per month and it sees a substantial opportunity for gaining more market share; industry participants are also watching Cross River Bank's plans for developing a newly branded bank called Almond Bank, which it has recently been investing in. Source
Rohit Arora of Biz2Credit outlines three fintech trends affecting small business lending; highlights artificial intelligence, convergence in marketplace lending and bank partnerships and financial inclusion initiatives for underserved banking consumers; Arora also says market conditions are positive for small business lenders with new job creation measures and technological advances broadly across the financial industry. Source
Data from Financial Technology Partners reports $36 billion in fintech financing in 2016; the funding was provided by over 1,700 investors through approximately 1,500 deals; banking and lending companies represented 29% of deals while the payments, loyalty and ecommerce category obtained 38% of the total funding. Source
AltFi highlights four main factors influencing alternative finance in 2017; UK regulatory developments continue to influence the market with new authorizations from the Financial Conduct Authority and ongoing consultation on the crowdfunding market; the small business lending referral scheme began in November with high expectations for increasing alternative lending originations; the launch of Marcus by Goldman Sachs is expected to affect competition and potentially set a precedent for online lending platforms lending from deposit capital; the Article 50 clause, which begins the process for the UK leaving the European Union, is still open for debate with the final action occurring in March; the March results will significantly influence the economic environment in 2017. Source
CreditEase was China's first P2P lender, founded in 2006; since its founding the firm has been expanding its services to wealth management and robo advice; Ning Tang, CreditEase founder and CEO, provides his insight on the business and the online lending industry in an interview; highlights how the company plans to expand its business lines through partnerships while also managing regulatory controls. Source
UK-based mobile banking app Monese raised $10 million in funding from Anthemis Exponential Ventures, Korea Investment Partners and STE Capital; funds will be used to expand into continental Europe and to offer new credit and direct debit services; since launching in 2015 the company has signed up 40,000 customers from 179 countries who have made 1.8 million transactions; total dollars transacted is over $180 million. Source
Fraud protection is a leading factor for consumers and MasterCard has recognized this demand; it has recently introduced a Decision Intelligence security platform that utilizes artificial intelligence technology; the technology uses a scoring system that seeks to reduce fraudulent charges and falsely declined transactions; the Decision Intelligence platform is one of many services the firm is using to help increase card usage and retain large client relationships. Source
Data from Financial Technology Partners reports over 1,500 funding deals from over 1,700 investors in 2016; these deals accounted for $36 billion in fintech financing; data by fintech category can be seen in the chart below with banking and lending companies accounting for 29% of the year's total deals; payments, loyalty and ecommerce accounted for 22%; securities, capital markets and wealth management also reported substantial interest from investors with 19% of the deals funded. Source
Wells Fargo has hired Peggy Mangot for a newly created position in its innovation group; Mangot will join the bank as senior vice president of the design and delivery leadership team; the innovation group at Wells Fargo was developed to focus on innovation in business models, processes and programs and user experience; Mangot previously worked as chief executive officer of a microinvesting startup platform and also brings experience from Visa and Google. Source