Prime Minister Modi's plan to demonetize has put a lot of strain on much of Indian society, now the ICICI Bank is looking to ease that burden by helping to make 100 villages cashless in 100 days; the plan was born out of a successful program that made one village cashless in 2015; the 100 villages will be spread throughout the country and will help 10,000 people overall; local people will be able to use their mobile phones to transact with merchants and banks. Source
A new fintech startup called Soldo aims to initially target families that may want to distribute money to children, split household bills or give a domestic worker an expense allowance; firm has larger vision in launching to businesses; company is not a bank but holds an electronic money license and is regulated by the FCA; Soldo has already partnered with Mastercard and aims to solve the problem of single user wallets and debit cards. Source
Rocket Internet has reached the investment cap of $1 billion on its Rocket Internet Capital Partners fund; fund will invest in early stage and growth startups including fintech and marketplace lending companies; received the majority of its investment from institutions. Source
Lending Club has closed five of its investment funds under LC Advisors; the loans have been sold off to various buyers and the company has rebranded its investment management business to LendingClub Asset Management. Source
American Banker shares a slideshow of the various moves banks have made in consumer lending this year; some banks featured include Barclays, PNC, Capital One and TCF. Source
The blockchain startup has now raised a total of $110mn after taking in $40mn in a series B round; Jefferson River Capital led the funding round, which also included new and previous investors; in addition to the fundraising they hired Clyde Rodriguez, a former Microsoft executive, as chief information officer and chief technology officer for engineering. Source.
Formed in 2016, the Golden Contract Coalition was designed to help small banks negotiate better with core banking providers; the mission has now expanded to include a FinTech Advantage unit dedicated to helping the banks by financial technology; the member banks of the coalition pay a fee for the group to provide more negotiating muscle; Fiserv, FIS and Jack Henry are the major core providers for banks and the group is there to help smaller banks even the playing field. Source.
