Artificial intelligence firm Cleo has raised 550,000 British pounds ($626,300) from angel investors; investors included Niklas Zennström, Jason Goodman, Alex Chesterman, Siraj Khaliq, Errol Damelin, Simon Franks, Wendy White and Joe White; Cleo is an AI-powered service working in connection with AI robots like Amazon Alexa to offer consumers personal finance advice; firm plans to use the new capital to further develop its technology and increase its user base of clients which are primarily in the UK. Source
DeFi is beginning to expand beyond a niche market. The high interest available via saving and lending products, and multiple investment opportunities have begun to motivate people to enter the space. While the 2010s will be remembered as the decade where decentralized finance was born and...
In PeerIQ’s weekly industry update they cover the IMF’s recent global growth forecast being raised and the recent securitization deals in online lending; while global growth is up the IMF also pointed out that a third of banks by assets might struggle to attain profitability; recent securitization deals from Marlette Funding and SoFi highlight a busy quarter in the sector; the newsletter also takes a deep dive into bank earnings for JP Morgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Source.
Mastercard expands cryptocurrency program to allow more firms to issue cards on its network Inside Betterment’s move into banking with...
One of the leaders in venture capital focused on financial inclusion, Omidyar Network, has launched a new initiative it is...
PayPal has 426 million accounts registered on its platform, acquiring 120 million of those within the last two years. With the emergence of new payment methods and processors, the firm has been going through a phase of slowing growth.
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When small business owners talk about funding challenges, the story is often the same: too much paperwork, not enough time,...
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
Franklin Tong, CEO of Astri, talks about Hong Kong's fintech industry influence on China; provides insight on how his company is using applied science to enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness in fintech; Astri was founded by the Hong Kong government and is focused on research and development for a range of solutions. Source
According to data from Dealogic, 2019 fintech funding has hit record highs; 87 deals totaling $116.6 billion have been completed...