Experienced fintech expert, John Sculley talked about investment opportunities he sees in the market at LendIt USA; former president of Pepsi and former CEO at Apple, Sculley says he is interested in transformative opportunities; in the fintech sector, Sculley recently joined the board of directors at Lantern Credit after becoming an investor; Lantern Credit is positioned to provide transformative technology with machine-learning services for financial institutions that allows for a broader assessment of a borrower's creditworthiness. Source
PitchIt@LendIt and the LendIt industry awards were two highlights of the two day LendIt USA conference; Nova Credit was the PitchIt winner, presenting its business plan for the world's first cross-border credit reporting agency; on Tuesday evening LendIt also announced award winners in 18 categories at its first LendIt Industry Awards Show. Source
Third party data sharing is becoming more prevalent in financial services as fintech providers increasingly provide more personal financial management solutions. In Europe the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is also revolutionizing data sharing for the fintech market.
American Banker provides insight on the pros and cons of data sharing also including insight from Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, who have developed leading data sharing partnerships and solutions. While the majority of the challenges to data sharing are refuted by technology experts there are a number of considerations that have limited the data sharing process.
Some of banks' leading concerns for data sharing include connectivity risks, system overloads and differing regulatory standards. Data can be affected when transferred to a third party, it can be difficult to determine data being extracted and system updates can affect data flow. Banks have also reported system overloads from data extractions at peak hours. Additionally, banks report that differing regulatory controls and standards can cause security risks when working with third party data aggregators. Source
Credit bureaus in the US have become integrated with fintech companies in different ways; Forbes talks with Alex Lintner about Experian's business initiatives and the solutions the company is providing for the fintech industry; Alex says the company is focused on digital technology solutions for credit data that help improve the loan application for consumers; Lintner also notes the availability of full file reporting which can meet the growing demand for alternative credit underwriting and the company's development of APIs for startup businesses. Source
Viva Republica is the operator of Toss; firm has announced a $48 million funding round for the payment app from PayPal, Goodwater Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Altos Ventures and Partech Ventures; Toss has reported significant market share in Korea with over six million app downloads and payment transactions of over $3 billion; Viva Republica has also partnered with 18 of Korea's 19 major banks and now provides payment services to 98% of Korea's banking customers; for PayPal the investment builds out its payment services portfolio which includes mobile payment processor Venmo. Source
Singapore-based Dymon Asia Ventures has received investment of $20 million and plans to meet its target fundraising of $50 million over the next 12 months; firm plans to invest in 12 to 15 companies and has already begun investing in five companies which include: blockchain startup Otonomos, financing firm Capital Match, forex-focused 4XLabs, trading platform Spark Systems and marketing service WeConvene; the firm's investment focus will be on business to business companies targeting the growing Southeast Asia internet market; it says it will invest in seed stage funding through Series B funding with investments ranging from $300,000 to $3 million and reserves available for continued investment in follow-on rounds. Source
Lend Academy provides insight and highlights from the event's keynote speakers in their article; day one featured Scott Sanborn from Lending Club as the event's leading keynote speaker and also included three keynote presentations on regulation in the industry from Congressman Patrick McHenry, Comptroller Thomas Curry and CFPB Director Richard Cordray; day two began with Alex Tapscott discussing blockchain and followed with a variety of insights from leading industry innovators; Lend Academy also reports on PitchIt and the LendIt Industry Awards additionally including key takeaways from the event overall; videos from the event will all be published within the next few days and can be found on the LendIt USA 2017 video page. Source
At LendIt USA, Antony Jenkins from 10x Future Technologies discussed the challenges for incumbent banks in implementing transformative technology; Jenkins says transformation for incumbent banks is very difficult primarily because of the cultural change; Jenkins' 10x Future Technologies is developing software and API technology for banking products including current accounts, credit cards, mortgages and loans. Source
According to ThreatMetrix, digital fraud has been costing insurance companies approximately $250 billion annually in recent years; data from ThreatMetrix also reports that fraudsters have compromised over five billion personal identities, 1 in 10 insurance accounts are fraudulent and 3% to 5% of all claims in the US are fraudulent which adds approximately $400 to the cost of a family's insurance per year; with these statistics, development in advanced fraud solutions is also becoming important for insurtech; machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are the main drivers behind many of the industry's fraud detection solutions and the AI capabilities are expected to gain even more traction as additional solutions evolve. Source
HNA Group has a diverse portfolio of investments in a wide range of industries spanning from hotels to electronics and airlines; the Chinese-based company has now reported significant investment in the financial services industry with recent deals focused on the SkyBridge hedge fund platform, New Zealand lender UDC Finance and a 3% stake in Deutsche Bank; the investments from HNA follow encouragement by Beijing in global investments; they also reflect China's growing middle class and the expected demand for broadened investment options among Chinese consumers. Source