TearSheet sat down with Megan Caywood, co-founder and chief platform officer at Starling Bank, to talk about the digital bank’s success so far; the interview covers the biggest issues with banking today, the issues Starling Bank is trying to solve, differentiating from other digital banks, customer acquisition and more. Source.
Rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act is a welcomed sign by banks like Ally Bank who does not use branches and misses out on benefits awarded to banks with branch networks; focusing on where banks lend would be a better way to assess potential credit instead of where the bank is physically located. Source.
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles told an International Monetary Fund forum that he didn’t think ILCs were problematic; applications should be reviewed and granted based on the strength of the application; this is a shift for the Fed as they have said in the past that ILCs were an issue and that Congress should consider cracking down on them. Source.
The move by Goldman Sachs into retail banking with Marcus has been a big shift for the bank and thus far has paid off; speaking to CNBC Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein talked about their move to consumer lending, their expansion of digital banking with Marcus and the focus on developing in house technology. Source.
American Banker puts together a slideshow on the key trends in digital banking; some of the trends include more customers using digital payments, digital banking adoption is increasing globally, consumers are not happy with PFM options offered by banks and overall banks are still highly trusted for managing money. Source.
Member platforms of the UK Peer to Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) are close to crossing more than $12bn in total loan originations; P2PFA small business lending platforms have recently increased lending and helped the origination number to grow significantly. Source.
China Construction Bank opened a branch in Shanghai only using technology; they have no human staff and instead use facial recognition, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to provide services; this is the first of its kind in China and the bank says it can handle 90 percent of transactions. Source.
Online solar lender Wunder Capital has raised $112mn, 90 percent of which is debt with 10 percent being equity; Cyrus investments led the capital infusion and Wunder chief executive Bryan Birsic said, “The debt component is going to blow out the lending opportunity.” Source.
TransferWise is the first fintech to join the Bank of England’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system; described as game changing for the company the deal will allow them to lower costs, be on equal footing as banks and offer instant transfers to GBP. Source.