Citi recently announced an upgrade to their mobile app to help add features and streamline the app offering; the new app features more financial management tools, you can open an account on your device and pay bills; they also added a 360 Financial View tool to give the customer a full understanding and view into all their accounts, Citi and non Citi accounts; the app is part of a broader digital strategy the bank has been pushing in recent weeks. Source.
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According to the WSJ, Credit Karma isn’t receiving any proceeds or issuing new shares as part of the deal; Silver Lake will instead be purchasing shares from early investors and employees in a secondary sale; the investment values the company around $4 billion; Credit Karma generated $500 million in revenue in 2016 and according to CEO Kenneth Lin they have been growing at a double-digit pace since; Credit Karma last raised money in 2015. Source
Online consumer lender Upstart has reportedly set out to raise $100mn in their latest fundraising round; the round would put the valuation north of $500mn and upwards of $1bn; the company did not confirm the American Banker report but did say they anticipate completing a finals round in the next year; the company reach profitability last year and the value of loan transactions increased threefold according to a spokeswoman. Source.
Lennar Corp. is the largest homebuilder in the United States; they will leverage technology built by Blend to allow their customers to apply for mortgages online and through mobile devices; this will cut down significantly on the time to apply for a mortgage and Lennar hopes it will also help attract millennial buyers. Source
There is a new trend occurring at big banks, CMOs are becoming the driving force behind the change in marketing and a cleanup in digital media ads; most people still use and trust banks, even after the financial crisis and the recent bad news of big fines or scandals; recently the focus in banking has shifted to customer experience and marketers have become as big a part of the product teams as they are of the marketing teams; customers are starting to expect their experience to be more personalized, focused and more impactful to their lives; marketers have moved beyond their role of storytelling and moved into a more active role on how to drive the best experience for the different customers. Source.
Jack Henry & Associates banking division recently signed up their seventh community bank in as many months; the banks have contracted the company to use their Windows-based banking platform; Jack Briner, president and CEO California International Bank, tells Banking Technology: “When evaluating core providers, we could tell that Jack Henry & Associates would be the best partner for our bank. The advanced technology and forward momentum that Jack Henry Banking provides will give our bank the integrated and robust capabilities needed to get ahead.” Source.
American Banker reported on the mixed results of a SourceMedia survey of individuals in the banking, payments and mortgage sectors about the MeToo movement; most respondents said it would impact their industry in some capacity, though they were split on whether the impact would be positive or negative; there was a clear divide on gender lines as most women thought changes would be positive, men respondents mentioned false accusations and some brushed it off as not a big issue; there is some concern that this could force men to hire less women and not mentor women in the workplace for fear of being accused; clear workplace guidelines and a more diverse executive team could bring about real positive change; the MeToo movement is clearly forcing a lot of industries to rethink how they structure their workplace for all employees. Source.
Petal’s new credit card will focus on the 65 million people who lack credit history for a traditional card; they have been working for three years on their product which uses AI to predict a consumer’s creditworthiness; the company raised a $3.6 million seed round last September and followed with a $13 million Series A in January of 2018; the partnership with WebBank will allow Petal to make the card available nationwide which they anticipate will happen over the next few months. Source
Coinbase announced they will add support for ERC20 tokens, the technical standard behind ethereum blockchain tokens; they don’t have plans to add any new token yet but is building out their technology to do so; "This is an infrastructure upgrade that will enable us to support many more assets in the future," a Coinbase representative told Business Insider.; the company did caution that they will wait regulatory clarity before adding any assets. Source.