The Community Home Lenders Association and the Community Mortgage Lenders of America sent a joint letter to the CFPB asking for more clarity around surprise audits; the companies cite exemptions for small banks but they don’t have the same type of exemption for small nonbanks; they believe if the state regulator in which they operate requests a formal action then an audit can go ahead but surprise audits should not be permitted. Source.
The Portuguese bank announced it will invest in notes issued by CrossLend; CrossLend is a European marketplace lending platform that operates across many European countries; Banco BNI Europa views the investment as a diversification play. Source
Stash is fresh off a $37mn series D that will see the company double in size and expand into other banking products; the company helps customers invest on behalf of their kids; the typical Stash customer is 29 and makes $50k a year, they help them get more control of their financial lives and invest; “We offer education for these users to help them build the right financial habits from day one, and that doesn’t just stop at investing,” said founder and president Ed Robinson to TearSheet. “Our mission is to help our users throughout their whole financial lives.” Source.
Lloyd Blankfein recently presented at the Credit Suisse 19th Annual Financial Services Forum; Blankfein shared that Marcus has access to over $17 billion in deposits; since the acquisition of GE Capital, retail deposits have grown 90% which gives allows them to access cheap capital; Goldman plans to grow consumer products offered through Marcus. Source
OnDeck has achieved GAAP profitability and announced some interesting new developments for 2018. Source
Online lenders in China have started to self inspect how they run their companies as the government has been a lot more proactive in oversight than in year’s past; the government fears that borrowers are becoming over indebted and are borrowing to pay back other lenders; some of the top lenders fear the government crackdown could cause other panic and trigger outcomes that would be even worse than a few online lenders shutting down; right now it seems as if lenders are in limbo wondering what the future will hold. Source.
After gaining approval from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Starling Bank has seen their partners grow; Starling now counts PensionBee, WealthSimple, Habito and Kasko as partners; the company plans to announce about 25 partners this year alone; Starling’s Chief platform officer, Megan Caywood, says the new partners take the marketplace to the next level. Source.
UK based Arrowgrass will offer investors fintech exposure through a new vehicle listed on the AIM Market; the $97mn IPO named TruFin, is the first time investors will have access to one of the country’s p2p platforms in Zopa; “Listing on AIM will allow us to provide further capital to our subsidiaries and scale faster, and take advantage of any developments in the current financial services market,” said Henry Kenner, chief executive officer of TruFin plc, to AltFi. Source.
Paytm is looking to expand beyond their Indian roots and Canada is their first test case; “Paytm Canada is our beta test, or our warhead to get an entry into new geography beyond India,” said founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma to TearSheet; while their bill pay products help top build customers their big revenue driver is when businesses pay them fees to accept payments; the current test case in Canada has Paytm signing up thousands of Canadian companies where they incentivize customers to pay bills with cash back offers; having a large Indian population in Canada has helped the company gain early success, but expanding to markets like the US is a different type of challenge. Source.