The app is available only for the platform's investors; Lend Academy provides screenshots from the app and more details in their article; investors can now invest through the mobile app and also open a new account; the app provides much of the same functionality available through the desktop application allowing investors to monitor their account and make investments from any iOS mobile device. Source
Ohpen, which provides banking technology services, is partnering with insurance giant Aegon; Aegon plans to replace standalone systems for pensions, savings, current accounts and wealth management with the new platform; Ohpen's technology runs on AWS and Aegon will plugin via the API-based interface; Chris Zadeh, Ohpen's CEO stated: "If you want to be ready for the future and save an enormous amount of code, you should have one administrative system for all these different brands. Aegon and Knab and their pensions will use the same cloud-based administrative system, and that's ours." Source
Jamie Dimon dedicated a portion of his annual letter to talk about regulations on mortgage lending; states that regulations have led to a slow recovery, reducing mortgage lending by about $300 billion annually; provides his perspective on FHA lending where non-banks have taken a significant market share; on servicing mortgages, Dimon wrote, "new mortgage rules and regulations total more than 14,000 pages and stand about six feet tall."; this has made it expensive to service troubled mortgages. Source
Renren is a publicly traded company that operates a social networking platform and also has an investment unit that invests in private US fintech companies; Lend Academy previously wrote about Renren and their private market fintech holdings in January; Renren was one of SoFi's first investors reporting 21% ownership in the company at the end of 2015; it’s now been reported that Renren has sold a portion of its share in the company, in association with a SoFi fundraising, receiving net proceeds of $91.9 million. Source
Perfios is an Indian fintech startup that has developed software products that help digital lenders, banks and financial institutions to analyze client data; the software can help reduce application times for loans, credit cards and insurance policies; the firm's $6.1 million fundraising was provided by New York-based venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners. Source
Blockchain Capital has raised $10 million for the Blockchain Capital III Digital Liquid Venture Fund, LP which plans to invest in blockchain startups; the funds were raised through a digital shareholder token offering; Blockchain Capital says the tokens can be traded, offering enhanced liquidity for investors. Source
DecisivEdge is a consulting and technology services provider which recently announced a lending and leasing as a service product; the new product will be powered by Oracle; small and medium sized lenders will be able to leverage the technology; the new offering is hosted in the cloud with 24/7 monitoring and support; Andrew MacDowell, senior vice president of business optimization stated, "The traditional model requires a sizable up-front capital expense to acquire the software and infrastructure, often putting such a solution out of reach for small and medium sized lenders." Source
Crowdfund Insider reports on the launch of LendIt's PitchIt competition at Lang Di China in July; LendIt has partnered with JadeValue to support the competition and its finalists; applications are now open and the final competition will include eight finalists; the competition's finalists will be matched with mentors for business development and the winning startup will be given additional resources from JadeValue including coworking space, a $150,000 investment and technical tools. Source
A panel of finance executives discussed UK customer banking data at the UK Treasury's International Fintech conference in London; Antony Jenkins said financial data could potentially be controlled by varying companies with both alternative technology providers and financial institutions having different advantages; HSBC's Douglas Flint said a debate on data ownership and maintenance is still open for discussion. Source
Hong Kong's Legislative Council Panel on Financial Affairs published a document this week on their digital currency plans; The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which acts as their central bank and financial regulator is working with banks and R3; according to the document: "The first phase of the research, which explores the feasibility of [central bank-issued digital currency] in performing domestic inter-bank payments, inter-corporate payment in the wholesale market and delivery versus payment (DvP) debt securities settlement, is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year. Subject to the findings of the first phase, HKMA will map out the next steps." Source