According to data from FT Partners, the third quarter brought the highest financing deal count ever with 412 transactions; banking (including p2p lending) and payments had the most deals in the quarter; transactions of note include Softbank’s $250 million investment in Kabbage and raises by Toast Inc. and Raise Marketplace. Source
While announcing earnings for Q3 Wells Fargo and Bank of America both revealed how important digital channels are to their bottom line; BofA saw mobile banking users jump 11 percent, mobile usage grew at 19 percent and digital payments grew 9 percent in the past year; Wells Fargo saw digital usage grow 2 percent and digital sessions grow 6 percent; the digital trend shows how much banks businesses are changing. Source.
Person to person payments growth was about 67% and accounted for 13.6 million transactions; According to CEO Brian Moynihan the bank processed half a billion dollars in a single week; other banks including Wells Fargo are also reporting increases in person to person payments; Bank of America is also planning to release a mobile offering for auto and home loans along with its AI assistant; Bank of America spent $2.25 billion on tech initiatives in the first nine months of 2017. Source
The blockchain startup has now raised a total of $110mn after taking in $40mn in a series B round; Jefferson River Capital led the funding round, which also included new and previous investors; in addition to the fundraising they hired Clyde Rodriguez, a former Microsoft executive, as chief information officer and chief technology officer for engineering. Source.
RateSetter was the last of the “big three” p2p lenders to be authorized after a two year wait; both Zopa and Funding Circle were authorized in May, 2017; RateSetter will now be able to launch their Innovative Finance ISA; Founder and CEO Rhydian Lewis stated, “Authorisation has been a long but positive journey during which we have learnt a lot, improved our infrastructure and implemented important changes, notably making the business more transparent. Transparency is vital to our business because our customers need to understand what we do to appreciate the risk of lending on RateSetter.” Source
Initial results from a congressional investigation shows that minority business owners are more likely to seek a loan from a fintech firm and potentially pay a higher fee; Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) wants to further explore whether or not these lenders are aggressively targeting these borrowers and offering higher rates; the investigation has focused on online lenders and their underwriting practices for emerging minority owned businesses. Source.
IBM announced a partnership with Stellar.org and KlickEx Group to help small businesses in underdeveloped countries participate in global trade; the partnership will focus on financial transactions across borders and currencies; this will allow businesses in these areas to get access to IBM’s scale and bank partnership network. Source.
There have been a lot of executives recently who have expressed their opinions about cryptocurrencies; while many people agree that the technology behind bitcoin has huge potential, there are a wide variety of opinions about cryptocurrencies; Lend Academy shares quotes from Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan), Larry Fink (Blackrock), Mike Novogratz (Galaxy Digital Assets Fund), James Gorman (Morgan Stanley),Axel Weber (UBS), Christine Lagarde (Head of the International Monetary Fund) and Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs). Source
- Spanish bank launches money-transfer app focused initially on US-Mexico remittances
- Quicken Loans and eOriginal Partner on Next Phase of the Digital Mortgage Revolution
- Ripple & the Gates Foundation Team Up to Level the Economic Playing Field for the Poor
- Silicon Valley Vs. Wall Street: Can the New Long-Term Stock Exchange Disrupt Capitalism?
- P2P Series Part 3: China's Online Lending Consolidates As Market Grows
- Blockchain and Smart Cities: On the Way to the Second Capital of China
- Future of Fintech Awards shortlist 2017
Business Insider interviewed Renaud Laplanche last week at LendIt Europe; on his exit from Lending Club, Laplanche stated, “It was very, very frustrating. I'm not commenting on the story, but the best way to actually understand what really happened is to read the filings. I think the press made it sound a lot worse, a lot more sensational, than it really was.”; he is taking what he learned from building Lending Club and applying it to his new company Upgrade; Laplanche stated that he hopes to launch a new product each year with possible expansion into mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, home equity and lines of credit. Source