The high volatility in cryptocurrency prices has created an opportunity for high frequency traders looking for alternatives; the stock market has been steadily rising but their has rarely been a daily jump or drop of more than one percent; while there has no been wide adoption of the strategy more firms have begun trading in the space as the market cap continues to rise. Source.
N26 Founder and CEO Valentin Stalf told the Money 20/20 audience they plan to launch in the US by mid 2018; “We’ve looked at the products in the U.S. and we figured out that most of the banking products in the U.S. are even worse than in Europe,” Stalk told TechCrunch; their plans are to launch a debit card with a checking account and use a bank partner, similar to what they have done in Europe. Source.
The partnership between IBM and Zelle is meant to accelerate and simplify payments through real time processing; they also will help to enable same day deposits, bill pay, less fees and seamless cash flow; Zelle is now working with over 20 banks and plans to reach 85 million consumers by end of year. Source.
Cross River is well funded and last year raised $28 million; the bank has historically worked with the big players in online lending with back end infrastructure; now the bank is developing a mobile banking app; Tearsheet spoke with CEO Gilles Gade at Money2020 to learn more about how they have been using funds from their round last year and what they are working on for the future. Source
Lend Academy explores how biometrics technology is going to change the finance world, cutting down on cyber-hacks and data breaches; discusses thumb prints, voice interaction/ authentication, iris scanning and now face recognition with the new iPhone X; one technology with a lot of potential is behavioral biometrics; while we are still early there are still many interesting things happening in this space and it is an area to keep an eye on. Source
According to the Financial Times, SoFi had talks with various companies including Schwab earlier this year to sell the company; the discussions took place after an indicative offer of $6 billion from a foreign bank; the company subsequently held talks with other companies with a targeted price of between $8 - $10 billion; no acquirers were willing to match the price and SoFi decided to wait for an IPO. Source
The CFPB has laid out principles around the sharing of data between banks and fintechs; while the principles are non binding they are meant to provide guidance on the level of information sharing when a customer grants access to their banking details to a third party; there are still a few points of contention around screen scraping, informed consent and accountability when issues arise. Source.
Business Insider takes a look at the worldwide regulations surrounding the emerging Cryptocurrency market; in addition to cryptocurrencies they also take a deeper look at the regulatory structure beginning to be built around blockchain technology; regions covered include the US, Europe, China and more. Source.
The Financial Times’ Lex column explains that the P2P market in the UK can learn a great deal from the 2016 experience in the US; as lenders continue growing and look to achieve scale they should be careful to not overdo it; while troubles have occurred in the UK they have not reached the same level and lenders need to be sure to preserve credit quality. Source.
In their weekly industry update PeerIQ covered the most recent securitization deals and the acquisitions by student loan servicers Nelnet and Navient; Avant filed AVNT 2017-B worth $232.648mn, a consumer loan ABS transaction; PeerIQ took a close look at Mosaic whose most recent ABS transaction was heavily oversubscribed, with over $1.7 Bn in orders for a $307.5mn deal. Source.