This month the CFPB announced a new rule aimed at payday lenders to prevent debt traps; Lend Academy outlines the new rules put in place and shares perspectives from several organizations in the short term loan space. Source
Building off of the $70mn funding round from the summer Betterment is now reportedly worth $1bn; the $1bn mark is significant as it denotes that a company is considered a unicorn; the valuation makes Betterment the first robo advisor to reach unicorn status; the company currently has over $11bn in assets under management. Source.
The article aims to answer whether big banks are still interested enough in potential mortgage loan customers to repeatedly follow-up and whether marketshare has anything to do with follow-ups; author applied for home loans with nine different lenders and shares data on their follow-ups over a two week period; Quicken, Citigroup and loanDepot round out the top three for total number of follow-ups. Source
PayKey, a mobile banking fintech, raised a $10mn series B round led by MizMaa; other investors include SBI Group, Digital Ventures, SixThirty, Fintech71 and The FinLab; the company plans to use the funds for global expansions and further product development; PayKey has a mobile banking keyboard that allows users to complete actions without opening the specific bank app. Source.
- Lendio Joins Innovative Lending Platform Association
- SoFi Launches Student Loan Refinancing for Medical Residents
- Chinese Search Giant Baidu Joins Hyperledger Blockchain Consortium
- First Associates Receives FCA Authorization to Service Loans in the United Kingdom
- Lendy has repaid £100m to investors this year
- Great Expectations - Improving the Loan Application Process for Small Business Borrowers (Fundera & Oliver Wyman
Clearbanc provides revenue-based financing to online businesses; a new program launched with Facebook will give Facebook’s 5 million merchants in Canada and the US access to $500,000 in financing; advertisers who have been working with Facebook for 6 months and have positive economics on ad spends will be able to apply through Clearbanc’s Chrged program and connect their Facebook Ad account. Source
Consumer lending Platform Affirm is looking to move beyond lending and into the financial advice space; currently Affirm works with retails to offer consumers a credit option when making a purchase; they are exploring ways to help customers better understand their debt and offer a way to help them reduce interest payments; Affirm has lent over $1bn to date Source.
Adam Ludwin responds to comments made by Jamie Dimon recently in a lengthy letter; explains his perspective on the market, breaks down his definition of cryptocurrencies and more. Source
Shares of Qudian surged almost 48 percent on the first day of trading; the share offering raised about $900mn, making it the largest Chinese listing in the US this year; reaching as high as $35.45 the company ended the day at $29.86; Qudian extends loans to millennials and students for small ticket items like smartphones or concert tickets. Source.
Tezos raised $232 million in their initial coin offering; according to sources there is a dispute happening behind the scenes between the two founders (Arthur and Kathleen Breitman) and the president of a Swiss foundation (Johann Gevers); the two founders helped create the foundation to handle the ICO and to develop the Tezos network; the Breitmans made accusations of self-dealing, self-promotion and conflicts of interest against Gevers in a letter to other members of the board; Gevers refutes the claims made by the couple. Source