The UK’s biggest robo-advisor has seen assets under management grow to over $798mn and customers exceed 25,000 at the end of 2016; however the company also reported a 5 percent increase in losses and a 10 percent increase in operating expenses; building up scale to eventually make money looks to be the biggest challenge for the growing fintech company. Source.
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios now boasts $24 billion assets under management and has hired Cynthia Loh, the ex-general manager of Betterment for Business; article reports on Schwab’s robo-advice platform growth, the cannibalization the firm saw with the offering, and what the new hire might mean for Schwab’s future plans. Source
Ahead of his presentation at LendIt Europe 2017, Richard Peers, Director of the Financial Services Industry at Microsoft discusses fintech with Verdict; provides his perspective on artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, challenger banks, why London is a great place for startups, and what firms can learn from the Chinese market. Source
Consumer lenders who are repaid from borrower’s salaries have raised $232mn recently in the UK; Insurer Legal & General are set to announce a $53mn Investment into SalaryFinance for their US expansion; other market leaders in this segment include Neyber who recently raised $179mn in debt financing; the companies have built relationships with more than 50 groups in the UK and tying repayment to salaries helps to keep defaults extremely low. Source.
A consortium of banks including OCBC Bank, HSBC and MUFG along with Infocomm Media Development Authority completed a KYC blockchain proof of concept; the development can make KYC more secure and efficient, as well as help to crack down on money laundering. Source.
Funding Circle lead originations for the month of September followed by Zopa and RateSetter; many other originators across Europe are included in the list. Source
Validis simplifies the lending process to SMEs; Validis offers a solution that connects directly to SME accounting packages and allows businesses to share their information directly with lenders; they also have built fraud detection tools that analyze the information to spot anomalies, discrepancies and mistakes; the Validis ’Quality Score’ algorithm allows lenders to monitor the financial health of their borrowers. Source
The US Department of Justice has approved the real-time Payments network after a yearlong antitrust review; the Clearing House, a consortium of the biggest banks in the US, was pleased by the news as they plan to launch their leading system later this year; this is seen as a step in the right direction of helping to modernize the US payments system. Source.
With more than 80% of ICOs doing presales there are concerns over investors who have preferential treatment selling after the ICO; article discusses some of the largest investors in the space including Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital; the possibility of pump and dump schemes has also drawn the attention of regulators. Source