Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said he thinks bitcoin is “certainly something more than just a fad,” according to a Bloomberg report; he also stated that the concept of anonymous currency is interesting because of the privacy it provides; while he has yet to invest in the technology he does see more regulatory control coming soon. Source.
ZhongAn Insurance jumped 18 percent on debut after the biggest ever IPO by a fintech firm in Asia; ZhongAn CEO Jeffrey Chen says, the rarity of technology listings in Hong Kong gave ZhongAn’s IPO an extra appeal for investors looking to diversify their holdings; both Ant Financial and Lufax are considering IPOs in Hong Kong, according to sources. Source
AltFi reports that Ranger Direct lending Fund could see the second half dividend payout cut in half as compared to the first half of 2017; they cite legal fees, downward revisions to expected returns of platforms and cash drag due to reallocation of funds from closing platforms. Source.
Zopa plans to reopen to new investors by end of the year after stopping investor on boarding earlier this year; they stopped taking new money because they were finding it harder to get good quality borrowers; they also saw a big jump in demand for their Innovative Finance Isa; while the plan for opening to new investors is targeted at year end it could be delayed by existing investor's Isa demand. Source.
Shenzhen Suishou Technology announces that KKR will invest in Suishou’s Series C funding round; Suishou is a personal finance management platform that provides individuals with a one-stop mobile destination to track spending, organize budgets, and manage credit card usage; KKR makes the investment from its Asian Fund III; no further details of the transaction were not disclosed. Source
OnFido was founded by three Oxford grads who are all under 30; Microsoft’s venture capital arm participated in the Series C round; other participants included Crane Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures and other existing investors; in total the company has raised over $60 million for their product that uses machine learning to verify identity. Source
Chime raises $18mn in a series B fundraise from Cathay Innovation, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Crosslink Capital and more; Chime is a digital banking app focused on millennials by not charging monthly fees or overdraft charges; they make money on transactions and thus far have over 500,000 customers. Source.
- Orchard Publishes New Lendscape of the Online Lending Industry
- AutoGravity Surpasses $1 Billion USD In Finance Amount Requested, Launches Real-Time Dealership Inventory Nationwide
- Stockpile Raises $30 Million to Make Stock Investing Easy for Everyone
- Wunder Brings on Rich Mauro as Director of Capital Markets
- 1000's of investors funded more than €2 million in short-term loans - Robo.Cash
Funding Circle announced they passed the milestone last year; CEO and Founder Samir Desai stated, “We were pleased with the result for the group. Overall we improved our loss margin. The UK business became cashflow positive in Q4 of 2016 and continues to generate positive cashflow in the first half of the year.” he added, "As we've said many a time, we believe that our business should be a public company as well because that fits with our values of transparency and being open, and allows us to take our service to more and more people as well."
Other highlights include:
- Operating expenses rose by 43% to £103.1 million;
- Losses dipped by 3% to £35.7 million thanks partly to a foreign exchange boost;
- £1 billion lent last year;
- Loans outstanding rose by 61% to £1.37 billion;
Envestnet | Yodlee discusses their recent webinar Leveraging Alternative Data to Energize Your Lending Portfolio; speakers included Jason O’Shaughnessy, Senior Vice President, EMEA & Australia, Envestnet | Yodlee; Phil Grady, CEO of Castlight Financial; Roger Vincent, Head of Banking & Innovation, Equifax; and Venkat Srinivasan, Head of Lending for Monzo; Gary Wright, Director of Content, Finextra moderated the webinar; the on-demand webinar is available for those that missed the live event. Source