LendIt has partnered with SeedInvest to include live fundraising at this year's PitchIt @ LendIt Europe competition; through the partnership LendIt Europe delegates and SeedInvest's 185,000 users can invest in the eight startup finalists during the event; these finalists will present before an audience and panel of judges on October 10 from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. Source
Renaud will kick off day two of LendIt Europe with a keynote speech discussing online lending 2.0 as well as the US online lending industry and its role within fintech overall; Laplanche is currently the CEO of newly founded US consumer lending platform Upgrade; the platform raised $60 million from a Series A fundraising and launched in April 2017. Source
PitchIt @ LendIt Europe is one of the industry's most popular startup competitions providing eight finalists with unparalleled access to industry expertise and funding opportunities as well as invaluable exposure, branding and more at the event; hosted in partnership with Startupbootcamp, the event also offers fast-track status to the finalist round for Startupbootcamp Fintech Accelerator as one of its prizes; interested startup companies must submit their application by September 4 and finalists will be announced on September 10; more details about the competition can be found here. Source
National Internet Finance Association (NIFA) of China on August 30 released ICOs risk alerts; the Association highlights two kinds of risks: 1) some projects raise money in the name of ICO with misguided publicity and this may lead to illegal fundraising; 2) the assets of some ICO projects remain unclear and the information disclosure is far from sufficient. Source (Chinese)
ICOINFO, one of China's largest ICO exchange platforms, announces the suspension of new project launches, awaiting relevant regulatory rules; users will not be able to add value to their accounts during the suspension. Source
The Brazilian Central Bank has proposed allowing fintech companies to lend money without taking deposits; the bank is set to hold public hearings for the next two and a half months on the proposed rules; according to Central Bank Director Otávio Damaso the rules do not need congressional approval; the Brazilian fintech industry has grown sixfold in the past few years and now the regulators are looking to make the country more fintech friendly; banks will also be able to create their own fintech arms when the new rules take effect. Source
Regional remittance firm UAE Exchange partners with Ripple to facilitate instant international money transfers; UAE Exchange serves 31 countries and has over 800 offices in the Middle East region; Ripple uses their Ripple Consensus Ledger to link international firms and facilitate real-time money transfers; CryptoCoinsNews reports that UAE Exchange Group CEO Promoth Manghat stated to Arabian Business, "UAE Exchange has been investing significantly in blockchain technology, we are in the process of tying up a deal with distributed ledger startup Ripple, for real-time cross border payments."; this is the second regional financial firm to enlist Ripple, National Bank of Abu Dhabi partnered with Ripple in February. Source
Singapore based fintech company Trade Finance Market (TFM) recently launched their Invoice Check solution to cut down on trade finance fraud; the new blockchain based registry will help stop invoices from being paid more than once; they built the solution in the past year on the ethereum blockchain and it uses smart contracts; "Our system is in public beta and provides a manual method of entering invoices and having them checked against a blockchain-hosted database. This data is stored on the blockchain and funders are alerted if there is a potential risk of double financing," Raj Uttamchandani, the company's executive director, tells Global Trade Review. Source
Personal financial management (PFM) apps have had a bad few months with Prosper shutting down Prosper Daily and Capital One closing Level Money; but banks in general are still looking for ways to provide customers with their financial health; a research report by Celent in July points out that while apps are closing, banks are beginning to integrate some of the features from PFM apps; instead of sending customers to a third party app they offer the features within their own app or website as part of the everyday customer experience; Cesar Richardson, vice president for Strands America, tells American Banker: "There's no separate path. It's inside your day-to-day banking." Source
PitchIt winner Nova Credit presents their company's solution to build what they call the Nova Credit Passport; a cross border credit reporting agency that connects to leading credit bureaus through a single API; PitchIt 2017 was a competition for fintech startups, in exclusive partnership with global venture capital fund 500 Startups, the world leader in investing in and mentoring early-stage fintech startups. Source