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
PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and his fund Valar Ventures, led a $10 million seed round in German insurtech startup Coya; other investors in the round include e.ventures and La Famiglia; Dr. Peter Hagen, one of the founders of Coya, tells Business Insider, "This investment will allow Coya to further extend our team and build up an exceptional product for our customers."; the company is planning to build a digital insurance provider and is in the process of trying to get full authorization from German regulators; founders of Coya include two former Kreditech employees and ex-CEO of Vienna Insurance Group. Source
UK-based Redwood Bank has launched digital banking services after obtaining a banking license for business in the UK; Redwood Bank is the first bank with a 100% cloud-based infrastructure and will offer SME mortgages for business owners and professional landlords as well as a 35-day business savings account; Redwood Bank is wholly-owned by Redwood Financial Partners Ltd. which is controlled primarily by Warrington Borough Council with a 33% ownership stake; the newly launched bank is covered by the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which protects customers' eligible deposits of up to a total of GBP85,000 ($109,846). Source
CB Insights held a webinar discussing fintech trends in Europe; top trends included insurtech expansion, blockchain, open banking and the changing financial services infrastructure; reports that European fintech has raised $2.637 billion in 2017 from 300 deals with record financing in the first quarter of $1.1 billion. 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
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission has entered into a cooperation agreement with the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to establish a framework to help each other develop the fintech industry; the two regulators will work together on information sharing, innovation projects and referrals of fintech firms seeking to enter one another's markets. Source
Dianrong and FinEX Asia have launched Asia's first fintech asset management platform; established in 2017, FinEX Asia connects Asian investors with US consumer lending assets, such as credit card loans, giving Asian investors access to a diverse portfolio of US consumer credit investments; FinEX Asia's fintech solutions offer risk modeling capabilities, blockchain data security, performance monitoring and secondary marketplace liquidity. Source