The UK's Department for Media, Culture and Sport has published a digital strategy report outlining its plans for the tech sector post-Brexit; the government plans to invest 17.3 million British pounds ($21.27 million) into artificial intelligence and robotics research and also reported a 1 billion British pound ($1.23 billion) program to improve internet connectivity across the UK; it will also create five international tech hubs, host a competition for fintech products and create a forum for communicating with the tech community; all of its efforts are geared towards helping the UK remain competitive in the tech industry. Source
R3 has reported it will focus on its Corda platform; the firm was developed to create blockchain inspired solutions; in comments regarding Corda, R3 Managing Director Charley Cooper says, "It is heavily inspired by and captures the benefits of blockchain systems, but with design choices that make it able to meet the needs of regulated financial institutions."; R3 refutes any wasted efforts on blockchain research saying it never intended to use blockchain technology directly; Cooper also notes, "We've said from the beginning that while Corda is a distributed ledger platform, it is not a traditional blockchain platform and was never designed to be one." Source
The Evolution of Home Buying: The Rise of Home Ownership Investments and What It Means for Consumers
Innovation in online real estate is creating new funding opportunities for homeowners and Unison is one of the market's leading fintech firms; in their featured blog post they provide a recent white paper titled, "A New Era for Home Buying: The Rise of Home Ownership Investments" and give insight on how home ownership financing is changing; the firm introduced home ownership investing in 2007 and has been working since then to integrate it into the US housing finance system; through Unison, home buyers receive an investment for their home that tracks with the home's value and has no financial obligations until the home is sold. Sponsored Blog Post
Noah Holdings Limited, a wealth and asset management services provider in China, has announced its fourth quarter and full year results for 2016; the firm has two leading services including asset management and internet finance; net revenues for the full year 2016 were RMB 2,513.6 million (US $362.0 million), an 18.6% increase from 2015; for the year the firm reported an operating margin of 26.5%, compared to 26.4% for 2015; the firm's internet finance business is led by Mr. Kenny Lam, who reported that the company was pleased with the results, also stating that, "Our newer businesses – asset management and internet finance – are bringing impactful results to the group." Source
In collaboration with Energy 4 Impact, UKAid and the CME Group Foundation, the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance has released a study on crowdfunding and P2P lending in Africa and the Middle East; Lend Academy provides details of the report in their article; covers 46 countries in Africa and 12 countries in the Middle East, featuring data on 70 alternative platforms. Source
Former founder of Capital One and current managing partner at QED Investors, Nigel Morris has expertise in connecting banks and fintech companies; in an interview with American Banker he talks about his career experience and current market influence at QED Investors; also discusses the investment strategy at QED Investors and some of the fintech market's leading investment opportunities. Source
A new consortium for blockchain solutions in financial services has been announced called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance; the consortium includes JPMorgan, Microsoft, Bank of New York Mellon, Intel and Banco Santander S.A.; it will focus on building out an open-source platform started by JPMorgan called Quorum; the platform will seek to develop solutions for realizing cost savings in financial transactions with blockchain technology; the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance plans to launch a working version of its protocol later this year. Source
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) is testing digital currency in efforts to become one of the first central banks to issue digital money; China's population has been increasingly using digital forms of payment with approximately 450 billion mobile users reported in 2016; a cryptocurrency would likely be popular among consumers and is also expected to lower transaction costs for sellers; a digital currency could also help the PBOC to more efficiently manage risks in the financial system and economy with a better way for tracking transactions; the PBOC has outlined how a digital currency would work but it has not announced a specific timeline for implementation. Source
China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange continues to closely monitor foreign investment with no change reported to the limit for its qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII) scheme following its most recent meeting; the outstanding investment quota under the QDII scheme, which allows investment managers to raise funds and convert them internationally, was US$89.99 billion at the end of February; the country continues to seek to protect its currency from depreciating with the foreign investment quota. Source
Nick Ogden has launched ClearBank after three years of development on the multi-million-pound project; the bank is marketed as a "bank for banks," targeting fintech startups, credit unions, building societies and other challenger banks; it will focus on payment processing, which it plans to offer at cheaper and faster rates than competitors, and also an "off the shelf core banking service." Source