ING and Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking presented a blockchain test prototype for oil trading at IP Week in London; the platform they have developed is called Easy Trading Connect and the prototype tested a live oil trade by global commodity trading group, Mercuria; the blockchain test proved significant advantages in speed, cost and risk benefits; overall the test found blockchain helpful in improving trading inefficiencies, specifically the exchange of physical documents globally; it also helped to reduce the bank's transaction time in the trading process to 25 minutes from three hours. Source
SoFi has announced details of its latest fundraising round which now adds $500 million in new equity capital for the firm; the financing was led by Silver Lake and included SoftBank and GPI Capital; the fundraising will support the continued expansion for the firm; it now offers student loan refinancing, personal loans, mortgage loans, life insurance, wealth management and banking; it also plans to expand its services to Australia and Canada. Source
Brett King developed his company Moven as a better solution to banking; after gaining only 60,000 customers since the digital bank's launch, he is now selling the software to banks for use in mobile apps; Moven and many other digital bank competitors are losing some of their appeal in the startup space as the Trump administration seeks to ease banking regulations that resulted in less risk taking from banks and greater opportunities for startups; as the landscape changes under the new presidential administration, it's likely that the latitude and interest from banks in partnering with startups will increase. Source
Lufax sees a growing market opportunity in China's retail investment space and is planning to increase its focus on this area of the business; the firm is currently the world's highest valued P2P lender at $18.5 billion; it has $56.9 billion in client assets with P2P loans accounting for a third which is expected to decrease to 15%; it plans to expand the investments it offers through online brokerage accounts and also enhance its mobile and online trading capabilities; the firm is also rumored to have plans for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the second half of 2017. Source
AT Zuche is a Shanghai-based peer-to-peer car rental platform with over five million users and 200,000 vehicles; it has announced a $58 million Series C financing round from investors including Matrix Partners China; Matrix Partners China also recently invested in insurtech app Anxin Doctor which raised RMB200 million ($28 million) for a healthcare service focused on women and children; CreditEase Insurance Agency, a CreditEase affiliate, has also added new capital of RMB80 million ($11 million) for its insurance platform. Source
Nasdaq Vice President Fredrik Voss is optimistic about the use of blockchain in capital markets trading; according to Cointelegraph, stock market transactions and the core premise of blockchain are compatible making stock market trading ideal for blockchain integration; blockchain technology could help with a number of trading factors including transparency and efficiency; according to Voss, blockchain technology is helping industry trading specialists to look at some of the market's trading problems with new options and solutions from blockchain's capabilities; while he is optimistic, Voss also says, "There is a long way to go before we see a very wide scale adoption of the technology in capital markets, but it looks more promising now than we thought three years ago." Source
Fintech firm Quovo launched its bank API in November 2016 with 18 financial institutions; it has now expanded to 215; the API technology allows fintech firms to verify accounts and offer ACH payments and transfers; Quovo's recent partnership expansion has also included credit unions and regional banks. Source
Andy Rachleff, CEO of Wealthfront, makes the case for automated advice and technology powered software; reports that Wealthfront's new system, Path, can analyze a client's spending and savings preferences through access to their accounts, creating financial plans in minutes; Wealthfront also has plans for adding artificial intelligence solutions to improve its services. Source
Wealth advisor Snowden Lane has partnered with Artivest to offer investors easier access to private equity and hedge fund investments; Snowden Lane is an independent wealth advisor with no proprietary product offerings; through the partnership, Artivest will now be the firm's main provider of private equity and hedge fund investments; Artivest provides a curated platform of hedge funds and private equity investments. Source
Corporate loan trading has historically been a manual process involving millions of emails annually between buyers, sellers and borrowers making it difficult to automate; however new technologies, including blockchain, have been advancing with potential solutions for automation; a new rule which went into effect last September has helped to increase transaction and settlement times; the new rule provides a compensation incentive for faster loan settlement and has improved the average settlement time by four days; the faster settlement has caused many fintech innovators to change their focus from settlement automation to process efficiency. Source