The acquisition of Lawnmower comes at a time when CoinDesk has been expanding their research division, this will only help to enhance that strategy; Ryan Selkis, CoinDesk's managing director said, "The tools and expertise the Lawnmower team has built over the past two years will accelerate the growth of our new research division, and add critical depth to our product team."; Lawnmower first launched in April of 2015 with their micro-investment application for bitcoin's retail investor, from there they built out a research and analysis team to produce insight into digital currencies; "We're thoroughly excited to come onboard and help shape the future of digital currency," said Pieter Gorsira, co-founder and CEO of Lawnmower. Source
A new consortium has been developed for internet of things (IoT) blockchain technology; the consortium includes established companies and blockchain startups targeting various industries; overall the consortium will focus on setting blockchain industry standards and developing new solutions for IoT technology. Source
A white paper from Juniper Research projects mobile wallet transactions to increase to $1.35 trillion globally in 2017, an annual increase of 32%; the data shows that the Far East and China are currently accounting for most of the market transactions with growth specifically from Alipay and WeChat; PayPal and Apple are also noted as leading market providers; in the European market the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is also expected to be a factor supporting near-term growth in mobile wallet transactions. Source
The UK's Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) has the potential to significantly change banking for consumers with access to open APIs; the article notes that banks that have only done the minimum to comply with PSD2 may run into issues if we ever see a PSD3; fully embracing PSD2 may save headaches for banks down the road; the trend of open APIs and data sharing is likely to make its way to the US; Japan is also leading the way in this area having explored domestic ACH on blockchain. Source
Condor Capital Management's Ken Schapiro analyzed the market's robo adviser offerings by opening and funding more than a dozen accounts with a similar investment profile; all portfolios included an allocation of 60% equities and 40% fixed income however each followed the robo adviser's suggestions within those two categories; the results showed one year performance ranging from 10.75% to 5.55% with international holdings and bond fund variations significantly affecting the returns. Source
Motif Investing provides a unique platform for investors interested in investing in stocks based around different themes; Lend Academy interviews Hardeep Walia in their podcast which provides more details on the investment platform; Motif allows investors to build a thematic investment portfolio with low trading costs; it has over 300,000 investors and is also working with institutional clients. Source
Red envelope gifting is a Chinese New Year tradition that has become digitized as a result of advanced payment processing; the January 27 weekend marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year and the country is expected to transact over 100 billion digital envelopes, an increase from 32 billion in 2015 which reported a 1,000% increase from the prior year; payment processors integrated with social media have increasingly been gaining market share and supporting digital transaction growth; bitcoin transactions are also expected to increase for the Chinese New Year. Source
Banks are coming under increasing pressure to update legacy systems and provide a more digitized experience to customers, automated bots are another tool beginning to be used; while most banks are still in pilot mode, some are beginning to have wider adoption as they have seen how technology in other areas of the bank have improved efficiency and experience; "The technology works and banks are starting to have more confidence in them," explained KPMG's Managing Director for Emerging Technology Risk Services Kiran Nagaraj, bots can help make interaction with customers more efficient and allow for high-volume, repetitive processes and tasks to be done a lot faster. Source
Caitlin Long, chairman and president of Symbiont, talks about why blockchain technology is ideal for syndicated loans; syndicated loans are some of the most complexly structured loans in the credit market; they involve multiple originators for a single loan and add significant balance sheet capital for corporations; blockchain could help reduce the syndicated loan deal funding process currently averaging over 20 days; it could also streamline documentation and loan processing providing significantly improved transparency and also supporting better loan market trading activities; Caitlin will be speaking about blockchain and its integration with loans at LendIt USA 2017. Source
Real estate investment platform, Cadre, has gained the support of a $250 million credit line from George Soros’ Soros Fund Management; the funding has been a significant factor for the real estate firm which connects institutions with real estate investments after initially investing in the deals with funds from the credit line; past funding rounds have provided Cadre with over $68 million in capital and the firm is valued at approximately $100 million; in the first half of 2016 the firm closed over $200 million in real estate investment deals; the firm was founded in 2015 by brothers Jared and Joshua Kushner and Blackstone alum Ryan Williams who will be speaking at LendIt USA in March; Jared Kushner is expected to sell his stake in 35 companies as he joins the Trump administration as an adviser. Source