The FactSet Global FinTech Index has been launched by FactSet; it includes 88 companies involved in financial technology globally; Nikko Asset Management has licensed the Index for its Global Fintech Equity Fund; US credit providers in the Index include PayPal and Square. Source
Morgan Stanley has partnered with Addepar to provide investment management platform services for its private wealth management group; Addepar is a growing investment management platform that provides solutions for aggregating and managing the wealth of private high net worth clients; Addepar is supported by Peter Thiel; prior to the partnership with Morgan Stanley its clients primarily included registered investment advisors; it is now seeking to expand to a broader range of large private wealth banking clients. Source
New insurtech platform Ladder has launched, offering digital life insurance; the platform's life insurance product will be available to consumers in California; the company is marketing a faster, more efficient process for life insurance applications and coverage; its platform can approve customers in minutes for life insurance policies up to $8 million; it charges no annual policy fees and its policies are reinsured by Hannover Re US. Source
Canada reported significant growth in online and marketplace lending in 2016; fintech growth in the country was also substantial with Canada reporting a 74% increase in fintech investment; a blog post from Aspire gives a roundup of online and marketplace lending activity in 2016 which included many partnerships and equity rounds; also provides predictions for the market in 2017; among its seven predictions are more bank partnerships and increased institutional investment. Source
IBM is now moving into banking compliance, by purchasing Promontory Financial Group they hope they can use the compliance company's expertise to teach Watson about banking compliance; "Part of why we bought Promontory was, these systems (meaning Watson), they do have to be trained," explained IBM CEO Ginni Rometty; IBM believes artificial intelligence can help across the banking industry and ease the burden on specific firms. Source
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has announced development of a new distributed ledger technology solution for processing credit derivatives; DTCC has selected IBM, Axoni and R3 to lead the integration of the solution; IBM will manage the solution-as-a-service with Axoni providing infrastructure and smart contract applications and R3 participating as a solution advisor; the solution will be one of the first comprehensive financial services trade processing solutions used globally; its goal is to streamline, automate and reduce the cost of derivatives processing; the solution is anticipated for completion in 2018. Source
According to the Wall Street Journal, PayPal and bitcoin have been used for funding Islamic terrorist attacks in Indonesia; the virtual payments were reported to be more difficult to track; the Indonesian Financial Transactions Report and Analysis Center says terrorism financing cases have increased in the country from 12 in 2015 to 25 in 2016. Source
Raisin has reported over 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in investment through its platform; the company offers investors a range of savings account investments across the European Union and facilitates the account funding for the investors; the platform has gained investment of 300 million euros ($318 million) in the past three months and expects to reach the 3 billion euro ($3.2 billion) mark in the first half of 2017. Source
Chinese regulators are investigating investment in the cryptocurrency bitcoin as its price is reporting high correlation with the value of the Chinese yuan; according to data from bitcoinity.org, yuan transactions have also accounted for 98% of bitcoin's trading in the past six months; regulators have met with bitcoin exchanges to monitor investment activity; they have also requested that the exchanges do not market the yuan's devaluation as an investment incentive; investors have reported that transaction volumes are limited to a few hundred thousand yuan. Source
Activehours, a startup focused on payment processing, has raised $22 million in a funding round led by Matrix Partners; workers can request portions of their paycheck through the app which helps workers avoid overdrafts and late fees; the firm does not charge fees and earns revenue through tips. Source