Looking to stay competitive, Barclays has announced a new digital investment platform that promises to lower fees for investment services; the platform will be available to existing customers in 2017, providing an upgraded dashboard for viewing checking, savings and investment accounts, also adding increased capabilities for direct investments; this will help the bank keep in line with recent fintech innovation as robo advisors are becoming a bigger force in the wealth management space. Source
Stockholm, Sweden has announced it will be opening a fintech hub; leading developers of the Stockholm Fintech Hub include Matthew Argent of BLC Advisors, KPMG, NFT Ventures and Invest Stockholm; the Stockholm Fintech Hub is currently seeking partners and will be led by a steering committee including the Fintech Hub's developers; motivation from the developers for a fintech hub was driven by an ecosystem of fintech startups and high growth companies in the country; according to lead developer, Matthew Argent, the Stockholm Fintech Hub will seek to maintain standards and evolve the support ecosystem that provides resources for fintech companies. Source
New insurtech startup, Zensurance, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Ferst Capital Partners; the funds will be used to help grow the business and hire new employees; Zensurance is an online commercial insurance broker which offers a full range of products to small businesses, with a particular focus on digitizing businesses and technology startups. Source
Loot is a banking app designed to help the millennial generation with tracking how much they spend and how to better budget their money; the company does not have a banking license due to the associated regulatory burdens and costs, though they do partner with the German payments company Wirecard; they now offer paycheck deposits with two free ATM withdrawals a month and will soon have the ability to do international money transfers with low fees. Source
Paxos has announced it will add former New York Stock Exchange CEO Duncan Niederauer to its board of directors as blockchain companies are increasingly testing new blockchain technologies for exchange trading and post-trade settlement; Paxos is a blockchain service provider for the financial services industry; Niederauer says blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize post-trade clearing infrastructure. Source
In September, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry discussed his proposal for fintech regulation which he said would likely include a fintech charter; on Friday, Thomas Curry is expected to announce his plans for the fintech charter; potential provisions to be included with the fintech charter announcement include receivership powers which would provide support from the government if capital funding fails. Source
Germany's central bank is testing the use of blockchain technology in securities settlement; the central bank has partnered with Deutsche Börse to build a prototype; the prototype system is expected to be able to transfer electronic securities and digital coins also performing functions for coupon payments and redemptions of securities. Source
Off the recent news about Stripe's fundraising round, payment companies across the board are seeing growth and increased investor interest; Adyen BV, WePay, PayPal and Square are just a few of the other, well positioned names who are benefiting from the sector wide growth; Square's stock price rose on news of the Stripe fundraising; as online lenders have struggled, payment firms have only continued a pattern of growth, even more evident by the recent holiday sales numbers that showed 109 million people shopped online, more than the 99 million who went to the stores. Source
A survey of 70 traditional UK financial services firms by Mayer Brown has quantified the benefits of fintech partnerships in the financial services industry; 100% of survey participants said they would purchase a product or work directly with a fintech company over the next three years and 49% of respondents said they were currently working with a fintech firm in a joint venture partnership; other highlights from the survey report found that 87% of respondents could reduce costs after a fintech partnership, 83% of respondents were able to refresh their brand and 54% of respondents increased revenue. Source
The London-based startup that focuses on millennials raised 450,000 British pounds in seed funding from Passion Capital, with participation from Jason Butler; the funds will be used to build out the team and continue product development on Finimize MyLife; the company's Finimize MyLife product is a free online financial advice platform for millennials that provides anyone with a detailed and personalized financial plan guided by research and algorithms. Source