The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a financial government agency overseen by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, held a fintech forum discussing the industry; industry speakers included Ram Ahluwalia from PeerIQ and Matt Burton from Orchard; SEC speakers included Mary Jo White and Michael Piwowar; Mary Jo White focused on fintech responsibility suggesting thorough testing of various aspects of the business before introduction; Michael Piwowar focused on fintech sandbox testing and suggested that the SEC should be the lead agency regulating fintech; in an announcement on Monday, Mary Jo White also said she would be leaving her role in January. Source
The company has raised $26.5 million to expand its digital transactions management business and bolster the staff to increase product development; the round was led by LLR Partners, a Philadelphia-based private equity firm; CEO Stephen Bisbee said, "We are seeing more opportunity in front of us than we're able to execute with our current staff." Source
Scott Morrison, Australia's treasurer, spoke about regtech at the Fintech Australia Summit; the treasurer discussed a regtech collision occurring in fintech where both crowdfunding firms and traditional banks are benefiting from increased technological innovation around regulation; likely that the marketplace lending ecosystem could see expansion in regulatory technology innovation. Source
New government fintech initiatives are trending across the globe and the European Commission (EC) is one of the most recent regulatory agencies to add a fintech group; the EC is the governing regulator for the European Union; it has announced a Financial Technology Task Force (FTTF) to be co-chaired by DG FISMA and DG CONNECT; the FTTF will facilitate regulatory communication in the areas of financial regulation, digital business, competition and consumer protection. Source
Accion Venture Lab, a seed stage investment vehicle for financial inclusion firm Accion, has sold its stake in Varthana; Varthana provides specialized loans and services so people in India can afford to attend private schools; Accion Venture Lab's first investment into Varthana was in 2013; Varthana recently raised $14 million in the spring of 2016. Source
The UK-based, wealth management company, raised £30 million to help expand their product offering across the UK; investors include Convoy, a Hong Kong-listed firm of independent financial advisers, as well as existing backers Schroders, Balderton Capital, Pentech, Armada Investment Group and Nigel Wray; the funding is subject to the approval of the Financial Conduct Authority. Source
SunTrust Bank saw the writing on the wall a couple of years ago, their aged technology was not efficient and new startup lenders were able to provide loans a lot faster; it took 18 months to overhaul their systems but the bank is now ready to go live with a unified, faster operation they feel is ready to compete in this new fintech era; "When you think about what clients want, most of all they want their money quickly, and they go to fintechs because of the speed," said Pam Kilday, head of operations at SunTrust bank; Pam Kilday says, "We see speed as a competitive edge and we want to be at the forefront." Source
PwC's new Vulcan Digital Asset service will include digital asset wallets, international payment processing, investment/trading services, and eventually point-of-sale and merchant services; platform is currently in pilot mode by an international banking group and a central bank; an airline and other multinational banks are assessing the platform; according to Robert Allen, PwC director and Vulcan lead, "Vulcan is a cloud-based platform that enables banks and corporates to offer a suite of new digital currency related products and services to individual, retail and institutional customers within a trusted, transparent and compliant ecosystem. It is the first of its kind globally and has been created to bring digital assets and currency to the mainstream." Source
The agreement was signed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the People's Bank of China, the intention of the deal is to strengthen regulatory cooperation and boost market access for fintech startups in both markets; the "Fintech Bridge" as it is being called will allow the countries to share information about financial services and help to spot emerging trends in each market. Source
Recent research by Juniper Research reports that fintech platform revenues are to reach $10.5 billion globally by 2020, up from $5.2 billion expected this year; factors contributing to the rise are: an acceleration in P2P lending, crowdfunding becoming a viable alternative to traditional lending mechanisms and the deployment of next generation analytics platforms. Source