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
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
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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
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
American Express has joined the Hyperledger Project; the Hyperledger Project which is hosted by the Linux Foundation and supported by IBM, now includes over 100 members from various industries; in regards to joining the Hyperledger Project, Marc Gordon, executive vice president and chief information officer at American Express said, "We're excited to join Hyperledger, as we're looking to take full advantage of blockchain to deliver new and innovative products for our customers and partners, while transforming existing business processes and applications."; with the firm's membership, senior executive Sastry Durvasula, who is responsible for leading enterprise-wide big data, blockchain, digital payments and partnerships at American Express will join the Hyperledger Project's governing board. Source
Prosper has reported the loss of another company executive a few months after the resignation of its former CEO Aaron Vermut; Eric Thaller, executive vice president of capital markets, has left the firm to join Sunbit, a consumer lending startup offering point of sale credit solutions for retail businesses; Thaller was a lead advocate for institutional investment in marketplace loans and directed the firm's institutional investment business. Source
As with past conferences LendIt aims to bring new speakers to the conference; this year LendIt has confirmed Ash Gupta (President of American Express), Harit Talwar (CEO of Marcus) and Thomas Curry (Head of the OCC) among many others who are new to LendIt; the agenda will also include the leaders in online lending with representation from companies such as Lending Club, Prosper, OnDeck and loanDepot; the conference will be the largest for the industry to date with a 100,000 square foot exhibit hall, featuring over 200 companies; LendIt will end the conference with the first ever industry awards dinner. Source
PYMNTS.com provides insight from MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes on the Ant Financial merger; the merger represents a strategic deal that Holmes says will significantly benefit the industry and the shareholders of both companies; both companies are leading payment providers with MoneyGram offering global payment processing capabilities and Ant Financial seeking to expand on its market position in payments through Alipay in China; "We are going to see, when this deal goes through, those capabilities getting built out between our two organizations in a much more robust and dynamic way," said Alex Holmes. Source
London-based technology company Misys has plans for an IPO; the company had planned to offer its stock in 2016 but decided against its IPO and now says it could still be a possibility; the firm's CEO Nadeem Syed said it is currently focusing on its new machine learning and P2P lending products; earlier in January it announced a new P2P lending solution for banks, FusionBanking Crowdlending; currently it offers its clients a broad range of solutions through its FusionBanking products and its targeting existing clients with its new products. Source
Asset allocation is an emerging concept increasingly being introduced to Chinese retail investors who have historically invested in highly volatile markets; CreditEase is one fintech company in the region seeking to educate and support more strategic investing through robo advisory services; the fintech company launched its Toumi robo adviser service in May 2016; the automated service provides advice for clients based on age, risk aversion and other preferences; it offers stable returns with low fees; with numerous cases of fraud from fintech investing in China more of the retail population is interested in safer robo advisory investment options; the country currently has approximately RMB 100 trillion ($14.5 trillion) in personal investable assets with nearly all the major banks developing new robo adviser services. Source
James Blackham, former managing director and head of digital structuring at Goldman Sachs, is now leading a new insurtech startup; his firm, Just Miles, is focusing on personalized car insurance offerings; the firm has received venture capitalist funding and is developing its data analytics; at Just Miles, Blackham says he is taking the big data and analytics skills learned from his experience at Goldman Sachs and applying them to car insurance with the goal of providing an innovative car insurance solution for consumers. Source