Babak Hodjat is managing a hedge fund in San Francisco run completely by artificial intelligence (AI); his firm Sentient Technologies Inc. has been building an AI system for analyzing markets and automating trading for over a decade; performance for the firm is not publicly disclosed; numerous firm's in the wealth management industry are using some form of unbiased automated trading however Sentient is one of few firms that completely uses AI technology for comprehensively managing assets. Source
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
Every day the Fintech Nexus news team scours the globe for the most important stories of the day to include in our daily newsletter.
Then every Saturday we bring you our weekly news roundup of the top 10 fintech stories of the week with commentary from Peter Renton.
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A report from Crowdfund Insider says AssetAvenue has stopped originating loans; the California-based marketplace lender was providing property loans through its digital platform; firm raised $11 million in a Series A funding round in 2015; the firm's loans were primarily averaging approximately $2 million and the platform was open to all types of investors. Source
China is reporting 478,000 individual cases of complaints with problematic P2P lending firms; accounts for approximately 4.5% of the investors in P2P; the report coincides with the country's fraudulent P2P lending activity; 1,300 platforms were named problematic in 2016 with 2,388 platforms in good standing. Source
The fraud landscape is constantly changing and evolving with things like synthetic fraud increasing the costs consumers, businesses and governments are paying; synthetic identities are identities which are not tied to a real person; according to Pat Phelan from TransUnion, fraudulent transactions are currently costing the US $50 billion per year; Phelan talks with PYMNTS.com about some of the factors companies should consider when managing fraud and how businesses are managing fraud prevention programs overall. Source
Spanish bank BBVA has reported $90 million in goodwill impairment charges related to its acquisition of digital bank Simple; the acquisition has caused many analysts to question the valuation metrics for digital banks; BBVA acquired Simple in 2014 for $117 million which was $1,100 per customer; a similar digital bank sale of BankMobile is currently being priced at approximately $50 per customer; despite the impairment charges for BBVA, the bank has reported success from its acquisition with continued investment in Simple helping to increase its workforce to 350 employees. Source
Los Angeles-based Patch of Land has expanded its executive leadership team to help manage and continue business growth and market positioning for the online real estate platform; the firm has hired Robert Greenberg as its chief marketing officer and Min Lee as its chief financial officer; over the past year the firm has been building a strong leadership team with a number of new hires including CEO Paul Deitch; the firm's founders, Jason and Brian Fritton, have substantial growth prospects for the firm and expect to continue building on the firm's compound annual growth rate of 290%. Source
Germany's GLS Bank has launched an equity crowdfunding platform through collaboration with CrowdDesk; GLS Bank will do the due diligence for the platform's investments and CrowdDesk will primarily focus on the technical infrastructure and business services; the deal sets a precedent for bank crowdfunding partnerships in the equity crowdfunding space and will provide company financing for up to 2.5 million euros ($2.67 million). Source
Infinity Lending Systems offers a range of platform software services for online lenders; in their featured blog post J Washburn provides three tips for improving network security; suggests using clever passwords, regulating external devices and avoiding phishing attempts. Sponsored Blog Post
Lending Works has launched its innovative finance ISA; company offers unsecured loans to consumers; investors can invest over three or five years earning approximately 4% to 4.7% respectively; platforms RateSetter, Zopa and Funding Circle are still awaiting full authorization; on the subject of the major players still awaiting authorization Matthew Powell, director at Lending Works commented: "Among peer-to-peer firms there is some frustration over why it's taken so long. The regulator might have uncovered some things that they're not entirely happy about. I think the FCA has been surprised in the variation over the types of platforms they have had to examine. We're an easier prospect than some to understand - we're literally just the middleman, we don't take a balance sheet risk, and we don't lend our own money." Source
The Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index shows another increase in small business approval rates at traditional banks in January with big banks approving a new high of 24% of small business loans; Biz2Credit CEO Rohit Arora attributes the increase to optimism over the Trump administration's regulatory initiatives for financial services; loan approval rates at small banks were basically unchanged at 48.9%; the loan approval rate for institutional lenders remained at 63.4%; loan approval rates at credit unions decreased to 40.8%; loan approval rates decreased for alternative lenders, with the average approval rate at 58.5%. Source