Cloud Lending Solutions provides a white paper with insight on lending collections in their featured blog post; lending collections strategies can have a significant impact on a range of business factors for a lending firm; Cloud Lending Solutions offers CL Collections™ to help businesses develop more robust collections strategies that positively affect revenue and portfolio management. Sponsored Blog Post
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.
To join our newsletter community please subscribe here.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increased to 105.9 in January and reported its highest level since December 2004; in December 2016 the Index increased 7.4 points and has since continued to gain; small businesses have reported plans to increase workers and their optimism overall has been helped by policy proposals from the Trump administration. Source
Bank account applicants must now have assets at the bank averaging 5 million yuan ($730,000) per day over the past three months, this threshold is an increase from 50,000 yuan ($7,280); the changes are being enacted to help restrict capital outflows and ease depreciation of the yuan; sources also report that the Bank of China has taken steps to set additional terms for restricting capital outflow; China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have reported they have no intention to implement similar rules. Source
Santander's SmartBank app now includes increased voice control features; tasks include checking account balances, reporting stolen cards, tracking spending and transferring money; the functionality builds on Santander's original implementation of voice control last year; Ed Metzger, head of technology innovation, stated: "The worlds of technology and banking continue to evolve at pace, working hand in hand to deliver a friction-free user experience. We are excited to be the first UK high street bank to enable customers to make payments using just their voice, offering them another channel of choice in how they wish to bank." Source
Insturech platform Hippo provides home insurance; it has now announced a new partnership with Elafris to help it develop a virtual agent chatbot powered by artificial intelligence to provide virtual customer service for its clients; in comments regarding the partnership Jake Diner, founder and CEO of Elafris, said, "Our virtual agent technology allows insurance providers to radically transform the way they acquire new customers, boost their customer reach and engagement, increase conversion rate and customer satisfaction, and ultimately grow their business faster and more efficiently."; Elafris is a leading provider of artificial intelligence solutions for insurance companies and is currently working with major national insurance providers. Source
PayPal has announced the acquisition of TIO Networks for $233 million; TIO Networks is a bill payment management company and PayPal plans to integrate with its kiosks for bill payment at local merchants; the integration is part of an initiative to reach more underserved bank customers. Source
The LendIt Insurtech Forum was a lively discussion featuring Lemonade CEO Daniel Schreiber and Adam Kerns of the American Insurance Association, moderated by Thalia Smith of Deloitte; the discussion centered around insurance innovation, the effect of insurtech on traditional insurers and the current regulatory environment; panelists also answered audience questions and discussed a range of technological advancements that incumbents and insurtech startups are using to improve the customer experience; to download the recording of this interesting discussion please click here.
Since 2008 home equity has rebounded as the economy has recovered; since 2012 housing equity has increased by $7 trillion; despite the borrowing opportunity, home equity lending has yet to return to its pre-crisis levels; data from the New York Federal Reserve outlines current borrowing trends and factors that are now influencing home equity borrowing. Source
Researchers from the Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center have released data showing only 33% of lower credit quality applicants applying for a mortgage loan in comparison to 62% in 2006; standards for mortgage lending have increased since the 2008 financial crisis which researchers believe to be a factor causing fewer mortgage applications from the lower credit quality borrowers; the Urban Institute also cites other factors for fewer mortgage applications from the category including not having enough money for a down payment and less interest in homeownership. Source
Daimler Financial Services plans to invest 'double-digit' millions of euros in AutoGravity's vehicle financing platform; the investment will support Daimler's digital services financing portfolio; in January AutoGravity's app was launched in 46 states and it has now reported over 150,000 app downloads; it currently provides consumers with four auto financing offers. Source