Marketplace lender, Spotcap, is headquartered in Germany and first launched in Spain; it now has opened an office in London and has begun serving the UK lending market; uncertainties with Brexit crossed executives' minds but didn't deter the launch; UK Managing Director, Niels Turfboer, said, "a lot needs to happen in the world [for London] to lose its position, which is basically number one in the world after Silicon Valley [for fintech]"; in fact, he adds, "Historically a period of uncertainty will lead to more restricted activity from the more traditional finance companies like the High Street banks. That has its effect mostly on the SMEs as they're considered to be more risky. I definitely think it's going to be a turbulent and challenging time but alternative finance will have more influence in the coming years, in my opinion."; the company focuses on offering working capital lines of credit for small businesses. 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.
To join our newsletter community please subscribe here.
The EU is working on a license for crowdfunding and p2p platforms to operate across multiple countries across Europe; the aim is to simplify the work required in each specific country to operate; AltFi shares perspectives from multiple platforms in Europe on the plans for a license. Source
Some of Europes largest online lenders have started to grapple with the idea of potentially becoming a bank; Funding Circle says it has no plans to do so, Zopa on the other hand says they are becoming a bank; other online lenders like YOUnited Credit in France and Raize in Portugal have thought about becoming a bank but thus far see the flexibility of not being a bank as an advantage; the banking market overall is going through quite the change and the definition of a bank is sure to be examined. Source.
Millennials are becoming more influential in the market for financial advice and investment management; currently a $71 trillion business, baby boomers have been the leading drivers over the past three decades; millennials however are gaining increased consideration since they now account for the greatest majority of the population in the US and UK; while they currently only hold a small percentage of the asset management market with $250 billion invested, venture capitalists are taking bets on their potential influence; the tech savvy generation has greater preference and confidence in tech powered solutions than the baby boomer generation with 85% of UK-based millennials surveyed by Legg Mason Global Asset Management reporting they were comfortable with robo advice while only 37% of investors aged 40 to 75 trusted online advice; leading robo advisors have initially attracted the attention of millennials however it's likely that more traditional asset managers will expand their offerings to capitalize on the growing opportunity. Source
Even Financial has been rapidly growing its business, now reporting over $1.5 billion in loan requests through its technology offerings; firm says loan originations from its services have been growing at a quarterly rate of 205%; the growth has been the result of increased interest in its offerings and expanding partnerships with lending businesses; firm provides technology for publishers seeking to build online solutions that compare lenders; it also offers its technology services to merchants for helping their clients identify the best financing options for purchases. Source