Voice recognition and machine learning technology are combining to offer consumers new services across various industries; in financial services ING has invested $945 million in a digital technology initiative that plans to include voice automated banking services through devices such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home; Amazon Alexa is now working with many financial services clients for voice integration including UBS, LPL, Fidelity, Capital One and Betterment; this week it was also reported that Wal-Mart will partner with Google to offer customers voice directed ordering through Google Home on Google Express. 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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One of the last actions of the Obama administration this week was to release a policy framework for fintech. This was a follow up from the White House Fintech Summit in June 2016 where many of the leading fintech companies gathered in Washington for a day of presentations and roundtable discussions. The paper provides a framework with ten principles that policymakers and regulators can use to think about and engage with the fintech ecosystem. Given today is the inauguration day for a new administration we won't know if these principles will be carried through but we do hope the Trump White House will make fintech innovation a priority. Source
In this week’s PeerIQ Industry Update they cover the latest minutes from the FOMC meeting, the new NY Fed report on mortgage lending and Lending Club’s earnings report; the FOMC is on track to raise rates 3 times in 2018 and the new rates could affect ABS pricing; the NY Fed report on the role of technology on mortgage lending said fintech lenders are reducing processing times by 20 percent and default rates by 25 percent; Lending Club reported record revenue and a net loss, their stock dropped 18 percent on the news; PeerIQ also gives a report on their recent partnership with Cross River Bank. Source.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) ended its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday and released an afternoon announcement reporting no change to the central bank borrowing rate which will remain at 0.25% to 0.50%; as expected the FOMC's statement did indicate that a rate hike in December was likely with new language saying the 2% inflation objective is near and that the Fed only needs "some further evidence" of economic progress for a rate increase; globally the US is one of few central banks tightening monetary policy; many are easing with negative rates; Japan's central bank borrowing rate is -0.10% and the ECB central bank borrowing rate is at 0% for the Eurozone; the Bank of England will be meeting on Thursday and is expected to keep its rate unchanged with further easing in 2017. Source
The “adrenalin ride” of fintech has been a big draw for banking...
This year’s Forbes 30 under 30 list features a diverse list of...
Among VCs featured in Institutional Investor’s list of the 40 top Fintech...
Forbes has released their third edition of the Fintech 50 list which includes 22 new companies; companies included all have operations, customers or impact in the US. Source
Forbes has released its 30 Under 30 Asia 2017 list of top venture capitalists and fintech entrepreneurs; the list includes fintech entrepreneurs managing P2P lending platforms in India, Philippines, China and South Korea; some of the top entrepreneurs in marketplace lending include Zhang Xiaoliang, cofounder of Beijing Kuaikuai Network Technology, and Wang Zeng, founder of Mujinnong. Source
GreenSky is the third most valuable fintech company in America; managed by David Zalik it provides a unique lending service with a business model scalable to diverse industries; currently focused on home remodeling contractors it offers fast approvals for borrowers with support by phone, website or mobile app; Forbes provides more details on David Zalik, the evolution of the business and its future aspirations. Source