Peer-to-peer loan investing is growing as an investment category and capturing a greater share of the loan market from banks; as interest rates remain low across the globe and in the US, it continues to be a viable alternative to fixed income investing; Simon Moore discusses some of the current considerations for investing in P2P loans including availability, default risks, lending standards, interest rates, liquidity and tax efficiency. Source
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
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The round was led by Grupo Coppel with participation from FirstMark Capital, Revolution Ventures and Colchis Capital; INSIKT has facilitated 125,000 loans over the course of three years; their white-label product provides an alternative to payday loans and is currently used by 600 banks and credit unions; funds will be used to expand to new states and internationally. Source
INSIKT is a mission-driven fintech company offering loans to thin file borrowers;...
CNBC reports on institutional developments in the marketplace lending industry with statistics on the growing securitization market for marketplace loans; in 2016 securitizations backed by marketplace loans totaled $7.62 billion, a 300% increase from introduction in 2013; securitizations are expected to continue at a strong pace with SoFi dominating the 2016 securitization market with 58% of issuance and leading in 2017 with a $564 million securitization portfolio; other institutional investors are also reporting interest including Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital, Zurich Insurance Group, and property and casualty insurer Chubb. Source
This year's list is focused on fintech's most powerful dealmakers from the past year, with extra emphasis on partnerships that act not just as funders but also strategic advisors; the fintech sector in particular has taken the term partnership to a new level as these startups need the investment and advisory relationship more than other sectors; Vanessa Colella of Citi Ventures explains, "We are beginning to observe much more of a push toward collaboration - a shift from complete independence to an interest in building tools with established players that happened really quickly in this sector." Source
Fidelity recently conducted a survey which found that about half of institutional...
Cryptocurrencies have received a lot of attention in the last few months; currently there are about 15 dedicated hedge funds to the space, by end of 2017 there will be about 100 crypto hedge funds; General Crypto's Managing Partner Logan Kugler talks about the hedge fund growth and the strategy behind his fund buying and holding coins with game changing value; with a significant jump in institutional capital coming he helped put together a list of top cryptocurrency investors who all share their thoughts on their top three crypto choices. Source
Aegon has announced it will allocate 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of its investment portfolio to Auxmoney P2P loans; the platform offers average returns of 5.5%; the investment represents one of the market's largest institutional endorsements in P2P loans; Aegon is also involved in a 15 million euro ($16.03 million) Series E funding round for Auxmoney. Source
Lemonade provides part two of its 2016 Transparency Chronicles with statistics on its first quarter in the market; notes some positives and negatives including confusion around marketing the firm as a peer-to-peer insurance provider; says they are an artificial intelligence and behavioral economics company or a tech company doing insurance; highlights from the first quarter include: average homeowners and renters premiums of $165.5; 123 homeowners policies; 63% of customers 25 to 34 years old; males accounting for the majority of customers at 76.5%; a claim managed in three seconds by artificial intelligence. Source
According to ThreatMetrix, digital fraud has been costing insurance companies approximately $250 billion annually in recent years; data from ThreatMetrix also reports that fraudsters have compromised over five billion personal identities, 1 in 10 insurance accounts are fraudulent and 3% to 5% of all claims in the US are fraudulent which adds approximately $400 to the cost of a family's insurance per year; with these statistics, development in advanced fraud solutions is also becoming important for insurtech; machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are the main drivers behind many of the industry's fraud detection solutions and the AI capabilities are expected to gain even more traction as additional solutions evolve. Source