While trying to raise money for their robotics and AI startup Trevor McFredries found an issue that he wanted to change, all investors were white men; he, along with his colleague Sara DeCou, stated they would not accept money unless the investors had a woman or a person of color in a senior position; 400 tech entrepreneurs have banded together to form a coalition called Founders of Change to make real progress on diversity; the group is inspired by the broader movement to make businesses more diverse and include more voices as the old ways of investing need to change. 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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Lend Academy answers the question: Where does the UK stand after more than two months since the introduction of open banking? Source
Microinvesting fintech app Blast has come up with a new way for individuals to save money, video games; unlike past attempts where a bank has created a savings game, Blast’s idea is to use existing games like League of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive where players are rewarded for tasks completed; this new style of gamification is not trying to change the user but instead it looks to use the framework of a customers existing life; they are currently starting with a savings account but are seeking partnerships with financial institutions. Source.
- US Treasury Publishes 5 Tips For Blockchain Projects
- Blockchain startups are overvalued: Q&A with Anju Patwardhan, Managing Director at CreditEase China
- Franklin Resources acquires machine-learning lending firm Random Forest Capital
- Buyers acquire taste for deposit-rich banks
- How digital banks are raising the bar for customer experience
German Digital bank N26 has raised $160mn to fund their U.S expansion plans; Tencent and Allianz were lead investors in the round and it could set the stage for a future IPO according to N26 co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf; “It's a good round to be as independent as possible,” Stalf said to TechCrunch. “This funding round really brings N26 to a pre-IPO stage. I think we see a clear path to a very sustainable company with this funding round. Maybe in the next five years there will be an IPO.”; the bank currently has eight staff members in NY and customers have been signing up on the waiting list since October 2017. Source.
Christopher Woolard, the FCA’s executive director of strategy and competition, said he would like to see a collaboration of global regulators to encourage fintech growth; this would be in the style of a global sandbox and would be quite the undertaking but as Mr. Wollard stated, they are up for it; this would allow companies to better understand the regulatory limits and help to stop global issues like money laundering. Source.
Affirm announced they are partnering with merchants to make financing available in-store; Affirm InStore works similar to their online point of sale solution where customers can pay for purchases over time with fixed installments; the company also announced that consumers will be able to add a newly issued Affirm virtual card via Apple Pay. Source
Alipay has partnered with Openpay in Mexico to further their expansion into the Americas; users of Alipay will now be able to use the service to make purchases at businesses that are affiliated with Openpay; Souheil Badran, President of Alipay Americas stated, “An increasing number of Chinese consumers are shopping for products in Mexico that they can’t find at home, and they want to be able to purchase those items with the payment method they use most often. Our partnership with Openpay not only connects Mexican merchants with Chinese consumers seeking their products and services, but also opens new revenue channels for merchants in Mexico. We are thrilled to be partnering with Openpay as we continue to expand the reach of Alipay throughout the Americas.” Source
The share of cash in 2016 accounted for 12.6 percent of GDP and the forecast includes the share being 11.2 percent by 2021; while new forms of payments are being adopted and card payments still used widely, cash will still play an important role; a few of the main reasons for continued cash usage is people prefer to use cash for small transactions, 27 percent of U.S. consumers are unbanked and fraud has become more widespread which can cause people to use cash more. Source.
The proposed crypto ad ban on Twitter would block ads related to cryptocurrency wallets, exchanges and ICOs; Twitter would be following Google and Facebook who have already instituted blocks on these ads; the ban would come sometime in the next few weeks and would include exceptions; the bans have been seen as proactive steps to root out scams. Source.