M-Pesa is now in 11 countries, has more than 30 million users and helped to lift thousands of people out of poverty; Business Insider took a trip to Kenya to get a look at how the app works and the effect it has had on the region; 80 percent of mobile banking in Kenya is done through M-Pesa and people use the service for groceries, paying off debts with friends and more. 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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A new study has found that borrowers in China are taking out loans from multiple platforms; of 61 online lenders in the study, 44% of their customers borrowed from multiple sources; it is difficult to prevent against this since p2p lenders don’t have access to all of the credit data of their borrowers and there is no centralized place for platforms to share data; the study was done by the Beijing Internet Finance Industry Association. Source
With AI and machine learning technology becoming better banks of all sizes have started to employ chatbots with more regularity; Crowdfund Insider takes a look at 5 banks employing the technology; banks include Bank of America’s Erica, Swedbank’s Nina, Capital One’s Eno, SEB’s Aida and Wells Fargo; in most cases the chatbots help with simple tasks like checking balances, paying bills and finding the closest ATM. Source.
In March the Securities and Exchange Commission denied approval for a Bitcoin ETF by the Winklevoss twins because they said too many bitcoin markets were unregulated; with recent futures markets at the CBOE and CME starting there is new hope for ETF approvals; previous filings for ETFs are now being refilled and newer ETFs are being filed as recently as late last week; there has been similar products in Canada and Switzerland with both trading at premiums. Source.
This week’s PeerIQ Weekly Industry Update covers the Fed raising rates by 25 bps, Affirm’s big fundraising and securitization news; PNC announced their new lending pro cuts through their mobile wallet and anticipate it will outperform branch loans; Equifax completed their first Securitization, a $200mn deal backed by lender fee revenues; PeerIQ does a deep analysis on the Sharpe Ratio which helps to gauge risk-adjusted returns. Source.
The Independent Community Bankers of America have expressed concern about Square’s plans for a bank charter; they believe it would set a precedent for other tech companies like Amazon; According to Jacqueline Reses, Amazon and Facebook haven’t expressed interest in a banking license and they would have to be evaluated on their own merits; Square also recently met with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition to address concerns with the Community Reinvestment Act. Source
While the full English report is still in the works KPMG releases their annual Fintech 50 for China; China has become one of the most important fintech markets in the world as some of the largest companies are from the market; they are also one of the most diversified markets as they have leading companies in insurtech, payments, regtech and online lending. Source.
- ModusLink Announces Acquisition of IWCO Direct for $476 Million in Cash
- Fiserv teams with TransUnion for loan origination system
- City of London Group to launch challenger bank
- MarketInvoice touts double-digit returns for 2017
- Finiata Closes €18M Financing Round
- BorsadelCredito.it Raises €1.6M in Funding
- Upstart's First SaaS Partner
As part of their SoFi ReFi program, SoFi will now offer a six-month grace period for new graduates; typically refinancing student debt has meant that graduates must give up their grace period on loans. Source
Nominations for the LendItFintech Industry Awards Dinner are now open. The dinner will be held on April 10, 2018 at One Market in San Francisco and the event will celebrate 500+ Fintech influencers and innovations and their outstanding achievements in 21 categories. We encourage fintech companies from around the world to apply for the categories that are the best fit. Source