- Alkami Raises $70M in Series D Funding
- Robo advice platform citing AI and machine learning raises £562k on Crowdcube
- UpLift Closes Financings of $90M
- Fintech as a gateway for criminal enterprise
- Reliamax’s Michael VanErdewyk: ‘We’re seeing a move towards more private student loans’
- U2 Frontman Bono Directs Investment Fund into FinTech
- KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Marlette Funding Trust 2018-1
- Lending Marketplace Lendix Raises €200 Million Institutional Financing to Trailblaze European Alternative SME Finance
- Zopa to launch income verification tool using Open Banking
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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The CEO and Chairman of Laurel Road, formerly Darien Rowayton Bank (DRB), shares how he built a small community bank into a leader in student loan refinancing. Source
Investing startup M1 Finance decided in December that charging 25 to 40 basis points was not working, so it decided to allow users to use their platform for free; since shifting to the free model the company has seen more than $1mn a day come onto the platform; rival robo advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront think the move is an act of desperation, though both companies offer or have offered some version free services; CEO of M1 Brian Barnes tells Business Insider, “M1 is very limiting from a trading perspective but it is a phenomenal tool for building a portfolio for the investments you want." Source.
Researches have investigated price manipulations in cryptocurrencies and have written a paper titled “Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem” which shares their findings; many of the newer cryptocurrencies as well as bitcoin in the early days were subject to manipulation since they were thinly traded; the article also shares instances of fake trades during the Mt.Gox hack. Source
The new method called DAICO incorporates characteristics of DAOs or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; the goal is to reduce complexity and risk with ICOs; article shares the benefits of this new approach. Source
This past weekend p2p payments platform Zelle started a marketing push in 6 major US markets; Early Warning, Zelle’s owner, started the ads during last weekends NFL football games and has plans to further advertise during the Grammy Awards, the NBA All-Star Game and more upcoming events; while Zelle has past Venmo in volume the platform is not nearly as widely known and it isn’t entirely clear how many users they have because it is integrated with your banking app; the company also plans to do a push in print and digital ads over the coming months. Source.
Wells Fargo has seen customers become more adept at using digital and plans to accelerate their branch closure plans; the company is looking to close more than 800 branches by the end of 2020; “Our vision of satisfying our customers’ financial needs remains unchanged, but how we execute this vision has evolved; this evolution includes developing new ways to more efficiently serve our customers and create a better customer experience,” said CEO Tim Sloan on a conference call as reported by TearSheet; the closures are expected the save the bank about $4bn. Source.
In this week’s PeerIQ Industry Update they look at the record levels of consumer debt, some regulatory changes, new securitizations and give an update on recent hirings; consumer credit is now at an all time high surpassing $1tn, though per capita levels remain below peak; the Trump administration is looking to revise the Community Reinvestment Act rules to include small business loans; Marlette’s newest securitization, MFT 2018-1, consists of loans originated by Cross River bank for over $390mn and it has received ratings from Kroll; PeerIQ also announced the hiring of 6 new employees as the company continues to grow. Source.
Victory Park is one of the biggest backers of subprime lenders in the US; they have provided capital to companies like Avant, Elevate and LendUp totaling $6.5 billion from 90 deals; the firm is now looking at zip Money in Australia, Kreditech in Germany and Oakam in the UK. Source
One of China’s leading online wealth management companies Lufax is looking to go public in Hong Kong at a $60bn valuation; the South China Morning Post reports the company intends to file their application by the end of January; Lufax was last valued at $18bn in 2016, they have more than 33 million users and over $75bn in assets under management. Source.