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 new entity will work with businesses in a variety of ways; under “catalysts” internal consultants will help with problem solving and will include the eXellerator innovation lab; “Investments” will include their minority investments in a variety of companies; they have previously invested in Ripple and Paxata; “Ventures” will focus on their investments in new technology. Source
Curve lets customers consolidate their credit cards into one Curve card; Curve was previously in beta and available to business users only; the fintech company stated that they have 50,000 people on the waitlist and had 100,000 beta users; Curve offers a free version of the app and a premium version for £50. Source
US regulators did not sign off on Ant Financial’s acquisition of MoneyGram, but this won’t hamper their US ambitions; Last May Ant Financial did a deal with First Data, the payment infrastructure company; Ant Financial has been largely successful in China due to the unique financial system there; in the US they face other challenges which includes a more developed financial system with legacy players; it remains to be seen whether the eventual leaders in the US will be technology companies like Amazon, something we’ve seen happen in China. Source
With open banking starting last week in the UK, we might soon see a global push as Hong Kong is looking to explore the idea; the CFPB in the US recently came out with data sharing guidelines that look to begin creating a framework for future legislation; there is not yet the expectation that Hong Kong will adopt such regulations but they did ask for banks and fintechs to weigh in on the open API framework; the FT also sits down with former Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins to further discuss open banking and what it could mean for all participants. Source.
While speaking at the Asian Financial Forum Jiang Yang, vice chairman of China's Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said that fintech should serve the broader economy, not a select few; two markets mentioned in the talk included p2p lending and cryptocurrencies as they are two of the most popular areas of fintech in China; while Mr. Yang stated that fintech has provided more convenience they should not ignore risks like money laundering and financial crime; he also stated that regulators can play a key role to ensure these new tools are used properly and are widely adopted. Source.
Cumulative issuance for marketplace lending securitization now totals $28.2 billion across 106 deals; Q4 2017 issuance totaled $4.4 billion which was another record quarter; SoFi issued the largest consumer and student lending deals ever; PeerIQ shares other highlights in their quarterly report. Source
While speaking on Business Insider’s podcast “Success! How I Did It” Affirm CEO Max Levchin shared the story about how he started PayPal; Levchin moved out to Silicon Valley after starting a business that didn’t succeed and was sleeping on his friend’s floor; he saw Peter Thiel deliver a lecture and stayed after to chat with the then hedge fund manager; they met the next morning for breakfast and Thiel liked one of his two ideas, he decided to invest and that was the company that became PayPal. Source.
While the recent revisions to the tax code were done along party lines, the newly proposed updates to Dodd-Frank have the backing of a bipartisan group of legislators; the bill is looking to target banks in the $50bn to $250bn range who many feel have been disproportionately effected by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law; changing the definition of the banks from systemically important financial institutions or SIFI’s will free up the banks from certain requirements; while their is optimism for a deal that crosses party lines, Congress has a ways to go as they look to get this done later in the month. Source.
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo announced their earnings late last week and digital channels continue to be a growing force at the banks; JPMorgan Chase saw a 13 percent jump in active mobile customers to over 30 million; Wells Fargo’s growth was not as pronounced at 3 percent to over 21 million active mobile customers; this points to a broader industry trend where according to Business Insider’s Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study 83 percent of respondents use mobile banking; some recent trends the study has also seen include more attention to security, mobile transfers and users asking for more advanced features. Source.