Overstock has been building out their FinanceHub for the past few months to include Overstock credit cards and insurance products, loans by LendingTree, Prosper and SoFi, a robo-adviser for automated investing and a discounted trading platform; Raj Karkara, Overstock VP of loyalty and financial services, tells TearSheet, “Consumers don’t want to sit and sign 50 documents, they just want to go online and get through the steps they need to take to move forward.”; the moves made are part of a broader strategy for the retailer to become a full service fintech firm that caters to their clients needs. 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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Christine Farnish, the chair of the P2PFA for the past five years, is stepping down and is being replace by Paul Smee. Source
VersaBank is a small Ontario-based bank and is planning to have digital vaults available by June to customers around the globe; the bank hired a cybersecurity expert to lead “VersaVault”; digital assets will be stored on servers all over the world; the bank won’t know what is inside and won’t be able to access the contents. Source
There are unique tax implications when it comes to investing in marketplace lending and investors should consider investing through an IRA; LendingClub is currently offering a bonus for IRA investments and is working with a new preferred custodian. Source
- Kabbage Announces Partnership With TaxSlayer to Offer Small Businesses Access to Lines of Credit Up to $250,000
- Personal Capital Launches Socially Responsible Investing
- Autobooks Raises $10M in Series A1 Funding Round
- Ratesetter launches IFISA offer
- Former Keller Williams CEO Chris Heller joins loanDepot brand family as CEO of mello Home
- Lenders to allow Airbnb income on mortgage forms
- SharesPost Launches Unit Focused On Initial Coin Offerings; Hedge Fund Executive John Wu To Lead Group
Venmo currently accounts for about 39 percent of PayPal’s digital p2p payments business; PayPal and Venmo only charge users a fee when they use their credit cards, though Venmo has started to diversify their offerings to help PayPal’s bottom line; Venmo has expanded Pay with Venmo and started a instant cashout service which both have fees associated with them; they have seen fast adoption with both and the hopes are that a breakthrough year is coming soon. Source.
According to the WSJ, Goldman Sachs is in talks to offer financing on Apple products; this would be alternative to a consumer financing devices on a credit card; both companies didn’t comment on the story, but if a deal came together it could propel Goldman’s Marcus further into consumer finance. Source
The Chinese government has stepped up their monitoring on payments, halted IPO approvals, issued new rules for online lenders and continued their crackdown on cryptocurrencies; China has been seen as an innovation leader, in particular in mobile, but the recent crackdown could set the country back as a leading fintech innovator; as the nation matures in certain fintech areas its regulators need to better handle how they react to the market; Michelle Evans, global head of digital consumer research at Euromonitor International, tells TearSheet, “The next stage of its development will require Chinese regulators to find the right balance that will be provide for consumer protection and fair operations while still enabling fintech the room to innovate.” Source.
Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, the heads of the SEC and CFTC said they are keeping an eye on the market but might need help from Congress; “We should all come together, the federal banking regulators, CFTC, the SEC — there are states involved as well — and have a coordinated plan for dealing with virtual currency trading markets,” SEC Chairman Jay Clayton as reported by American Banker; CFTC Chairman Christopher Giancarlo said the technology behind cryptocurrencies should be considered differently that the currencies themselves; they also noted they are talking with global counterparts to learn their views on the market. Source.
Steve Strongin believes most digital currencies are unlikely to survive in their current form and that investors should be prepared for coins to lose all of their value; Strongin states that they are likely to be replaced by a small set of future competitors; he cites the high correlation of cryptocurrencies, the lack of intrinsic value and speed as reasons for concern; Strongin still is optimistic on blockchain technology. Source