European finance chiefs believe that tech companies moving into financial services is a threat to financial stability; they also highlight the need for companies to be held to the same regulation as big banks; banks are especially concerned as open banking regulations are now in effect; article shares perspectives from BBVA, ING and Lloyds. 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.
To join our newsletter community please subscribe here.
The head of NetCredit, a division of Enova, talks about their underwriting, bank partnerships, the human touch in credit and more. Source
Robo-advisors are far less prevalent in Europe compared to the US; however this is a growing market particularly in the UK and Germany; the UK market is larger, but Germany is growing at a faster rate; total assets under management stand at $3.5 billion at the end of 2017 according to TechFluence; it is estimated that there are around 98-126 robo-advisor services in Europe; article shares the biggest robo-advisors in Europe and the major differences between markets. Source
- Zorin Finance reaches £300m of lending
- Pace of Small Business Investment Remains Strong
- New Product Alleviates Mortgage Lending Compliance Risk and Worry
- Bitcoin Investors Had a Tough Week. Credit-Card Companies Are About to Make It Tougher
- India to bar cryptocurrencies from its payments system: finance ministry official
- NYC-Based Behalf Secures $150 Million in Debt Capital
During the week I share the latest marketplace lending and fintech news...
Alibaba announced it was taking a 33 percent stake in their fintech affiliate Ant Financial; the agreement allows for Alibaba to pick of shares of Ant Financial and also ends the revenue share agreement they had in place; TechCrunch reports the deal was focused on “certain intellectual property rights owned by Alibaba exclusively related to Ant Financial.”; Alibaba saw their shares drop after the announcement and many think this is a prelude to Ant Financial’s IPO. Source.
American Banker takes another look at 7 failed fintech ideas that might have been thought of too early; the ideas include Blippy’s social payments, Pay By Touch’s point of sale hardware, Cybercash by Beenz and Digicash by Flooz, the early days of mobile payments and more; with fintech being as fast paced as it is today new innovation is happening more now than it ever has been. Source.
The digital push at BBVA has helped the company to a 20 percent rise in profits; the changes have helped the company to lower costs while boosting profits; “The strength of recurring revenues and the improvement in efficiency show that we are advancing decisively in our transformation strategy,” said Francisco González, the group’s executive group chairman to the Financial Times. “2017 was a good year and 2018 will be an even better one.” Source.
The WSJ shares how the non-profit provides micro loans to women entrepreneurs and shares some success stories; the model is largely based on reputation and a support system instead of credit history; loans start at $500 with interest rates around 18% which fall over time as the balance is paid; entrepreneurs can receive larger loans after establishing a track record of repayment. Source
BBVA Compass, Capital One, Silicon Valley Bank, Citi, CBW Bank are some of the early adopters of open APIs that are beginning to transform how banking operates; the big question is how open will banking become and will it be mandated by legislation or will banks work with only those they trust; the one thing all banks are starting to do is make bigger investments into digital products, whether through partnerships or development as they see that the old way of banking will not survive. Source.