European deposit marketplace Raisin has passed $6mn in brokered savings deposits; deposits grew by more than $3.5mn in 2017 and they saw their international customer base grow by 20 percent; the company acquired PBF Solutions, passed 100,000 customers, added 12 new partner banks and received more than $49mn in interest income last year; “We are pleased to be able to offer savers throughout Europe an attractive alternative.” said Tamaz Georgadze, CEO and founding member, to AltFi. 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.
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Louis Beryl was co-founder and chief executive of Earnest; he left the company this week; Navient Corp purchased Earnest back in October 2017 for $155 million; Earnest co-founder Ben Hutchinson remains at the company as chief operating officer. Source
Anthony Thomson, Founder & Chairman of Atom Bank, is stepping down after the company completes their latest fundraising; Bridget Rosewell, current non executive director, will assume they role left by Anthony; Mr. Thomson started the digital bank in 2014, raised more than $350mn and has guided the company to a top 10 rating in KPMG’s fintech rankings; “Since having the idea for Atom bank in early 2012, it has gone from being a big idea disguised as a small bank to a big idea and a big bank,” said Thomson in a statement reported by AltFi. Source.
Tim Draper spoke at the event Blockchain Connect Conference today; he stated, “In five years, if you go to a Starbucks or McDonald's and try to buy a burger or coffee with fiat currency, the person at the counter is going to laugh at you. There's a real need for a currency that's global.”; Draper was an early backer in companies like Skype and Baidu; his interests have since turned to bitcoin and ICOs. Source
SoFi originated $12.9 billion and sold more than $2 billion in loans in 2017; Ashish Jain, senior vice president of capital markets provides some insight into how hard the team worked to ensure their success in 2017 stating, “We were willing to do calls at any hour, to assure them the quality of product was high, and that there weren't any issues on these loans they were buying. Synovus and Citizens were among the banks that bought SoFi loans last year.”; Jain reports that all of their investors are still buying and they have brought in new investors after Mike Cagney left the company. Source
Includes data from the UK, EU and the US; AltFi projects €2.8 billion to be lent in Europe in 2018 and £7.5 billion in the UK; this would represent a year over year increase of 73% and 43% respectively; overall 2017 was a bounce-back year for the marketplace lending industry across the globe. Source
Mr. Clayton is chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Mr. Giancarlo is chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; in a Wall Street Journal article they share their perspective on regulation as it relates to cryptocurrencies; they discuss trading, listed bitcoin futures products, ICOs and more. Source
Mastercard said all consumers will be able to use biometric identification when they shop and pay by April of next year; banks offering Mastercard branded cards will have to have biometrics alongside the typical PIN and password; the company cited consumers preference for this type of authentication and new regulations like PSD2 in Europe; Mark Barnett, president, Mastercard UK and Ireland, tells Banking Technology: “It will make the purchase much smoother, and instead of having to remember passwords to authenticate, shoppers will have the chance to use a fingerprint or a picture of themselves.” Source.
Starting in February, Robinhood will allow users to buy and sell bitcoin and ethereum without any additional fees; they will compete directly with Coinbase who charge 1.5 - 4% in fees; users will also be able to track prices, news and set alerts on many top cryptocurrencies; the company plans to operate this part of the business on a break-even basis. Source