SoFi is partnering with WSFS financial to roll out free checking account and debit cards this spring; it is calling the new initiative “SoFi Money”; the product will include peer to peer transfers, mobile check deposits and high yield interest rates on deposits; SoFi members will be the first to have access to SoFi Money before a broader rollout. Source
News Roundup
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Anthony Noto will become SoFi's CEO effective March 1; American Banker outlines the five challenges that Noto will face as he enters his new role; list includes reforming SoFi’s culture, determining when to go public, deciding how to grow, whether to go forward with a bank charter and proving that he has the right background. Source
Today StreetShares announced a $23 million Series B round; it was led by a $20 million investment from Rotunda Capital Partners, LLC; $3 million came from existing investors; StreetShares offers small business loans and primarily focuses on veteran-owned businesses. Source
A new survey by Bank of America found that 63 percent of millennials are saving money, that is on par with generation X and baby boomers; the survey shows that millennials are a lot more in tune with their financial lives then they are given credit for; the survey also found that millennials are more apt to ask for a raise and they also play into stereotypes by saying they spend too much and don’t save enough when asked by researchers. Source.
- Japan's Orix invests $60 mln in Chinese P2P lender Dianrong -sources
- Juvo Receives Investment from Samsung to Boost Smartphone Usage Among Underbanked
- Why career ‘boomerangers’ are rare in banking
- UK fintech takes the lead in the Forbes 30 under 30
- The challenger bank Chime says it has 750,000 millennial customers
- Borrowell launches free Equifax® credit report monitoring, a Canadian first
Anthony Noto will serve as CEO and Director effective March 1; Interim CEO Hutton stated, “We are simply thrilled to have found someone of Anthony’s expertise and knowledge to lead SoFi. The SoFi board unanimously agrees that Anthony’s deep understanding of technology, consumer, and financial businesses make him the perfect fit to be SoFi’s CEO. We could not be more excited to have someone of his caliber on board.”; Noto has previous experience as COO of Twitter and also worked for Goldman Sachs. Source
Bitcoin exchange Coinbase is reported to have brought in more than $1bn in revenues this past year; according to a report in Recode the revenue figures for Coinbase were supposed to be $600mn but the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas pushed them to over $1bn; the company has also seen spikes in users, with more than 100,000 users signing in over the Thanksgiving day weekend. Source.
Orange Bank, the bank from French Telecom group Orange, was launched a few months ago to help shake up the banking world; with more banking being done on mobile devices and the advent of PSD2 the company thinks it is well positioned to go head to head with banks; they have seen companies like Alibaba and Tencent disrupt finance in Asia and there has been talk of big tech coming into banking too, as a telecom they feel like they were perfectly positioned to make the move; Orange has seen early success and they are looking to soon add consumer lending, mortgages and insurance. Source.
Fundbox is already operating in an open banking environment allowing third party access to information; “What Fundbox is doing is indicative of this next wave of open banking and leveraging APIs to embed functionality in the longer tail of places where small businesses do work,” said Alenka Grealish, senior analyst at Celent, to American Banker; the company learned from past integration issues and created Fundbox Fuse which is a set of HTML code for lite integration; they announced new integrations with Bookly, AND CO, Billy, Paid and Knowify with the hopes of integrating to thousands of platforms to help democratize access to credit. Source.
Most financial services firms look to educate users by having a blog or providing some links to resources; Acorns CEO Noah Kerner says the company wants to go further, they have their own online magazine, interviews with celebrities and provide financial how tos; they will also push content to you based upon how you use the app, trying to customize your experience; the big difference they see is when they combine education with the app experience, helping to move education beyond just reading articles. Source.