This past weekend p2p payments platform Zelle started a marketing push in 6 major US markets; Early Warning, Zelle’s owner, started the ads during last weekends NFL football games and has plans to further advertise during the Grammy Awards, the NBA All-Star Game and more upcoming events; while Zelle has past Venmo in volume the platform is not nearly as widely known and it isn’t entirely clear how many users they have because it is integrated with your banking app; the company also plans to do a push in print and digital ads over the coming months. 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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The new method called DAICO incorporates characteristics of DAOs or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; the goal is to reduce complexity and risk with ICOs; article shares the benefits of this new approach. Source
Researches have investigated price manipulations in cryptocurrencies and have written a paper titled “Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem” which shares their findings; many of the newer cryptocurrencies as well as bitcoin in the early days were subject to manipulation since they were thinly traded; the article also shares instances of fake trades during the Mt.Gox hack. Source
Investing startup M1 Finance decided in December that charging 25 to 40 basis points was not working, so it decided to allow users to use their platform for free; since shifting to the free model the company has seen more than $1mn a day come onto the platform; rival robo advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront think the move is an act of desperation, though both companies offer or have offered some version free services; CEO of M1 Brian Barnes tells Business Insider, “M1 is very limiting from a trading perspective but it is a phenomenal tool for building a portfolio for the investments you want." Source.
The CEO and Chairman of Laurel Road, formerly Darien Rowayton Bank (DRB), shares how he built a small community bank into a leader in student loan refinancing. Source
- Alkami Raises $70M in Series D Funding
- Robo advice platform citing AI and machine learning raises £562k on Crowdcube
- UpLift Closes Financings of $90M
- Fintech as a gateway for criminal enterprise
- Reliamax’s Michael VanErdewyk: ‘We’re seeing a move towards more private student loans’
- U2 Frontman Bono Directs Investment Fund into FinTech
- KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Marlette Funding Trust 2018-1
- Lending Marketplace Lendix Raises €200 Million Institutional Financing to Trailblaze European Alternative SME Finance
- Zopa to launch income verification tool using Open Banking
During the week I share the latest marketplace lending and fintech news...
Goldman Sachs continues to expand into consumer lending and plans to offer home improvement loans this month; the loans are non-secured personal loans with interest rates lower than credit cards but higher than HELOCs; the company believes the quick financing time will be attractive compared to a HELOC. Source
The new express branches are meant to help customers with routine transactions like withdrawals and deposits; customers looking for further advice or a loan would be able to connect via videoconference or go to a typical branch; they are looking to serve millennials in a more efficient way and allow them to access bankers and wealth managers through a digital experience using iPads; removing some of the human intensive areas of the bank and making it more self serve will cut down on costs and help to serve the younger, digital customers. Source.
Kreditech, looking to launch in India, partnered with Mambu and their Software as a Service banking platform; Kreditechis planning to launch in India this year with their partner PayU, the payments provider; Alexander Graubner-Müller, CEO of Kreditech, tells Banking Technology that Mambu’s cloud-native solution “easily integrates into our architecture, allowing us to quickly scale and adapt to market and consumer demands”.; this will now be the sixth country the company is in and they plan to get it up and running in the first quarter of 2018. Source.