The $1.3 billion round was led by private equity firm Primavera Capital...
News Roundup
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Though the company started off as a P2P lender, Lufax has diversified their offerings with great success and now views themselves as a Charles Schwab for the 21st century; as CEO Gregory Gibb says, "The truth is, we started there, but it represents less than 10% of our business volume today. So I think we're really very much an online wealth management platform."; Lufax focuses their business on wealth management, credit-rating services and institutional services where 60% to 70% of its solutions are based on traditional credit-rating metrics, with the remaining 30% to 40% centered on big data. Source
Lufax has reportedly hired five banks to work on a Hong Kong IPO which could raise as much as $5 billion; SoftBank’s vision fund is also in talks to invest in the company according to sources; Lufax is the 10th largest unicorn and has delayed IPO plans over the past few years. Source
Luvleen Sidhu took over as CEO of BankMobile in January after serving...
Lyft has announced a set of tools to better serve their drivers;...
M-Pesa is now in 11 countries, has more than 30 million users and helped to lift thousands of people out of poverty; Business Insider took a trip to Kenya to get a look at how the app works and the effect it has had on the region; 80 percent of mobile banking in Kenya is done through M-Pesa and people use the service for groceries, paying off debts with friends and more. 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.
Digital investment startup M1 Finance drooped their assets under management fees to zero in December; the company plans to make money through back end services and charges fees fopr paper statements, wire transfers and transferring to another brokerage; “It’s taking a similar approach to how the rest of financial services works,” CEO Brian Barnes said to TearSheet. “Banks make money on cash, assets, transaction revenue and the ability to cross sell — the more users, the more assets, and the more money M1 will make.”; the company current holds more than $100mn assets under management. Source.
M1 is a unique company in the investment space, letting users open...
Money360-affiliate M360 Advisors has registered with the South Korea Financial Supervisory Service; the registration allows institutional investors from South Korea to invest in the firm's real estate fund; the fund invests in secured US commercial real estate properties through bridge loans and offers global investors a high yield fixed income alternative; the fund has already received $65 million from a South Korean institutional investor and is planning for investment of $250 million in the first half of 2017; the fund is managed to provide international tax efficient investing along with high yield fixed income returns and has a number of other foreign investors including investors in China, Singapore, South Africa, Europe, Canada, the Netherlands and Kuwait. Source