Prior to the license, the company operated as a platform for other third party funds to sell products through their wealth management platform Qian.qq.com and WeChat; now the company will be able to sell direct to its nearly 1 billion users; the company already had licenses for mobile payments, insurance and micro finance. 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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As CoinDesk reports Chinese publication Caixin said that the PBOC did not hold a meeting on shutting down mining activities; the meeting was supposed to be held on January 3rd and meant to focus on banning mining; the news means that the Chinese government is taking a more agnostic approach to bitcoin mining, not endorsing it but at the same time not banning it; more concrete news should surface in the coming months, for now firms like Bixin and ViaBTC will keep operating. Source.
Chris Larsen, Ripple’s co-founder and executive chairman is benefiting from Ripple’s (XRP) recent rise; CNBC reports that his net worth climbed to $59.9 billion yesterday, at least on paper; this puts him high on the Forbes 400 list, just head of Larry Ellison; Larsen owns 5.19 billion of the digital currency and has a 17% stake in the company; he was previously a founder of Prosper. Source
The Financial Stability Oversight Council's annual report includes a section discussing the risks of marketplace lending. Source
Roostify CEO Rajesh Bhat sat down with TearSheet to discuss the online mortgage market and stated we are still in the first quarter of the game; Roostify is an enterprise mortgage origination platform and has secured deals with JPMorgan Chase and Guild Mortgage; topics discussed include why mortgages are so hard to digitize, how banks have addressed the move to digital mortgages and how did Roostify come to be. Source.
Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates put together his list of the top ten trends that will define finance in 2018; some of the highlights from the list include alternative data become less alternative and more part of the norm; regulators are better at getting things done as opposed to congress; continued innovation in the fintech space and the fear of a potential cyber breach in the space; banks will begin to focus more attention to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Source.
YieldStreet Co-Founder and CEO Milind Mehere knew what is was like to be shut out of investment opportunities; after successfully scaling and selling his previous business he started YieldStreet to provide real estate, litigation funding and more to a wider group of investors; the company has returned over $80mn of principal and interest to investors; seeing litigation funding as one of the more interesting parts of the portfolio is an opportunity they feel is unique and can help to set the company apart. Source.
- Online lender Funding Circle inks partnership with Kansas bank
- Chinese social network’s stock jumps 47% after it says it’s raising money through cryptocurrency
- Stop Selling your Upside: How Blockchain Can Unlock Value in Real Estate Through Fractional Ownership
- Can blockchain technology revive peer-to-peer lending?
- Looking at 2018: A Discussion with Ron Suber
- MoneyLion raises $42M to grow its personal finance platform for the middle class
- FormFree's AccountChek Asset Report Meets Underwriting Guidelines for VA Loans
First proposed in June and recently signed by Governor Cuomo the 7 person task force will be focused on reviewing online lending activities in NY; the task force will be chosen by the governor, president of the senate and speaker of the assembly; they will report their findings on small business and consumer lending back to the governor. Source.
Cleaver stated, “If we fail to act on fintech, we are setting ourselves up for problems down the road. Not because the fintech folks are evil…but because we are behind the curve.”; Cleaver also discussed the importance of understanding what is going on in fintech so the proper safeguards can be put in place; he proposed that fintech companies should speak before the Financial Services Committee and that more meetings should be held. Source