Christopher Woolard, the FCA’s executive director of strategy and competition, said he would like to see a collaboration of global regulators to encourage fintech growth; this would be in the style of a global sandbox and would be quite the undertaking but as Mr. Wollard stated, they are up for it; this would allow companies to better understand the regulatory limits and help to stop global issues like money laundering. 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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German Digital bank N26 has raised $160mn to fund their U.S expansion plans; Tencent and Allianz were lead investors in the round and it could set the stage for a future IPO according to N26 co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf; “It's a good round to be as independent as possible,” Stalf said to TechCrunch. “This funding round really brings N26 to a pre-IPO stage. I think we see a clear path to a very sustainable company with this funding round. Maybe in the next five years there will be an IPO.”; the bank currently has eight staff members in NY and customers have been signing up on the waiting list since October 2017. Source.
- US Treasury Publishes 5 Tips For Blockchain Projects
- Blockchain startups are overvalued: Q&A with Anju Patwardhan, Managing Director at CreditEase China
- Franklin Resources acquires machine-learning lending firm Random Forest Capital
- Buyers acquire taste for deposit-rich banks
- How digital banks are raising the bar for customer experience
Microinvesting fintech app Blast has come up with a new way for individuals to save money, video games; unlike past attempts where a bank has created a savings game, Blast’s idea is to use existing games like League of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive where players are rewarded for tasks completed; this new style of gamification is not trying to change the user but instead it looks to use the framework of a customers existing life; they are currently starting with a savings account but are seeking partnerships with financial institutions. Source.
Lend Academy answers the question: Where does the UK stand after more than two months since the introduction of open banking? Source
While trying to raise money for their robotics and AI startup Trevor McFredries found an issue that he wanted to change, all investors were white men; he, along with his colleague Sara DeCou, stated they would not accept money unless the investors had a woman or a person of color in a senior position; 400 tech entrepreneurs have banded together to form a coalition called Founders of Change to make real progress on diversity; the group is inspired by the broader movement to make businesses more diverse and include more voices as the old ways of investing need to change. Source.
Many predict that Amazon will introduce a payments system for Alexa; American Banker looks at whether Amazon is really ready for to make this a reality; one of the biggest problems relates to the ability to authenticate transactions; Alexa isn’t able to distinguish whether a person is who they claim to be; article also shares the banks that are currently leveraging voice technology with some of the early adopters being US Bank, USAA, Ally, Capital One and TD Bank. Source
HSBC is looking to leverage AI to predict how customers might redeem rewards points; the bank is looking to market specific offerings to the person so they get a tailored experience; the bank has partner with Maritz Motivation Solutions who uses technology to suggest categories to cardholders based on their likeliness to redeem the rewards; with so much competition in the market the bank knows they need to better tailor their experience to the different types of customers they have. Source.
Mike Cagney was previously a co-founder of SoFi; after resigning last year he began work on a new startup which involves home improvement financing and HELOCs; the company is called Figure and is live at www.figure.com; according to the website, “Figure is a financial technology company with the mission of leveraging blockchain, AI and advanced analytics to unlock new access points for consumer credit products that can transform the financial lives of our customers. We provide home equity release solutions, including home equity lines of credit, home improvement loans and home buy-lease back offerings for retirement.” Source
Digital only banks have certainly attracted the attention of incumbents as they look to keep up with customer experience innovation; in the past year banks like Chase, RBS and others have started creating their own digital only brands; the digital only banks have been able to more easily create online marketplaces for products, better options for traveling and mobile workers and they have made the customers a part building the experience; this more nimble, quicker way of building has put pressure on big banks to keep up as many sizable banks have many layers of compliance and process to build. Source.