Goldman Sachs is providing a $100 million line of credit to Credijusto...
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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Challenger bank, Masthaven, launched to offer savings and lending products that they say traditional lenders have ignored; they are the UK's first owner-owned bank where 80% of employees own the bank; the bank uses "smart technology" to help customers meet certain savings goals or decide on loan products they feel would be right for them; Masthaven has been around since 2004 as a specialty lender and will also break into the mortgage market in 2017. Source
PYMNTS spoke with BMO Harris Bank COO Kyle Barnett about how they...
Overstock.com has launched a robo advising investor platform that will be presented by tZERO Advisors; investors can choose from a group of portfolios or create their own for $9.95 a month; tZERO Advisors uses FusionIQ’s investment platform which allows for the online investing; “This service introduces robo-advising investment management services to our millions of customers and continues Overstock’s commitment to bridging Wall Street and e-commerce,” shared Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne to Crowdfund Insider. Source.
Due to the high demand in awards submissions we are extending the...
Lending Club's stock increased $0.76 for a 15% gain on Monday after reporting third quarter earnings that beat analysts' expectations; company also announced a new partnership with Credigy who will be investing up to $1.3 billion in Lending Club's loans; Lend Academy provides details on the company's earnings report in their article; highlights from the earnings report include revenue of $112.61 million, up from $102.4 million in the second quarter; earnings per share of -$0.04, up from -$0.09 in the second quarter; loan originations also increased with total third quarter volume of $1.97 billion, up from $1.96 billion in the second quarter however still significantly down from their high of $2.75 billion in the first quarter of 2016. Source
The Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index shows another increase in small business approval rates at traditional banks in January with big banks approving a new high of 24% of small business loans; Biz2Credit CEO Rohit Arora attributes the increase to optimism over the Trump administration's regulatory initiatives for financial services; loan approval rates at small banks were basically unchanged at 48.9%; the loan approval rate for institutional lenders remained at 63.4%; loan approval rates at credit unions decreased to 40.8%; loan approval rates decreased for alternative lenders, with the average approval rate at 58.5%. Source
India has fast become one of the world's most interesting fintech markets; at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a fireside chat focused on digital credit for the India population and how their biometric Aadhaar system plays a key role; a few key developments have helped the India population, the ease of acquiring a smartphone and the Aadhaar system; Aadhaar started with an investment by the India government eight years ago and today there is one billion Indians who have an Aadhaar number with key identifiable pieces of information; the government then began linking Aadhaar with the banking system and enlisted fintech firms to begin extending microloans to individuals and SMEs; Aadhaar helps to solve the biggest issue with lending, KYC, by using a retina scan or biometric signature to verify the borrower; the fireside chat also talked through how the lending process worked with Aadhaar and how it has helped to extend credit to a segment of the population that only a few years ago was unable to access capital. Source
Hong Kong based mobile lender WeLab raised $220mn in a series B financing; investors in the round include Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, CreditSuisse, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and others; they plan to use the funds for improving credit technology and look to expand globally. Source.
Community banks feel the pressure from fintech companies and big banks as technology is changing the way banks operate; a recent SourceMedia survey of 304 chief information officers of banks, credit unions and other financial services firms says 70 percent plan to invest more in technology in the near term; they are digitizing lending, making document collection easier, investing in mobile app technology and more. Source.