FT Alphaville analyzes a new report by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) which looks at central bank cryptocurrencies; the biggest takeaway as the FT points out is central banks could add to the pool of anonymous cash in the system by digitizing currency in such a way that digital accounts remain anonymous. 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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Arthur Levitt, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, says the recent scandal at SoFi has cost them approval of their special bank charter; he tells the FT, “So for a company as aggressive as SoFi, I think the chances of that happening were slim. Now they become almost impossible.” Source
A lot of the significant investment in ICOs has come from people who have made millions in bitcoin and need to diversify; Business Insider sat down with Lightspeed Venture Partners investor Jeremy Liew and Blockchain founder/CEO Peter Smith to discuss the ICO market and why so much money has flooded into these startups; the discussion also touched on the recent Chinese crackdown on ICOs which has driven the price of Bitcoin down and the need to diversify looks to be more important than ever. Source
During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter...
Raisin is looking to expand on their deposit marketplace by offering a term deposit product to European SMEs; this will allow SMEs to earn money on their cash instead of dealing with negative interest rates that have been prevalent across Europe; currently Raisin has enlisted Banco BNI Europa from Portugal, Younited Credit from France and Greenhill Bank from Germany in the product. Source.
Google is expected to launch a mobile payments app in India next week; Google Tez, which means fast in Hindi, will offer a comprehensive set of payment options beyond existing products like Android Pay according to Banking Technology; it also plans to support Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Paytm and MobiKwik. Source.
The recent regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrency markets, specifically in China, has dropped the worldwide market cap to $98.95bn; as recently as two weeks ago the market cap was up around $180bn; while the size of the market continues to fluctuate, it remains to be seen where prices will head when regulatory crackdowns pass. Source.
Hong Kong-based TNG FinTech Group Raises a $115mn series A round; the round was led by New Margin Capital, with participation from Nogle Group and Infinity-KBR Group; the funds will be used to expand globally and invest in new technologies including blockchain. Source.
deBanked has taken the Inc 5000 list and provided a table of the top alternative small business companies by revenue; the top 5 include Square, OnDeck, Kabbage, Swift Capital and National Funding. Source
Target Global, based in Berlin has closed a new fund; the fund will focus on Seed and Series A rounds and expects to fund 20 companies primarily in Germany and Israel; Shmuel Chafets, General Partner at Target Global stated, “Target Global’s Early Stage Fund will serve as a bridge connecting Tel Aviv and Berlin. Germany in general and Berlin more specifically have been able to produce great companies, but if Berlin truly hopes to become a global tech hub it must open itself up to real innovations and groundbreaking technologies. On the other hand, If Israel wants to continue to be the “start up nation” , it has to create sustainable, long-term companies and efficient business processes. We already see some early signs of collaboration taking place, but we believe we can help expand it to other industries.” Source