As two new banking applications come to market this week, the question that comes to mind is can all of these startups survive and disrupt the banks?; there are questions surrounding business models and how each company intends to make money in a market that is becoming more crowded each day; each of these new startups has different challenges that lie ahead, some will need to be approved for a banking license and others will need to understand the regulatory framework behind PSD2. 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.
To join our newsletter community please subscribe here.
Georg Ludviksson, the head of Meniga, a digital bank that was started in Finland back in 2009, says that banks are at risk of losing the top spot among their customer base; tech giants like Google, Facebook and Alibaba are placing themselves between banks, and their customers are no longer seeing their traditional bank as the go to place for financial services; Georg Ludviksson also points out that the coming PSD2 regulation will shift the balance of power from banks to the customer and that the regulation has the potential to transform banking in Europe. Source
Citi customers will now have a simple and fast option for online, in-app and in-store payment needs with the new digital wallet Citi Pay; this will be viewed as a digital expansion of their current bank and credit card accounts; Citi is also partnering with Mastercard to leverage their digital payment service, Masterpass, which will give Citi customers access to hundreds of thousands of merchants in 33 countries. Source
Deutsche Bank has released a report sharing that three out of four capital market participants believe distributed ledger tech will see widespread use within the next three to six years; of 200 surveyed, 87% reported they believe it is likely to have an impact on securities services; respondents believe cost savings and protection against system failures are key benefits to the new technology. Source
At the Ethereum Developer Conference on November 9, Microsoft announced that it would offer blockchain building blocks as part of its Azure cloud hosting platform; the Ethereum Blockchain as a Service (EBaaS) offering allows developers to quickly launch an Ethereum environment which includes code building blocks for SmartContracts and a semi-private testing environment with a blockchain which then can be migrated to the public Ethereum environment; the offering is in partnership with development house ConsenSys. Source
The Economist magazine's intelligence unit (EIU) has published a report on regulatory support for financial inclusion in developing countries and it is now gaining traction with press and analysts; the report scores countries on having an inclusiveness strategy and building governmental and private sector expertise, then provides in-depth details in areas including credit markets, non-regulated lenders, payments and insurance; Colombia ties Peru this year for the most progressive country; India has shown the most improvement; Latin America and East/South Asia are leaders regionally while Africa and the Middle East remain behind; the EIU performed the research in conjunction with the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Multilateral Investment Fund at the Inter-American Development Bank. Source
During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter...
Small business, marketplace lender, Kabbage, has announced two new executive hires; the executive hires will focus on technology and data as the company seeks to expand and gain greater market share in online small business lending; Amala Duggirala will join Kabbage as the chief technology officer and Rama Rao will be the chief data officer. Source
MoolahSense, a marketplace lender focused on small business loans, has received a full Capital Markets Services (CMS) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS); the MAS license allows the business to offer its loan investments in the country to a broad range of investors including retail investors, high net worth individuals and private funds. Source
Fund manager, Ben Conway of Hawksmoor, promotes alternative credit as a risk averse investment in the current market; with cash levels reaching 15 year highs according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, many investment managers have significantly increased their low risk fixed income allocations; Hawksmoor says the growing number of alternative credit investments are providing a good area of value across all markets and a strong fixed income alternative. Source