KYCK! is a Singapore fintech startup focused on compliance technology; the company has announced partnership with IBM for blockchain utilization to improve know your customer capabilities; KYCK! will use blockchain for identity verification and monitoring; partnership with IBM will help increase the security of data. 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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This year's list is focused on fintech's most powerful dealmakers from the past year, with extra emphasis on partnerships that act not just as funders but also strategic advisors; the fintech sector in particular has taken the term partnership to a new level as these startups need the investment and advisory relationship more than other sectors; Vanessa Colella of Citi Ventures explains, "We are beginning to observe much more of a push toward collaboration - a shift from complete independence to an interest in building tools with established players that happened really quickly in this sector." Source
Recent research by Juniper Research reports that fintech platform revenues are to reach $10.5 billion globally by 2020, up from $5.2 billion expected this year; factors contributing to the rise are: an acceleration in P2P lending, crowdfunding becoming a viable alternative to traditional lending mechanisms and the deployment of next generation analytics platforms. Source
Roofstock, an online marketplace in the single-family rental sector, raised $20 million in Series B funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Nyca Partners, QED Investors and SV Angel; they plan to use the proceeds to ramp up national expansion, invest in product development and roll out an asset management platform as they intend to reach domestic and global investors. Source
The agreement was signed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the People's Bank of China, the intention of the deal is to strengthen regulatory cooperation and boost market access for fintech startups in both markets; the "Fintech Bridge" as it is being called will allow the countries to share information about financial services and help to spot emerging trends in each market. Source
PwC's new Vulcan Digital Asset service will include digital asset wallets, international payment processing, investment/trading services, and eventually point-of-sale and merchant services; platform is currently in pilot mode by an international banking group and a central bank; an airline and other multinational banks are assessing the platform; according to Robert Allen, PwC director and Vulcan lead, "Vulcan is a cloud-based platform that enables banks and corporates to offer a suite of new digital currency related products and services to individual, retail and institutional customers within a trusted, transparent and compliant ecosystem. It is the first of its kind globally and has been created to bring digital assets and currency to the mainstream." Source
In Orchard's Weekly Online Lending Snapshot, the company introduces a new section on US marketplace lending funds and highlights the growing business also noting RiverNorth's November 17 webcast, "Incorporating Marketplace Lending into an Institutional Portfolio"; notable data points from the snapshot include monthly gains in publicly traded companies for Lending Club, Yirendai and Square; in UK listed funds, the Ranger Direct Lending Fund continues to lead returns with a monthly gain of 2.27%; the RiverNorth Marketplace Lending Fund also has a monthly gain, with a return of 0.84%; in securitization the snapshot has Lendmark Funding Trust as the most recent securitization with a pricing date of October 26. Source
dv01, a company which specializes in reporting and analytics in the marketplace lending industry, has announced an integration with Intex Solutions; Intex is a provider of structured fixed income cash flow models; Intex and dv01 clients will now be able to run cash flows by importing pools of loans from dv01 into Intex's application; according to dv01 CEO Perry Rahbar, "Intex is the leader for cashflows in the structured credit markets, and the completion of this integration brings immediate value to our clients by simplifying and expediting their workflows." Source
SunTrust Bank saw the writing on the wall a couple of years ago, their aged technology was not efficient and new startup lenders were able to provide loans a lot faster; it took 18 months to overhaul their systems but the bank is now ready to go live with a unified, faster operation they feel is ready to compete in this new fintech era; "When you think about what clients want, most of all they want their money quickly, and they go to fintechs because of the speed," said Pam Kilday, head of operations at SunTrust bank; Pam Kilday says, "We see speed as a competitive edge and we want to be at the forefront." Source
Global Debt Registry has written a white paper on emerging risks in the marketplace lending industry; focuses on risks and recent regulatory communications by regulators; also includes details on some of the recent court cases pertaining to the marketplace lending industry; summarizes risks by ecosystem categories; presents solutions available through Global Debt Registry. Source