Personal financial management (PFM) apps have had a bad few months with Prosper shutting down Prosper Daily and Capital One closing Level Money; but banks in general are still looking for ways to provide customers with their financial health; a research report by Celent in July points out that while apps are closing, banks are beginning to integrate some of the features from PFM apps; instead of sending customers to a third party app they offer the features within their own app or website as part of the everyday customer experience; Cesar Richardson, vice president for Strands America, tells American Banker: "There's no separate path. It's inside your day-to-day banking." 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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Personal loans increased in Australia in March with credit card applications decreasing by approximately 4%; peer-to-peer personal loan borrowing is reportedly a factor driving personal loan applications which increased by 13.5% in March; according to the senior general manager of consumer products at Equifax, "The growth in personal loans has, in large part, been driven by newer lenders who cater to consumers' increasing demand for an online experience." Source
Competition in the personal loan market has become quite heated since the financial crisis; banks of all sizes, and credit unions now have to compete with the likes of emerging fintech companies who have originated billions in loans; at LendIt USA 2017 Ken Lin of Credit Karma did a keynote presentation on some of the keys to success in this highly competitive market; helping to understand the trends of the last few years (higher defaults and increased APRs) can first give you a better understanding of current market conditions; the keys to success to overcome and reverse those trends are to continuously refine your underwriting models, solve real customer pain points and find a way to win on mobile; keeping ahead of the curve is not easy with so many players but making improvements to certain areas could go a long way. Source
Personetics Act will be offered to banks as a way to help their customers pay off their student loans ahead of schedule; the tool will use the Nudge Theory by identifying students who can repay loans quicker and helping them to do so or automatically pay more than the usual payment for them; David Sosna, Personetics’ co-founder and CEO tells Banking Technology, “we’re able to identify windows of opportunity for customers to make these extra payments with no effort on their end.” Source.
Brazil and Mexico are often talked about as fintech booms in Latin...
Petal’s new credit card will focus on the 65 million people who lack credit history for a traditional card; they have been working for three years on their product which uses AI to predict a consumer’s creditworthiness; the company raised a $3.6 million seed round last September and followed with a $13 million Series A in January of 2018; the partnership with WebBank will allow Petal to make the card available nationwide which they anticipate will happen over the next few months. Source
Petal uses information beyond credit scores like earnings, spending and savings to identify people who are a good fit for a credit card; users can then use the Petal card to build their credit history; the company raised $13 million led by Valar Ventures. Source
Peter gives a recap of activity in 2016 which included issues across most all of the largest firms and reported many small firm closings with the launch of Marcus by Goldman Sachs changing market competition; compared to 2016, 2017 appears much better with equity investments already surpassing 2016 totals and many new startups launching lending platforms; overall, Peter says the industry is recovering but not recovered and notes that returns are dropping. Source
LendIt Co-Founder Peter Renton sits down with Mike Baliman of the London Fintech Podcast; Peter talks about the key themes across the US including the capital challenges of 2016, securitizations and the Lending Club incident; they also discuss the China market, its size and some of the misconceptions about the P2P lending industry there. Source
PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and his fund Valar Ventures, led a $10 million seed round in German insurtech startup Coya; other investors in the round include e.ventures and La Famiglia; Dr. Peter Hagen, one of the founders of Coya, tells Business Insider, "This investment will allow Coya to further extend our team and build up an exceptional product for our customers."; the company is planning to build a digital insurance provider and is in the process of trying to get full authorization from German regulators; founders of Coya include two former Kreditech employees and ex-CEO of Vienna Insurance Group. Source