Originators are beginning to look at launching their own captive funds; at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a panel featuring Cross River Bank, Freedom Financial, Money360, Credibly, UBS and Clifford Chance to discuss this idea; the originators on the panel talked about their current funds, if they have launched one, size, structure and how they currently view the idea of this vehicle in the long term; the panelists focused on diversification of funding sources; in good times it is never hard to get loan purchasers but when markets tighten how can you make sure you are prepared; they also talked about when setting up this funding vehicle should you manage it yourself or should you find a third party fund manager; how do conflicts of interest come into play when the originating company is then investing in the loan and servicing the loan; there are still many questions when it comes to setting up a fund like this, as more firms look to this option we will better understand how to answer these questions in the future. 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.
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Lend Academy provides a follow-up to their article on investment platforms for non-accredited investors; gives ten investment platforms for accredited investors across real estate, small business and consumer; defines the parameters for an accredited investor. Source
Funding Circle US has posted several job openings in their capital markets unit including a job posting for a head of US capital markets; Albert Periu, former global co-head of capital markets, has left the firm and become founder of Neptune Financial; according to Funding Circle, Sachin Patel is currently managing global capital markets and he is planning to create a US capital markets team similar to its UK counterpart. Source
FinTex Chicago is launching Currency on June 1; Currency is a new initiative from the nonprofit group that will provide a new resource for startups; Currency will be located at WeWork on 20 W. Kinzie Street and will potentially rent some of its 32-desk space; Currency is expected to be a gathering place for fintech startups, academics, regulators and established firms in Chicago, according to Jason Henrichs, co-founder of FinTex Chicago; Currency and its partners also plan to share online resources and offer programming on the fintech regulatory environment. Source
Daily Fintech reports that Tradeplus24 has received CHF100 million ($100.61 million) from a capital fundraising; the Swiss fintech market has been growing over the last two years and the CHF100 million is a sign of that; Tradeplus24 is a Switzerland-based balance sheet marketplace lender; the capital was raised through debt and the firm will use the fundraising for SME lending. Source
Cumulative lending for the Association's members is now GBP8.5 billion; the Association's nine platforms originated GBP1.004 billion ($1.29 billion) in the first quarter with originations led by Funding Circle with GBP328.1 million ($421.6 million); business lending originations totaled GBP636.2 million ($817.5 million) and reported an increase of 17% from the previous quarter and 43% from the first quarter of 2016; overall, Zopa leads cumulative originations with GBP2.17 billion ($2.79 billion) and Funding Circle is following at a close second with GBP2.16 billion ($2.78 billion). Source
The P2P Global Investments Fund has assets under management of GBP833 million ($1.07 billion) and reported an increase of 0.55% in its March NAV; total NAV return for Q1 2017 was 1.18% and the Fund has decreased its discount to 15%; the Fund has been continuously evolving its strategy and is also reviewing its investment manager. Source
The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology recently opened a new innovation hub; the innovation hub will provide support for Europe fintech businesses and could potentially lure more fintech businesses away from London; in comments regarding the new innovation hub, Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, said: "Over the coming months we will be delivering a number of exciting projects with the community; education programs, hackathons, developer sandboxes as well as the Fintech Awards. We will work with the community to build up a soft-landing platform to make it as easy possible for fintech firms to set up in Luxembourg and we will promote all of Luxembourg's strengths internationally to put Luxembourg first in the considerations of fintech firms looking for an EU hub." Source
Personal finance management app Pariti has partnered with Lendable to offer its customers loans; Lendable is the second lending partnership for the app following Zopa; Lendable also offers consumer loans with funds from high net worth and institutional investors. Source
Opposition to the OCC's fintech charter continues with a new lawsuit filed by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors which says the OCC does not have the legal authority to issue the fintech charter that it has proposed; the lawsuit says the OCC will need "specific congressional approval" for the charter and that nondepository companies are not considered to be engaged in the business of banking; preemption of state consumer protection laws has evoked strong opposition to the OCC's fintech charter and the lawsuit by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors is the first court action taken by an opposing party; the OCC's financial inclusion provisions, lack of clarity on state mandated requirements such as interest rate caps, default rate limitations and underwriting standards, and lack of detail on business factors including capital requirements and other balance sheet measures have caused decreasing support for the charter overall. Source