Despite initial concerns over risks from Brexit, the UK's Funding Circle has been growing significantly; Funding Circle is one of four firms Bloomberg plans to follow throughout the Brexit process which will begin when Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50 of the EU Treaty; for Funding Circle, results following the Brexit vote in June have been overwhelmingly positive; in the second half of 2016, originations increased 50% from 2015 to 530 million British pounds ($685 million) and in the fourth quarter of 2016 the firm's UK division reported its first net profit; while some funding challenges and employee visa risks still remain, the firm's business seems likely to continue its positive trajectory; low rates on fixed income investments in the UK and slowed bank lending to small businesses appear to continue as leading factors for the firm's growth. 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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ING and Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking presented a blockchain test prototype for oil trading at IP Week in London; the platform they have developed is called Easy Trading Connect and the prototype tested a live oil trade by global commodity trading group, Mercuria; the blockchain test proved significant advantages in speed, cost and risk benefits; overall the test found blockchain helpful in improving trading inefficiencies, specifically the exchange of physical documents globally; it also helped to reduce the bank's transaction time in the trading process to 25 minutes from three hours. Source
MoneyLion talks about the evolution of the fintech industry and the rebundling of financial services in their featured blog post; the first wave of fintech was known for its unbundling of traditional financial services by fintech companies; as these companies have achieved success from focused product development, they are now looking to expand services for new verticals and cohesive cross selling; banks are also more broadly diversifying to meet customer needs; MoneyLion also notes API development as a key factor supporting the rebundling of services; the firm has brought together a range of online services that help customers improve their financial health and it sees rebundling as an important trend that will help to support more comprehensive fintech services for clients. Sponsored Blog Post
Marketplace lender BlueVine has secured a $75 million credit line from Fortress Credit Corp. and funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group LLC; the firm provides online working capital financing for small and medium-sized businesses; it plans to use the financing to expand its working capital solutions and specifically its Flex Credit product. Source
Clarity Services is one of the US market's alternative credit data providers; in their featured blog post they provide a white paper detailing the benefits of using alternative credit data from Clarity Services for direct mail screening and marketing campaigns; by using an expanded set of data, the company suggests lenders can reach more creditworthy consumers. Sponsored Blog Post
AutoFi has announced a new partnership to expand its online point-of-sale auto financing solution; AutoFi has now partnered with iLendingDIRECT which includes a network of credit unions; the new partnership builds on a recently announced offering with Ford Credit and also adds to the platform's extensive auto lending network of banks and specialty lenders. Source
VeriComply has announced the completion of a new funding round from investors including Jon Barlow of Eaglewood Capital and John Maute of Helios AMC and Situs Holdings; VeriComply plans to use the funding for sales and operations of the firm's automated loan verification services for lending platforms and the secondary market; it is currently building out its business for verification services in the marketplace lending industry. Source
SoFi has announced details of its latest fundraising round which now adds $500 million in new equity capital for the firm; the financing was led by Silver Lake and included SoftBank and GPI Capital; the fundraising will support the continued expansion for the firm; it now offers student loan refinancing, personal loans, mortgage loans, life insurance, wealth management and banking; it also plans to expand its services to Australia and Canada. Source
Brett King developed his company Moven as a better solution to banking; after gaining only 60,000 customers since the digital bank's launch, he is now selling the software to banks for use in mobile apps; Moven and many other digital bank competitors are losing some of their appeal in the startup space as the Trump administration seeks to ease banking regulations that resulted in less risk taking from banks and greater opportunities for startups; as the landscape changes under the new presidential administration, it's likely that the latitude and interest from banks in partnering with startups will increase. Source
Lufax sees a growing market opportunity in China's retail investment space and is planning to increase its focus on this area of the business; the firm is currently the world's highest valued P2P lender at $18.5 billion; it has $56.9 billion in client assets with P2P loans accounting for a third which is expected to decrease to 15%; it plans to expand the investments it offers through online brokerage accounts and also enhance its mobile and online trading capabilities; the firm is also rumored to have plans for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the second half of 2017. Source