On Wednesday, the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said that fintech could signal an end to the traditional bank model; this could also increase herding risks, adding "As those risks emerge, authorities can be expected to pursue a more intense focus on the regulatory perimeter, more dynamic settings of prudential requirements, a broader commitment to resolution regimes, and a more disciplined management of operational and cyber risks."; Mark Carney is also chairman of the Financial Stability Board which will report to the G20 in July on risks and rewards in fintech. 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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The UK's oldest and biggest online lender will be cutting rates by 0.2% across all accounts for the third time in the last five months; Chief Product Officer Andrew Lawson told investors via email that since competitors have been cutting rates they also needed to continue their rate cuts and they could also see this trend continuing; left with a choice of cutting rates or lending to a risky borrower, Zopa opted to cut rates and keep their lending practices static. Source
Funding Circle has revised its credit underwriting model for its secured property loans offered to SMEs; the new credit underwriting model has been adjusted based on three years of secured property loan data from the platform; the new secured property loan underwriting model will increase rates for certain secured property loans and also expand the firm's secured property loan risk bands beyond A+ and A. Source
Fundrise has announced a Regulation A investment offering of Rise Companies Corp. which is the parent company of the investment platform Fundrise, LLC; the campaign is currently in a solicitation phase which its website says has generated interest of over $58 million from more than 4,350 users; the investment offering circular was initially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 29, 2016; some details from the most recent amended offering circular include the following: offering of one million shares of Class B non-voting common stock, offer and sale of the shares is limited to investors who have purchased investments on the Fundrise platform. Source
Raisin allows customers to compare accounts at banks across Europe; Thrive Capital led the latest round with participation from previous investors Ribbit Capital and Index Ventures; funding now totals $64 million; the company has tripled the amount of funds transacted on the platform last year; it now has 27 bank partners and expanded from Germany and Austria to a total of 31 countries. Source
In March of 2016 Matt Harris of Bain Capital Ventures wrote on the future of alternative lending; many of his insights continue to hold in today's market despite challenges experienced in the final quarters of 2016; interestingly, Harris notes a wave of alternative lenders grouped in three categories with alternative lending 1.0 led by Lending Club, SoFi and OnDeck; cites alternative lending 2.0 as including high risk capital chasing market entrants and alternative lending 3.0 as emerging entrants with high potential and efficient business outlooks. Source
Financial trading startup Alpaca has raised $1.75 million from private market venture capitalists; company is using artificial intelligence and database technology to develop software as a service for investment market traders; current products include AlpacaAlgo with over 25,000 user built trading algorithms; platform has executed over $100 million in transactions. Source
California-based Kountable is an invoice and trade financing platform currently offering financing for businesses in Rwanda; firm has secured a $150 million credit line from a private credit asset manager; funding will help the company to expand in the global trade finance market. Source
LandlordInvest has launched the UK's first secured property P2P lending innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA); the firm offers 5% to 12% returns on its loans and investors can now invest tax free with the IFISA; platform investments include bridge loans and term loans for buy-to-rent landlords; most of the firm's loans are for amounts ranging from 30,000 British pounds ($37,895) to 750,000 British pounds ($947,363) with a payoff term of five years; process for offering the IFISA took less than two months with approval obtained by HM Revenue and Customs shortly after the firm's Financial Conduct Authority approval in December. Source
loanDepot has originated $100 billion in loans since launching seven years ago; firm provides home, personal and home equity loans online and through local branch offices; the company has serviced over 15 million consumers nationwide and its platform is acquiring approximately 500,000 potential borrowers per month; in 2016 it opened three new campuses to expand its direct, retail and wholesale businesses and it also has plans to open a new 65,000 square foot business campus in Irvine, California that will help to increase its employee base to over 6,000. Source