Upon their acquisition of Zencap, Funding Circle took up operations in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, though now you can remove Spain from that list; according to Ryan Weeks of AltFi, this was due in large part to a low quality pool of borrowers and limited understanding in Spain of P2P lending; in terms of their loan book this was only a fraction of global originations for Funding Circle; they will now be able to allocate more resources to Germany and the Netherlands where they are looking to increase their market share. 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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In a positive announcement for consumer data sharing, JPMorgan has agreed to allow Intuit customers to access bank data without sharing their passwords; the agreement will provide added convenience for JPMorgan customers using Intuit's Mint.com, TurboTax Online and QuickBooks Online; the elimination of passwords is expected to improve security and real-time access of account data. Source
While the passage of the JOBS Act in 2012 helped to spur crowdfunding into an exciting industry, questions have continued surrounding investor protections and the legitimacy of companies using this method to raise capital; SeedInvest CEO Ryan Feit recently told the New York Times: "I'm legitimately concerned that a lot of people are going to be losing money; investing in startups is really risky, and it's very different than buying a used couch. We definitely do not think you should treat it like Craigslist."; investors don't necessarily understand the investment and companies are not following the rules fully, causing many in the industry to legitimately worry about the way forward. Source
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was approved to investigate the activities of Indian tribe lenders; the online lenders under investigation will be Great Plains Lending, MobiLoans and Plain Green; the lenders are providing credit to a range of borrowers outside of their Indian tribes; they are claiming sovereign immunity because of their status as Indian tribes. Source
Koubei was founded in 2015 with investment from Alibaba and Ant Financial; the firm offers online e-commerce services for merchants and is part of a diversified group of Alibaba affiliates; in January the firm reported new capital of $1.1 billion from external investors; investors now supporting the firm include Silver Lake, CDH Investments, Yunfeng Capital and Primavera Capital. Source
Blockchain has been becoming increasingly utilized across a range of industries; speculators believe 2017 could be blockchain's biggest year ever with a number of factors supporting the technology; bitcoin's price has been increasing, reaching a three-year high in January; market participants have been strengthening led by the Hyperledger Project; investment has also been increasing, specifically investment in patented blockchain technology. Source
Diagram has raised $25 million (USD$19.13 million) for a new fintech venture capital fund that will be led by Paul Desmarais III; Paul Desmarais is part of Quebec's Desmarais family which has built a $7 billion (USD$5.36 billion) fortune through investment in the insurance business; the new fund's initial fundraising effort has come from Portag3 Ventures LP and over 50 individual angel investors; the fund will invest in a variety of Canadian fintech companies. Source
Wilmington Trust provides insight on the marketplace lending industry in their featured blog post; the blog post includes an edited version of a panel discussion on the growing opportunity for institutional investment in the industry; discussion includes how the industry is defined, its borrowers and lenders, and its outlook. Sponsored Blog Post
Online lender Elevate has released customer progression milestones showing improved credit scores and rate eligibility; 55,000 customers on the platform have improved their credit scores and 20,000 customers can now receive a lower borrowing rate; Elevate's unique RISE credit product facilitates credit scoring improvement by educating customers on their personal financial credit and offering subsequent loans at reduced rates of up to 50% for qualified borrowers. Source