Artificial intelligence is maturing and has gained significant traction in some of the market's leading industries; Finovate provides eight areas where artificial intelligence is being utilized and gives predictions on its potential value; top industry services using artificial intelligence include robo advisory, advisory tools, fraud detection and underwriting; services with significant value potential in 2017 include regulatory compliance, marketing, customer service and reporting tools. 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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A new report by Accenture shows that seven out of 10 consumers would welcome exclusive robo-generated advice for investing and insurance needs; not all is lost for the human experience; 68% of consumers would still want to interact with a human for complex financial needs like a mortgage or to help solve a problem; the main reasons given for this shift are computers are seen to be less biased, they make services cheaper and the tasks are done faster; additionally, the report showed that consumers were willing to share their data if they thought a non traditional provider could be faster and cheaper. Source
Canadian robo advisor WealthBar now manages over CAD$100 million (USD$75.93 million) in assets under management; the firm was launched in 2014; it currently offers online onboarding, investment management, financial planning and an individual advisor; its services have also expanded to private investment portfolios and registered retirement savings plans. Source
CompareEuropeGroup is a London fintech company using artificial intelligence to develop digital and automated services for financial companies; it has obtained 20 million euros ($21.32 million) in new capital from a Series A funding round; investors included ACE & Company, Pacific Century Group, Nova Founders Capital, SBI Holdings, Mark Pincus and Peter Thiel; the company will use the funds to develop its technology and machine learning services. Source
Sichuan Xinwang Bank and Jilin Yilian Bank have received licensing to provide internet banking services in China; the two banks will bring the total number of digital only banks in China to four; Xiaomi is a leading Chinese shareholder in Sichuan Bank with a 29.5% stake and Meituan is a leading shareholder in Jilin Yilian Bank with a 28.5% stake; the other two digital banks in the Chinese market include Ant Financial's MyBank and Tencent's WeBank. Source
Securitization has become increasingly utilized by marketplace lending platforms and in 2016 a record number of deals were done; Lend Academy provides details on securitization structuring, Lending Club's recent securitization and the importance of transparency in their article; in Lending Club's December securitization the total amount of loans in the portfolio was approximately $131.3 million and the portfolio was rated by Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Source
R3 has reported that it is leading a $150 million funding round for a blockchain investment which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017; the funding will be the largest investment in the blockchain industry; R3 is a blockchain banking consortium with over 100 employees in nine countries; it now has 77 members and will be involved as an adviser on the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation's integration of a new blockchain solution. Source
The FactSet Global FinTech Index has been launched by FactSet; it includes 88 companies involved in financial technology globally; Nikko Asset Management has licensed the Index for its Global Fintech Equity Fund; US credit providers in the Index include PayPal and Square. Source
A blog post from deBanked provides insight on the use of data scientists in marketplace lending; while these platforms are built on data programming and analytics, Justin Dickerson of Crossfold Analytics implies that the industry could be inefficiently utilizing data scientists resulting in lower returns and income losses broadly across the industry; Dickerson provides recommendations for data science groups specifically noting the importance of building a strong data science infrastructure with less focus on a massive data science team. Source
LendIt will be hosting a forum today on risk retention in securitization at 2:00 PM EST; the forum will be held in conjunction with Cadwalader and Lending Times; speakers will provide insight on key factors to consider in choosing the optimal risk retention structure, commercial considerations related to sponsors including brand and investor relationships, requirements necessary to establish a majority owned-affiliate including the amount of equity that must be retained by the sponsor versus an investor and other related topics; register here and join the webinar today.