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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Marketplace lending investments offer limited options for investors seeking to save or invest for their children; Lend Academy provides details in their article; currently UTMA accounts are the only investment vehicle; created from the Uniform Gifts to Minors Act, these accounts can be opened for children under a specified age with irrevocable contributions; the assigned minor owns the assets in the account however they cannot gain complete control of the account until a specified age. Source
Community banks are beginning to view potential partnerships with fintech firms as a natural way to compete with some of the larger national banks; while there's not the internal resources available to even consider overhauling their own technology, they view these partnerships as lower cost ways to enhance customer experience or build out their customer base; for their part, fintech firms have been happy to consider any type of bank partnership as a way to help legitimize what they are doing; long term these banks view partnerships as more of a complimentary piece of their business, not a threat to their survival. Source
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested that Lending Club provide increased disclosure on its loan portfolio and sources of funds also suggesting they improve non-GAAP reporting which is potentially misleading for investors; Lending Club has agreed to provide more disclosure and evolved its SEC filings accordingly however it has defended its non-GAAP accounting procedures, reporting it did not see the measures as misleading; recent requests for added disclosure as a publicly traded company are included in the SEC's last correspondence on November 4; the items remain open and the SEC's most recent correspondence is in addition to its review of the company following the replacement of its CEO in May. Source
Fintech startup, Abaka, raised 520,000 British pounds in seed funding from Anthemis Exponential Ventures and MMI Holdings' Exponential Ventures; the company intends to use the capital to hire new people and launch in the UK; the company uses artificial intelligence to help employees improve financial wellness through a savings platform so they can manage their pension plans on their phones. Source
The partnership will seek to promote growth of fintech startups in Latin America through investment and business development from QED Investors; Scotiabank has a strong presence in Latin America with interest in the region's digital innovation; it will look to QED Investors for customer development and support it in strategic investments. Source
Fitch Ratings has upgraded its outlook for Canadian banks from negative to stable; cites solid risk management, increasing profits and better than expected capital positioning as factors for the upgrade; says recent regulatory changes, slow GDP growth, high household debt and decreasing home prices are still concerns for 2017. Source
Citi Global Consumer Bank's fintech unit has released a new mobile app for the iPhone; app has banking, wealth management and money movement capabilities; it is among the first mobile banking apps to integrate banking, investing and money movement; app features include simplified money transfers and mobile trading capabilities. Source
Emerging online lending platforms from traditional banks could be the market's disruptors with their ability to offer low fees; few banks have emerged with proprietary online lending platforms however the fee structures offered by Marcus from Goldman Sachs have caused some industry participants to fear the emergence of similar models; other speculators believe traditional banks are not agile enough to build and offer market leading online lending capabilities in a competitive timeframe; Orchard says competition will be fierce but the end result is likely to produce improved and expanded access to capital for customers. Source
Wunder Capital is a crowdfunded investment firm focused on solar energy projects; it manages solar energy funds, provides customized financing and offers loans; its 2016 report says it has originated $87 million in financing across 310 deals with zero write offs; its solar energy funds include the Wunder Term Fund with a projected 2016 annual return of 8.5%, the Wunder Income Fund with a projected 2016 annual return of 6% and the Wunder Bridge Fund with a projected 2016 annual return of 11%. Source
According to P2P-Banking, Lendico has stopped originating consumer loans in Germany; website is referring consumer loan borrowers to Finanzcheck, but the company is still offering business loans in Germany; company has also ended consumer loans in the Netherlands and stopped new loan originations in Brazil and South Africa; recent activity from the firm includes an announcement last week regarding a joint venture with Postfinance in Switzerland. Source
