The comment period for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's fintech charter proposal closed on January 17 and the New York Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) was among the commenters; the NY DFS opposes the federal fintech charter; says state regulations have evolved to provide the necessary oversight; also notes that the regulations will create confusion, harm small business innovation, create monopolized institutions, increase competitive risks of non-bank entities and facilitate evasion of consumer protection. 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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Originators of all stripes are using machines in the underwriting process. Understanding the capabilities and how best to underwrite in a more automated way is something lenders are still working on.
At LendIt USA 2016 Douglas Merrill of Zest Finance discusses the credit and underwriting process and how consumers are really looking for an experience that automates the choice of loans for them based upon the existing data available.
Douglas believes that speed matters but nobody knows that it matters, when consumers come to the lender for a loan they are not looking for a loan but for life certainty. The loan is just a product, a seamless and improved experience is what the borrower wants.
We should be discussing loans in seconds and microseconds, not days or weeks. Machines can help to automate the process based on your existing data set and a borrower should not need to fill out a loan application. Computation, storage and bandwidth are free and infinite. The things we can do with data are exciting and seemingly endless.
The current underwriting has been stuck in the 70's. Data has enabled us to change underwriting and develop new types of products; machines can help to make this happen. Why do lenders make you apply for a loan? Lenders know enough about you to know what you should need and they don't need you to fill out an application at all.
An automated underwriting process and the amount of data available through traditional and nontraditional means will help to continue the advancement in credit. At LendIt USA 2017 we will be covering the latest innovations in credit and underwriting. Learn what is coming next from the top originators, credit bureaus and service providers.
Check out the full video here:
Lebashe Financial Services is increasing its stake in RainFin a South African...
US Bank saw a 104 percent increase in Zelle transactions the past four months and a 50 percent increase in customer enrollment in the peer to peer payment offering; this is another success story for Zelle as they have seen significant usage in their product with $33.6bn in volume versus $14.8bn by Venmo; Zelle is integrated with over 40 banks and has reached over 85 millions users. Source.
Metamask shares their official guide on what investors should expect when participating in a token sale for the first time; provides tips to ensure understanding of the projects, prerequisites to participate and how to avoid fraud. Source
BBVA has invested in Sinovation Ventures as the fund can help to strike partnerships for the bank and they see the potential for strong return on investment; the focus on AI is helping the bank to keep innovating and offer mor potential services across their different regions. Source.
India's demonetization of the Rs 500 ($7.32) and Rs 1,000 ($14.65) continues to help online alternative finance lenders; uncertain investors are increasingly utilizing alternative finance platforms as a safer investment over gold, real estate and the stock market; invoice financing platform KredX has reported investment increases of 400% to 500%; with less of a cash focused society, P2P lenders Capital Float, Faircent, i-lend and AnyTimeLoan.in have also reported significantly higher platform investments. Source
USAA, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank have started to look within the veteran community for skilled workers in the field of cybersecurity; hiring veterans has always been a source of pride for the banks but their specific military experience is seen as a big plus when it comes to cybersecurity; veterans are experienced and highly motivated, being able to find someone with cybersecurity know how can help to transform a banks defenses; the banks have also partnered with educational institutions which have programs geared at helping veterans transition to the workplace. Source.
Small business marketplace lender Bizfi.com has announced a new milestone; cumulative originations reached $2 billion in December; firm offers direct loans and provides a range of financing solutions for US small businesses including loans from alternative lenders and the Small Business Administration; platform has over 45 funding partners. Source
Zopa launched a pilot with provide Uber drivers with low credit scores car loans; however the partnership didn’t attract the amount of customers it had hoped; Zopa stated in the FT article, “The pilot was interesting, but demonstrated that the potential opportunity was limited for us, and we had other priorities.”; Bryan Zhang, co-founder of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance discusses one of the problems in the industry today, attracting borrowers . Source