During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter...
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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Orchard's January 13 Snapshot highlights Funding Circle's new investments, Marcus and final comments on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's fintech charter proposal; in publicly traded marketplace lending stocks OnDeck led returns with a monthly return of 14.12% followed by Square with a monthly return of 4.76%; in UK listed funds the P2P Global Investment Fund led monthly returns with a gain of 4.08%; in the US the RiverNorth Marketplace Lending Fund reported a monthly return of -1.02%. Source
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will hold a fintech forum focusing on blockchain and artificial intelligence on March 9, 2017; the forum will be the third fintech forum for the FTC; event will be free and open to the public at the University of California, Berkeley. Source
According to new research by the global headhunting firm DHR International, fintech companies have only 8% women directors as compared to the top 30 banks in the world who collectively have 22% women directors; while many fintech companies see their culture as more inclusive and diverse, the data shows the opposite; formerly of JPMorgan Chase and now CEO at Digital Asset Holdings, Blythe Masters understands the importance of workplace diversity, "I know what our company would look like if we weren't consciously thinking about this issue — we would only have one female director." Source
Nutmeg will offer clients five portfolio options with automated rebalancing to client risk profiles; platform is also updating its fees to a two tiered fee structure; new fees are 75 bps on the first 100,000 British pounds ($120,310) and 35 bps on anything above that; the individual investment strategies also include fees ranging from 13 to 22 bps; the changes follow private market capital investment of 42 million British pounds ($50.53 million) in 2016. Source
Peter Thiel has been discussing a bid for California governor with his advisors; Thiel has been active in political campaigns and could find a number of supporters should he run for California governor; as a Republican he speaks frequently with California House Majority Leader and Republican Kevin McCarthy; he also contributed to the Trump campaign and since 2000 has contributed over $8.5 million to federal candidates and political committees. Source
Marketplace loans are attracting increased investment interest from all types of investors and specifically retail investors because of their low minimum investments and ease of access; Forbes outlines the industry's tools for platform diversification and aggregation in their article; featured platforms include NSR Invest, LendingRobot, BlueVestment and PeerCube. Source
LendIt Forum will be hosting Marketplace Lending 101 on January 18 at 2:00 PM EST; in 2016, marketplace lending reported some of the industry's best fixed income returns and loan investing accessibility is expected to continue with an estimated $1 trillion in marketplace loan originations by 2025; Peter Renton of Lend Academy and Andrew Dix from Crowdfund Insider will discuss the evolution of marketplace lending and answer questions from the audience about investing in marketplace lending loans. Source
ApplePie Capital has built a dynamic marketplace lending platform with a range of high net worth and institutional investors focused on business lending for franchises; Lend Academy talks with ApplePie Capital CEO Denise Thomas in their podcast; the podcast provides in-depth details on platform loan terms for franchisees; Denise Thomas also gives insight into the small business franchise market and talks about recent capital investments for the platform. Source
In mid-December Victory Park Capital provided a $100 million credit facility and $3 million preferred equity investment for Cognical, Inc.; Cognical, Inc. is a payment platform for in-store and online lease-to-own purchases; the firm's technology approves purchasers for payment plans; the investment will help Cognical expand its offerings for merchants serving underbanked consumers seeking affordable payment options for consumer goods including furniture, appliances and electronics. Source