American Banker’s Penny Crossman volunteered as a mentor for Barclays New York Accelerator and found that succeeding as a fintech startup is quite a challenge; she was tasked with helping entrepreneurs deal with the media, she found that most were looking to be featured in the WSJ or FT; she also sat down with Jon Zanoff, managing director, recruiter and top coach of the program to discuss the program; interesting tidbits from the interview include 4 of 9 company founders are female, the program is a lot more in depth than other bank accelerators and the challenge the program presents on a daily basis. Source.
clients about starting a crypto trading desk; no plans are set yet but the bank is talking to clients, including institutional clients, about opening the desk as more banks explore the emerging market. Source.
Digital wealth management fintech Robinhood has made the news for all the wrong reasons lately as they have been suffering...
Online lender Earnest is working with Barclays to find a potential buyer; seeking buyout at approximately $200 million; firm has raised over $300 million since 2013 and grown to 200 employees. Source
Lloyd’s Banking Group and Virgin Money recently banned customers from using their credit cards to buy cryptocurrencies; customers will still be able to use their debit cards to buy cryptocurrencies but for fear they could go into debt they do not want credit cards being used; other card issuers like Barclays and Mastercard say they are reviewing the crypto space but no decisions have been made. Source.
A new startup that allows for ordinary people, with a focus on millennials, to trade options has received early backing...
Last year many consumers were able to earn around 2% on savings accounts from the leading banks; since then rates...
UK bank Barclays has launched a new service for its small and medium-sized business customers; it will now offer the business customers mobile credit applications for loans and overdraft products; loan approvals and funding can be received in an hour. Source
UK based invoice financing fintech MarketInvoice has raised a fresh $72mn in capital, $33mn in equity and a $39mn debt...
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has granted Coinbase an E-Money License; Barclays is also allowing Coinbase to access the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme which is the core payment infrastructure in the UK; Coinbase’s Zeeshan Feroz stated, “There is no other exchange today that has access to domestic banking. UK consumers today have to jump through all sorts of hoops around sending money to European accounts using euros in order to get money in and out." Source