An article produced in collaboration with the SWIFT Institute shares the current state of the market between fintechs and banks;...
Crunchbase shares the top seed, early and late-stage investors by total number investments since January 2017; topping the list in seed stage investments was Y Combinator with 28 total fintech investments followed by Plug and Play and 500 Startups; Plug and Play topped the list in the early-stage category; Bain Capital Ventures led in late stage investments with 6 followed by General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures who all completed 5 deals in the time frame. Source
Citi, Zurich Insurance, Kabbage and DTCC are working to develop the new standards for tech companies; while large institutions have invested significantly in preventing cyber attacks, there are risks with partnering with fintechs who may not have as robust as systems in place; these backdoor attacks pose a significant risk to financial institutions; Michael Bodson, president and chief executive of DTCC stated, “We all live and die by each other; the weakest link in the chain is the highest point of vulnerability”. Source
American Banker has released their inaugural “Best Fintechs to Work For” list; they highlight some of the unique perks fintech companies are offering their employees; some of the names making the list are Best Egg, PeerStreet, nChino, SmartBiz Loans, Nav, Cross River Bank, Jumio and Oportun. Source
The UK first created a regulatory sandbox in 2016; the Financial Conduct Authority is now seeking feedback on whether it should expand their sandbox globally; fintechs would benefit by having the ability to test in other countries and regulators could work together on some of the issues related to companies seeking to operate across borders; the FCA stated, "The overall approach would be to better understand and solve common regulatory problems, as well as being more helpful to firms who have aspirations to grow at scale in multiple markets." Source
Point72 Ventures led a $3 million round in a company called Extend which was announced today; it allows for business owners to share credit cards with employees and freelancers without giving them physical cards; Point72 also recently invested in Imperative Execution, a dark pool trading platform, “Say” which aims to improve the proxy voting process and DriveWealth. Source
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mark Lusky of Mark Lusky Communications, a writing and marketing communications firm,...
The bill is aimed at cracking down on illegal activity around cryptocurrencies and also reduce operational risk for fintech companies; the central bank will be responsible for the new regulations if they are signed into law; the proposed law also encourages open banking through APIs although other details are not known until the secondary laws are unveiled by regulators; Mexico is currently a fast growing market for fintech according to recent data from Deloitte. Source
According to a New York Federal Reserve report, online mortgage lenders approve loans faster, experience fewer defaults and encourage more refinancing; not surprisingly they are also able to respond to customers as demands shift; the report studied banks and fintechs to better understand the market; lending from fintechs has grown by 30% annually since 2010, from $34 billion to $161 billion, representing 8% of the market. Source
It was back in 2013 when I first met Albert Periu. He was a partner at a startup small business...