Coinbase has been the top cryptocurrency exchange for the US market as it’s process makes signing up and buying bitcoin simple; they have seen accounts jump from 5.5 million to more than 13 million in less than a year; their success has not been without growing pains with a number of outages occurring and customers lodging complaints that no one was available to help them; recently they also came to an agreement with the IRS to hand over records of customers involving more than $20,000 which was a compromise from a year long battle. Source.
In a recently recorded speech, Rhydian Lewis said that the company expects to be profitable in 2018; the p2p lender was previously profitable in financial years 2014 and 2015; the company is also celebrating its seventh birthday and has facilitated £2.1bn in loans, connecting 57,000 lenders with 388,000 borrowers. Source
In a press release SoFi shared that members have cumulatively paid off over $5 billion in credit card debt; members reduced their effective interest rate by 42% and saw credit scores rise by 17 points on average; SoFi borrowers can borrow up to $100,000 and choose a term of three, five or seven years; over 70% of borrowers report using funds for credit card refinancing and loan consolidation. Source
Fintech solutions are rapidly evolving and their growth appears to be creating increased market opportunities for innovative fraud; the frictionless payments market specifically has reported a spike in digital financial crime as money launderers find new and innovative ways to steal identities and develop synthetic profiles; the Financial Times also reports on the use of e-commerce for new types of fraudulent activity, noting that criminals can use fraudulent transaction platforms to setup inexpensive e-commerce sites that elicit funds from internet shoppers; with innovative fraud solutions growing fast, the costs of monitoring and mitigating fraudulent activity are becoming an even greater factor for fintech companies. Source
New York-based ConsenSys has been elected to advise the City of Dubai on the first ever blockchain city technology effort; the initiative is led by the Smart Dubai Office and IBM, the government's strategic partner; as part of the Dubai Blockchain Strategy 2020, the city of Dubai will now require all government records and transactions to be documented using blockchain technology. Source
Technology conglomerate IBM has launched a new set of developer tools for the financial services industry; the IBM Cloud for Financial Services platform will be directed by IBM InterConnect and will provide building blocks for financial services apps built on the IBM Cloud; the platform will target 100,000 individual and enterprise developers with APIs, data and content for financial services apps that can quickly scale to service fintechs, banks, wealth management firms and insurance companies; with the launch, IBM also announced a Singapore Fintech Hub, developed with support from the Singapore central bank, that will plug in to IBM's new Cloud for Financial Services platform and accelerate fintech growth in Singapore and Southeast Asia; across the world, IBM will integrate the new offerings of IBM Cloud for Financial Services at IBM's Business Partner Solution Hubs. Source
UK consumer lender Lending Works has lent over GBP50 million ($62.68 million) to UK consumers, also reporting over 10,000 clients; the firm's success has been helped by the launch of its innovative finance individual savings account which reported investments of approximately GBP1.5 million ($1.88 million) in the first 24 hours and has accumulated investments of over GBP8.8 million ($11.04 million) since February 2017; the firm's chief executive says it expects to reach originations of GBP100 million ($125.36 million) very soon; business growth is also expected to be helped by a new loan offering partnership with Revolut. Source
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a decision in Madden v. Midland Funding, LLC; in determining whether New York or Delaware law governed the contractual relationship of the parties, the judge ruled that applying Delaware law would violate usury policies in New York which limit interest to 25% per year. Source
The Times provides more detail on issues of transparency at RateSetter; reports that RateSetter made loans in partnership with Wellesley and Archover; according to The Times, RateSetter lent via these platforms, utilizing them as a source of borrowers; around GBP10 million ($13.05 million) in property development loans were lent in conjunction with Wellesley which were repaid in full in April 2016; GBP1 million ($1.31 million) in loans are still outstanding with Archover; a RateSetter spokesman reported that no new loans with these competitors are being issued. Source
Simon Champ is a pioneer in the lending space creating the first publicly traded investment vehicle; P2PGI launched in may of 2014 in a £200 million IPO and they have now raised a total of £900 million; Champ shares how he first became interested in this space and how much the industry has changed since the fund first launched. Source