HouseCanary is working to provide better real estate property valuations through its fintech services; uses machine learning and algorithms to analyze data and identify home values; the company has reported a funding round with $33 million in new capital from investors including Eric Schmidt and Kobe Bryant. Source
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Understanding how asset allocators view the space is something a lot of online lenders and fintech companies want to grasp; the panel at LendIt USA 2017 with asset allocators discussed their thoughts on fintech generally and the alternative yield market; traditional fixed income has become less attractive and so more investors are looking at where they can get greater yield for their investment; there is a thought that normalization of interest rate policy globally will ultimately resolve itself in an unpleasant way; alternative yield is a new asset class so selling to the big institutions has been a challenge; it really comes down to finding the right group within the institution and selling it as the right type of asset; knowing your market appetite is also key, such as in Europe where their are negative yields and public markets have been overbought by central banks; vigilance of recent lessons learned and beginning to fully understand this new asset class are two key takeaways as asset allocators begin taking a closer look toward this market. Source
Retail banks have started to digitally enhance their customer experience but when it comes to small business lending they are still stuck in the past; according to a recent report by Bain and SAP only 7% of banks can offer a fully digital experience for credit products; research is starting to show that small businesses want a digital experience for capital and to manage their banking needs; banks can decide to build, partner or buy to ensure they stay competitive; partnerships have continued to form and understanding how best to utilize fintech for the long run will help banks and small businesses. Source
Marcus by Goldman Sachs was launched in 2016 and marked an important point in the consumer lending industry as they decided to build their own platform from scratch; Ainsley O'Connell from Fast Company interviews head of Marcus, Harit Talwar; Talwar shares what was attractive about getting into personal loans and details the Marcus product; stated that there were many consumer pain points and Goldman Sachs was confident they could help; Goldman also has several advantages to give them an edge; not only do they have their own balance sheet, but they essentially built a startup, leaning on 147 years of experience; they also had the advantage that there were no conflicts over any legacy consumer businesses within Goldman; the company worked closely with consumers to bring to market a product they want which Talwar discusses in the interview. Source