BondMason has launched a new self-invested personal pension (SIPP) service; the service provides for tax efficient retirement investing and the platform allows investors to invest in loans from across the UK's most competitive P2P platforms; "For this SIPP offering, we've worked with pension administrators to create a product which benefits from our due diligence process and the selection of only the best loans from the best P2P platforms," says BondMason CEO Stephen Findlay. Source
Dianrong announced the hiring of former Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley banker Yawen Cui as the new CFO; now former CFO Xuxia Kuang has been named chief operating officer; Dianrong CEO Soul Htite praised Mr. Cui: "His extensive experience managing initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and financial reporting will also help Dianrong explore opportunities within the capital markets. We are thrilled to welcome Yawen to our executive leadership team."; Long Hsiang Loh, the previous COO, will remain on the executive leadership team and a new role will be announced soon. Source
Fifth Third Bank will expand its partnership with Accion US Network which provides access to a network of small businesses; the initiative will focus on increased lending for underserved small businesses in Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio; the effort is also an extension of the bank's five-year, $30 billion Community Commitment and will utilize $10 billion allocated to small business lending, product innovation and enhanced underwriting and fulfillment for this alternative lending channel. Source
The Bank of England (BoE) has been active in researching the benefits of blockchain; it says the technology has the potential to save banks tens of billions of dollars in operating costs; the Bank of England governor Mark Carney, has cited securities settlement as one area where blockchain can provide cost savings and efficiencies; the BoE is working on initiatives for securities settlement and also researching blockchain through numerous other channels including involvement with PwC, various Blockchain consortium groups and membership in the Hyperledger. Source
Financial institutions reported decreased bank lending in China in March; according to a report from the People's Bank of China, financial institutions issued new loans of 1.02 trillion yuan ($148 billion) in March, a decrease from CNY1.17 trillion ($170 billion) in February; nonbank lending increased in March, with total social financing reported at CNY2.12 trillion ($308 billion), an increase from CNY1.15 trillion ($167 billion) in February. Source
The two companies have formed a strategic alliance to help lenders improve collections; Payix will offer integration between its collections tools and the Nortridge Loan System; one advantage of the integration will be increased mobile offerings for borrowers; according to Greg Hindson, Nortridge Software president and CEO, "The integration between Nortridge and Payix makes it easy for borrowers to pay anywhere and anytime – benefiting both borrowers and lenders." Source
As tax day has arrived it is important for investors to understand that real estate crowdfunding has specific tax treatment; investments into syndications are considered passive and there are two types of passive activities, rental activities and business; understanding how your passive activities tally up into income or losses will determine how you will file and if you will need to carry over to future years; another benefit to crowdfunding syndications is favorable long term capital gains tax rates if a property is acquired and held for longer than a year. Source
Speaking at the Treasury's International Fintech conference in London this week, Jenkins explained how 18 months ago he predicted Uber moments that will begin to transform financial services; he now sees a lot of these moments beginning to happen with branch traffic down 50% in the UK in the last few years and Scandinavian countries beginning to look at going completely cashless; he also pointed out that new technologies like distributed ledger, machine learning and AI are becoming more cost effective; his new firm 10X Future Technologies has created a new banking system where you are able to build in this new technology in a seamless way. Source
PeerIQ highlights the US Fed's "Quarterly Trends for Consolidated US Banking Organizations" report and notes bank sector earnings and banking ROE in the 7% to 9% range; the weekly newsletter also analyzes funding costs and liquidity of publicly traded nonbank lenders Elevate, OnDeck, OneMain and Enova; the chart above includes the funding mixes of each company. Source
While China's fintech market has been a global leader, online auto financing has lagged other countries; it is currently only reporting a 30% penetration rate compared to 85% for the US; despite the slower growth, the market is reporting some recent activity specifically from Guazi.com, Kkucar, Didi Chuxing and UCAR; overall the market is expected to grow from RMB1.1 trillion ($159.758 million) in 2016 to RMB1.85 trillion ($268.684 million) in 2018. Source