Open banking platform Deposit Solutions raised $20mn from existing shareholders e.ventures and Greycroft; they will use the funds to continue building the platform out and expand to more markets around the globe; “This investment round is a strong vote of confidence from our shareholders and allows us to further focus on our core mission, establishing Open Banking as the new industry standard for the deposit market,” Deposit Solutions founder and CEO Dr. Tim Sievers said to Bankless Times. Source.
- Micro-lender Oakam secures £35 million debt facility from Victory Park Capital
- Mass firings at top digital currency investment bank
- Morgan Stanley Launches ‘Robo’ Advice Service
- P2P Lender Hexindai: A Discussion with CFO Johnson Zhang Regarding the Recent IPO
- Affirm Joins Forces With Shopify Plus to Help High Growth Retailers Rapidly Scale Online Store Sales
- LendingHome Surpasses $2 Billion in Loan Originations
- Is Lending Club Misleading New Investors About Past Performance?
Alibaba spin-off Ant Financial and non profit online lender QCash won the second annual FT fintech awards; they were selected from a group of over 200 companies in the fintech space and the winners were announced at the FT Banking Summit; both companies were rewarded for innovation and providing increased access to financial services. Source.
Coinbase was ordered to hand over information on customers who made transactions over $20,000 between 2013 and 2015; the IRS believes people have not been correctly reporting income made from trades; the information required by the IRS was significantly less than they originally tried to get back when the IRS initially summoned records a year ago; Coinbase might still challenge the order. Source.
Article shares a story of a $200 jean purchase that was made with the help of point of sale finance firm Affirm; Affirm works with over 1,000 retailers to provide installment loans; merchants benefit since consumers end up spending more, but some critics say it promotes poor consumer behavior; article shares the history of consumer credit and the changes in point of sale financing. Source
The former CEO and Co-Founder of Dealstruck shares his entrepreneurial journey and reflects on the demise of his company. Source
While speaking at an event by the office of Financial Research Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles talk about the issues digital currencies could pose to the markets; the current level of use doesn’t pose a risk but as the scale of usage increases so does the potential potential problem; Quarles said, “if the central asset in a payment system cannot be predictably redeemed for the U.S. dollar at a stable exchange rate in times of adversity, the resulting price risk and potential liquidity and credit risk pose a large challenge for the system.”; he also talked about the the benefits of blockchain technology and if the central bank would issue their own digital currency. Source.
Thomas Peterffy, CEO of Interactive Brokers Group, sent a letter to the CME and OCC Clearing Members voicing concerns about bitcoin futures; Mr. Peterffy believes bitcoin price movements are too big and arbitrary; he would prefer to put the clearing of bitcoin into an isolated clearing house or another isolated entity; he is sounding the alarm because he does not want to see the repeated mistakes of the 2008 financial crisis. Source.
The National Internet Finance Association of China has been tasked with the job of making the agency but has offered little details so far; the PBoC invited eight leading Internet companies in 2015 to help with this issue but have received eight individual ideas and rejected them all; the issue of sharing proprietary data still plagues the project and the current issues don’t look to be solves soon. Source.
Tonderys shares what makes Marlette Funding different and what he sees in the market for next year; he also provides his take on traditional banks getting into the business and where personal lending overall will be in five years. Source