Credit-card debt has grown to record highs and some large banks are reporting increased delinquency rates; this trend, combined with higher interest rates could be cause for concern according to Michael Pearce, an economist at Capital Economics; article provides data from the NY Fed on delinquent loans across student, auto, mortgage and credit card debt. Source
PayPal is connecting with Acorns, an automated savings/investing platform; users will be able to contribute and manage their account from the PayPal app; the first users will get access today which will expand access to all US users by early 2018; PayPal previously has invested in Acorns, leading a $30 million round. Source
China’s central bank announced new regulations to curb risk in the asset management space; the new rules are an attempt to unify regulatory areas, prohibit asset managers from guaranteeing returns and have them set aside 10 percent for provisioning; “The central bank is trying to thread a very fine needle,” said Andrew Polk at Trivium China, a Beijing consultancy. Source.
Intrinio CEO Rachel Carpenter said the mission of her company is to make raw data fields available; they recently partnered with Nasdaq to include their real-time data feeds within the marketplace; they offer over 150 different data APIs and have built the company to bring Warren Buffet’s investment ideas to life in software; individuals can access the data for $75 a month and companies pay a custom rate. Source.
The Chairman and CEO of ConnectOne Bank, a community bank provides his perspective on small businesses and banks embracing technology in all aspects of their business; ConnectOne is a forward thinking community bank which recently moved lending operations to the cloud; they look to meet the needs of their clients however they want to interact, even if that means coming to a bank branch. Source
After considerable outcry the Cleveland Fed has removed their study about online lending; “In light of the comments received, the authors are currently revising their paper to further clarify the data sample they used in the study,” Cleveland Fed spokesman Tim Dewald said in an email to American Banker; they plan to post a new version of the paper after completing significant revisions. Lend Academy also covered the removal of the report after posting about the release last week. Source.
UK based Digital Bank Monzo is planning a crowdfunding round to give customers a greater share of ownership; the round will look to raise between $13mn and $40mn; while they will use the round for hiring it is meant to provide customers “a genuine sense of ownership”; the crowdfunding round follows the recent $94mn private equity backed fundraising. Source.
The weekly WieyangX Fintech Review, as reported by Crowdfund Insider, covers recent fintech updates from China; the People’s Bank of China has made plans for a unified credit platform by end of 2017; Chinese fintech Rong360 had their subsidiary Jianpu Technology listed on the NYSE, becoming the sixth IPO recently; JD Finance, through their subsidiary Jing Dong Xu Hang Online Lending Information & Intermediary Service Ltd., is finally getting into the P2P Lending market. Source.
Glint is based in London and today revealed their product offering; it is a multi-currency account, app and card that lets users store money in gold; funds are converted back to fiat currency at the point of payment for those who choose to store their money in gold; the company is regulated by the FCA. Source