Monexo plans to hire 30 to 40 people in a new office in Salt Lake Sector V; company plans to first start with personal loans and has already tied up with CIBIL for credit scores of borrowers; according to Monexo, good borrowers will receive a rate as low as 13%; Monexo has been in operation for 18 months and has offices in Bengaluru and Chennai. Source
Real estate crowdfunder, Fundrise, has made its investment division into an independent company, RSE Capital Partners; the goal was to separate and focus on the two functions of capital raising - via Fundrise with its eReit platform - and capital providing to real estate projects; RSE will focus on financing real estate deals from $20 million to $100 million, while they examine ways to make terms more flexible. Source
A new fintech hub has opened in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Financial Services Union Denmark, City of Copenhagen and Danish Bankers Association provided support for the new fintech hub, Copenhagen Fintech; the membership association will focus on five areas of fintech including 1) fintech entrepreneurship 2) platforms, payments, and usability 3) cybersecurity in finance 4) digital processes and 5) financial computation; Thomas Krogh Jensen will lead Copenhagen Fintech as the CEO. Source
As two new banking applications come to market this week, the question that comes to mind is can all of these startups survive and disrupt the banks?; there are questions surrounding business models and how each company intends to make money in a market that is becoming more crowded each day; each of these new startups has different challenges that lie ahead, some will need to be approved for a banking license and others will need to understand the regulatory framework behind PSD2. Source
Citi customers will now have a simple and fast option for online, in-app and in-store payment needs with the new digital wallet Citi Pay; this will be viewed as a digital expansion of their current bank and credit card accounts; Citi is also partnering with Mastercard to leverage their digital payment service, Masterpass, which will give Citi customers access to hundreds of thousands of merchants in 33 countries. Source
UpLift, a new fintech startup offering a point-of-sale financing service for travel purchases, has partnered with Golden Nugget Hotel and The Mark Travel Corporation; the companies will utilize UpLift's financing solutions at the point-of-sale making installment payments an option for customers; UpLift also says it offers the industry's lowest rates for the payment services. Sources
The Central Bank of Russia has created a working group with experts from the country's crowdfunding platforms in order to develop a regulatory framework for the crowdfunding industry; the working group will develop regulatory proposals for submission to regulators during the regulatory framework development process; the Russian market appears to be taking a proactive approach as the industry is emerging with 500 million rubles (USD 7,748,755) in total liabilities. Source
According to Hong Kong regulatory officials, two banks have applied to trial biometric technology under a recent fintech sandbox initiative; Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Norman Chan notes that the companies want to use biometrics to authenticate securities trading; the fintech sandbox was launched in September; other banks are considering utilizing the sandbox for other areas such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. Source
Georg Ludviksson, the head of Meniga, a digital bank that was started in Finland back in 2009, says that banks are at risk of losing the top spot among their customer base; tech giants like Google, Facebook and Alibaba are placing themselves between banks, and their customers are no longer seeing their traditional bank as the go to place for financial services; Georg Ludviksson also points out that the coming PSD2 regulation will shift the balance of power from banks to the customer and that the regulation has the potential to transform banking in Europe. Source
Deutsche Bank has released a report sharing that three out of four capital market participants believe distributed ledger tech will see widespread use within the next three to six years; of 200 surveyed, 87% reported they believe it is likely to have an impact on securities services; respondents believe cost savings and protection against system failures are key benefits to the new technology. Source