Last year at PitchIt@LendIt, AutoFi took home the top prize; in his pitch (34:00) Jonathan Palan, president and co-founder of AutoFi discusses AutoFi and the auto finance market; Jonathan previously spent six years at Lending Club and LendingHome; he shares that the auto market is a massive opportunity and is also a fragmented marketplace; consumers are beginning to go online to buy cars; 84% of new car purchases have financing and 68% of used cars have financing; AutoFi's thesis is that if car buying is going online then auto lending has to go online; they are a B2B software platform to help do just that; in a big vote of confidence for the company, they recently inked a deal with Ford to provide digital financing options to consumers; applications for PitchIt@LendIt 2017 close today.
Wells Fargo is teaming up with Intuit which will allow customers to import account information via an API with Intuit products such as QuickBooks; we've recently seen banks opening up their data to empower customers to share their data with third parties; Brett Pitts, head of digital and virtual channels said in a prepared statement, "This agreement creates a much better experience for our shared customers, gives them greater control over their financial data, and enhances the efficiency of the data-sharing process." Source
Pepper Hamilton provides details on their recent podcast and webinar in their featured blog post; the firm's January 5 podcast provided insight on what the Donald Trump presidency means for the financial services industry; on January 24 the firm provided a webinar on factors for considering the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's new fintech charter. Sponsored Blog Post
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced on Wednesday that it would leave its federal funds rate unchanged; the Fed increased the rate to 0.50% to 0.75% at its last meeting in December and predictions have called for more aggressive increases in 2017 however it seems they may be later in the year; Janet Yellen speaks before Congress in February and the market is currently reporting an 18% probability of an increase in March at the FOMC's next meeting. Source
Business Insider has released a report on US regulation and fintech; says US regulation is a hindrance to the growth of the industry and is slowing its potential; the report titled, "The US Fintech Regulation Report," provides details on regulatory agencies' involvement with fintech and outlines their initiatives; explains the negative effects of regulation on the industry. Source
Artificial intelligence is being utilized across all industries with new startups offering innovative market solutions; in January CB Insights released a list of 100 top artificial intelligence startups; Zoox tops the list as the most well-funded company with total funding of $290 million; it is also a fintech unicorn with a valuation of over $1 billion; among venture capitalists, Data Collective has emerged as a top investor partnering with 14 companies from the list for venture capital investment. Source
Token-as-a-Service (TaaS), co-founded by Konstantin Pysarenko, Ruslan Gavrilyuk, Dmytro Chupryna and Maksym Muratov, will offer a blockchain fund through an initial coin offering (ICO); the fund will issue tokens which represent a proof-of-membership; the fund will perform a cryptographic audit to track trading activity; TaaS is also developing a new blockchain analytic platform called Kepler that will provide data similar to Bloomberg; according to founder Konstantin Pysarenko: "The overall aim of TaaS is to deliver long-lasting innovations in the blockchain industry. And, we believe that TaaS and Kepler are on track to revolutionize the journey of investing in cryptocurrencies and tokens forever and we are excited to watch it all unfold." Source
Funding Circle led international P2P loan issuance in January with originations of 120.9 million euros ($130.21 million), according to data from p2p-banking.com; platform loan volume was followed by Zopa and RateSetter; Zopa reported originations of 94 million euros ($101.24 million) and RateSetter reported originations of 78 million euros ($84.01 million). Source
Biometrics testing and utilization increased substantially in 2016; Eyeprint ID provides market implementation details from 2016 on fingerprint, face recognition, voice recognition, eyeprint and multi-biometric strategies; the firm predicts biometrics will go beyond mobile in 2017 with use in a broader range of banking activities; also predicts improved security and user experience from biometric authentication. Source
India will be utilizing the world's largest biometrics database, Aadhaar, to implement smart health cards for its senior citizens; senior citizens will be receiving an Aadhaar-based smart card; the cards will include information on their health, healthcare and healthcare history; the Aadhaar smart cards will also have payment processing capabilities; the government will test the use of the Aadhaar smart cards in 15 districts during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Source