Robo advisors are meant to be simple and automated to keep costs low and allow your wealth to accumulate; in looking at the top four firms in the market the Wall Street Journal found that humans choose what goes into the portfolios; this begs the question whether investors are aware of this human intervention; the WSJ takes a closer look at how Vanguard Group's Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (PAS), Betterment, Wealthfront and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios allocate their clients money; while robo advisors are deemed a simple solution they might not be and investors should understand how their money is allocated. Source
Rocket Internet has reached the investment cap of $1 billion on its Rocket Internet Capital Partners fund; fund will invest in early stage and growth startups including fintech and marketplace lending companies; received the majority of its investment from institutions. Source
Bankless Times highlights AltFi Data, speaking to Rupert Taylor, founder and CEO; the company is an independent source of data to the European peer-to-peer lending market; currently tracks 28 UK originators and detailed loan level data on Zopa, Funding Circle, RateSetter and MarketInvoice; Taylor stated: "The right model doesn't involve the institutional investor duplicating that credit decision making process performed by the originator. But investors can use verified data to understand the historic performance of the assets, and to identify originators that are prepared to use disclosure in a way that holds them to account for the quality of the loans they originate." Source
Ron Suber has invested in online commercial lending platform Money360 and will also join the firm as a strategic advisor; Money360 has been growing fast and estimates loan originations will exceed $500 million by 2017; the investment will add to Ron Suber's fintech portfolio which he is managing from a family office; his equity investment follows positive returns from loan investments on the platform. Source
Roofstock has hired Jason Altieri as its chief legal and compliance officer; Altieri served as general counsel at Lending Club until October and still remains an advisor for the firm; in his new role he will lead the legal and compliance efforts for the emerging real estate company; the firm matches sellers of single-family rental homes with interested investors and facilitates all of the transactions through a digital marketplace. Source
Investors in China are increasingly looking for an unbiased, lower cost option for managing their wealth; robo advisors are beginning to fill that void; the new firms are helping the non ultra rich access markets and helping the wealthy allocate their money without fear of a broker who is thinking of the corporate firm; though the data on robo advisors in China is currently thin, China Merchants Securities Co. believes that assets managed by robo advisors will reach over $750 billion by 2020. Source
"Rocket Mortgage has forever changed the way people think about getting a mortgage," said Jay Farner, CEO of Quicken Loans; for 2016 Quicken Loans has reported record originations of $96 billion with $7 billion contributed by Rocket Mortgage which has been originating loans for 11 months; consumers have reported high demand for the Rocket Mortgage product which provides a much simpler process for homeowners by digitally verifying income, credit, assets and property valuations. Source
Ron Suber discussed the challenges that online fraud can present to marketplace lenders in his keynote speech at the Fintech Fraud Summit last week in San Francisco; to mitigate fraud, companies must have a comprehensive risk and compliance system that protects it from attacks and fraudulent loans; Ron Suber outlined Prosper's risk and compliance approach in his presentation providing an example for marketplace lenders seeking solutions for mitigating and managing fraud. Source
Roofstock provides a marketplace for buyers and sellers of rental properties; the company is up to 35 employees and has now raised their Series C led by Canvas Ventures; TechCrunch published a short Q&A with their CEO Gary Beasley; while the company doesn’t disclose actual number of properties, they have facilitated “hundreds of millions of dollars in value this year alone” and now operate in 15 markets across the US. Source