India company, Bharat Financial Inclusion, has reported financial performance that is demonstrating success with a rural-focused audience, operational cost controls and reduction in cost of funds; this strategy compares with other micro-lenders in India that are seeking rapid loan volume growth in urban centers, but with limited or negative profitability; Bharat announced net income growth of 87.3% to Rs146 crore (US $22 million) in the second quarter ended September 30; the marginal cost for borrowing to fund micro-loans has declined to 9.5% in Q2, and its average interest rate to borrowers stands at 19.75%. Source
Privately-owned, US marketplace lender, SoFi, has announced it will be expanding its product offerings to include life insurance by becoming a broker; within the industry the company is primarily known for its student loan refinancing services; it has also been expanding its product offerings to include personal loans, mortgage loans and wealth management in an effort to more actively meet broader financial needs for its clients; Lend Academy provides more details on the life insurance offering and future growth expectations for the company in their article. Source
Funding Circle has announced changes to its borrowing rates for small business loans as of November 7; rates will be lower for higher credit quality borrowers and higher for the lower credit quality loans; says with the new rates, investors can expect an average annual return of 7%. Source
The new startup, 10X Future Technologies, partners with challenger bank Virgin Money to build a new digital banking platform; the new deal comes to light just one day after 10X Future Technologies was launched to the public; Virgin Money is listed on the FTSE 250 and will count on 10X to build a cloud-based core banking system that will deliver new products in a more cost efficient manner. Source
UK listed marketplace lending fund, P2P Global Investments, has reported struggling performance in 2016; monthly return in September was 0.23% for a year-to-date return of 3.41%; target annual return is 6% to 8%; peripheral factors such as debt facilities and currency hedges have affected the return; the fund is now selling at a discount of 19.8%; has been steadily buying back shares to help improve the NAV and also using securitization to reduce debt costs; loan defaults and delinquencies have been higher as a result of longer maturities, however the primary factor affecting the return is the broad global diversification of the loans resulting in losses from currency hedging. Source
Announced today, the MasterCard Foundation is partnering with the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) at Accion on a $4.4 million initiative to promote more robust consumer financial protection laws around the world; CFI's Smart Campaign has existed since 2009 and has certified the consumer protection practices of 68 financial institutions to-date; the MasterCard Foundation contribution will support involvement of more parties (such as regulators, non-bank financial institutions and fintech platforms) and more countries; a particular focus will be on sub-Saharan Africa. Source
The UK has launched their borrower referral scheme which came about as a government initiative; businesses who apply for loans at the nine largest UK banks and are rejected will be referred to aggregator platforms Funding Xchange, Business Finance Compared and Funding Options; the aggregators will pass information to alternative finance providers who will be able to provide quotes to the business. Source
In an interview with P2P Finance News, Adair Turner cites P2P loan securitizations and other evolving forms of structured credit as high risk, causing a potential "red flashing light" for regulators; speaks of the evolution of the asset class as securitization portfolios from P2P lenders have been increasing in 2016; discusses complex structured investment vehicles as the most high risk specifically those issuing short term debt against longer term holdings. Source
Analysts at asset manager, Bernstein, believe the future is bright for robo advisors; in a recent client memo the firm concluded that BlackRock and Fidelity will eventually incorporate them into their business and technology giants Google and Facebook could be their main competition; though the current disruption from robo advisors is minimal, the largest one has $60 billion AUM as compared to Fidelity with $5.1 trillion AUM, the technology is what will be most useful for the wealth management industry; you have already seen big names like Deutsche Bank and UBS launch robo advisors, while BlackRock and Invesco have made acquisitions of the technology. Source
R3 is making its blockchain code base publicly available, in an effort to drive standards for the technology; its "Corda" platform code will be stored starting November 30th as part of the Hyperledger open-source project, which is run by the non-profit Linux Foundation to encourage cross-industry experimentation and adoption of blockchain; R3's Chief Engineer, James Carlyle, explained, "If we have one platform with lots of products on top, then we get something that's more like the internet, where we still get innovation but we can still communicate with each other."; in related news, R3 and 12 of its bank members recently trialed Ripple's Digital Asset XRP platform for interbank cross-border payments. Source