LendIt is returning to the west coast next year for LendIt USA 2018; it will take place on April 9-11 at the Moscone Center; this year we are focusing on three core areas: lending, digital banking and blockchain; new for 2018 is the BlockFin Summit which will take place in a dedicated space within LendIt; it will cover a wide variety of topics including: enterprise blockchain using digital ledger technology, global finance built on AI and blockchain, tokenized VC and investment banking, blockchain infrastructure for markets, trading, and back office, decentralized banking and insurance, and crypto-economics; early bird pricing ends this Friday, November 3.
Some of Europes largest online lenders have started to grapple with the idea of potentially becoming a bank; Funding Circle says it has no plans to do so, Zopa on the other hand says they are becoming a bank; other online lenders like YOUnited Credit in France and Raize in Portugal have thought about becoming a bank but thus far see the flexibility of not being a bank as an advantage; the banking market overall is going through quite the change and the definition of a bank is sure to be examined. Source.
Lend Academy interviews the CEO of BBVA’s new SME online lending initiative called Trustu; Vinacua discusses their innovation centers, how they interact with startups, why they decided to launch a platform, the social underwriting component of the underwriting and more. Source
Bill Miller discusses his $154 million hedge fund MVP 1 and its 30% allocation to bitcoin in a Wall Street Journal article; the fund is up 72.5% this year and according to a letter to investors the fund paid an average price of $350 per bitcoin; while his fund has done well he is aware of the risks that bitcoin could go to zero, providing his perspective in the article. Source
Recent news about Chinese online lenders has caused regulators in China to begin looking at new regulations for the industry; “The public has doubts about its operating model and has appealed for it to be brought under regulation,” said Ji Zhihong, head of financial markets department at the People’s Bank of China, according to the FT; the potential regulations could hurt what has become a hot IPO market; Chinese lenders like Qudian who recently did a US based IPO and Paipaidai, Hexindai and Lexin Fintech who all have filed for potential US IPOs. Source.
- Fitch Upgrades Select Ratings, Outlook on Prosper Marketplace ABS
- Mass-affluent investor platform launches
- Elevate Credit Third Quarter 2017 Earnings Release Available on Its Investor Relations Website
- P2P fund a ‘Buy’, says analyst
- After losing Wealthfront, robo custodian grabs $750M TAMP
- Chinese lending platform PPDAI Group sets terms for $298 million IPO
There is significant pain points for commercial clients of banks as they typically need to resend documents many times; as banks become more tech driven they have begun to solve these issues and clients are seeing the benefits; JP Morgan Chase has created Data Once and even smaller banks like Peapack-Gladstone Bank in NJ have new features for their clients; banks of all sizes see how the changes can impact client relations. Source.
DRW is a firm focusing on trading cryptocurrencies; the Chicago based firm has about a dozen employees working on crypto trading through a subsidiary called Cumberland Mining; there are several other firms operating in this area as well including Jump Trading, DV Trading and Hehmeyer Trading + Investments; volatility in other asset classes is low, making crypto an attractive asset class for these firms. Source
Only 25 percent of the Chinese population is considered to have a traditional credit score; for non bank lenders gathering alternative data like transactions and social media has helped them to identify potential borrowers who the banks will not serve; Ant Financial has built out Sesame Credit who gathers this type of data and other online lenders have also begun using different data pieces to assess risk. Source.
Though Monzo has seen a share of issues and outages recently the company says the third party marketplace is core to their vision; they also explained it was a key part of their revenue drive and will help to drive down costs per customers in the near future; Monzo have plans to expand product offerings, potentially launch in the US and build out partnerships in the near and mid term future. Source.