Monzo has set a new Crowdcube record with fundraising from over 6,800 investors in its current fundraising campaign; firm has raised of 2.46 million British pounds ($3.06 million) and is targeting 2.47 million British pounds ($3.07 million); the crowdfunding campaign is part of a broader Series C funding round for 22 million British pounds ($27.37 million) which includes a 19.5 million British pounds ($24.26 million) investment from Thrive Capital, 5 million British pounds ($6.22 million) from Passion Capital and 1.5 million British pounds ($1.87 million) from Orange Digital Ventures; the firm has raised a total of 35 million British pounds ($43.54 million) in growth capital including a funding of 1 million British pounds ($1.24 million) in March of 2016 on Crowdcube. Source
P2P commercial real estate lender Relendex has received authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority; the platform provides secured commercial property loans through its P2P marketplace lending platform and now plans to seek the offering of innovative finance individual savings accounts for its investors; in comments regarding the authorization, Michael Lynn, the firm's founder and chief executive officer said, "FCA full authorization marks a fantastic start to 2017 for the Relendex team and platform which will further encourage and facilitate investment in commercial property from both our UK and foreign investors." Source
Lloyds Bank is testing biometric authentication technology for its online banking customers; the development is centered around the use of Microsoft's Windows Hello which has fingerprint and facial recognition capabilities and can be used with Windows 10 devices. Source
LendingCrowd has launched its innovative finance individual savings accounts (IFISA); the account has a minimum investment of 1,000 British pounds ($1,250); the account investment will be automatically allocated to a portfolio of LendingCrowd loans; the portfolio will target a rate of return of 6% for its investors; the IFISA product has been well received with the Lending Works IFISA launch attracting more than 500,000 British pounds ($624,850) within three hours. Source
HNW Lending offers secured loans from 50,000 British pounds ($62,375) to 1 million British pounds ($1.2 million) for a range of assets including planes and classic cars; the firm launched in April 2014 and is now offering the innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA) to its investors after receiving full platform authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority; the minimum investment for the IFISA is 5,000 British pounds ($6,238) and the accounts will target annual returns of 7% to 15%. Source
P2PGI will be increasing its allocation to asset-backed loans in its investment trust; the firm will primarily focus on secured real estate loans however it will also be increasing its allocation to invoice credit lending and other secured lending investments; the increased focus on secured loans follows a previous announcement on targeting UK originated loans. Source
IW Capital has surveyed 1,000 investors who have between GBP10,000 ($12,812) and over GBP250,000 ($320,300) worth of investments; the report shows UK investors are willing to take on greater risk in 2017; 44% of investors think Brexit will have a positive impact on their investment strategy; many investors see investment opportunity in private equity and UK investors also reported they will be looking more to tax efficient investing. Source
Saving Stream and Lendy have merged and will now combine operations under the Lendy platform; the platform will focus on property development lending and plans to triple its loan issuance in 2017; Paul Riddell, head of marketing and communications at Lendy had the following comments regarding the merger, "Unifying our lender and borrower brands together under one banner – and on a single online platform – is a step that allows us to streamline our process and make our offering simpler for the entire market." Source
The startup will open up their new bank to 10,000 "co-founders" to begin using their banking services with hopes of a public release in 2017; the bank is looking to help people manage their money and not bombard them with product sales; founder and deputy CEO, Ricky Knox, says this is its "first step" and that it plans to "grow into a full-service bank" in 2017. Source
