Funding Circle has announced a new $100 million multi-year investment agreement with Community Investment Management including provisions for additional investment; the $100 million investment will focus on small businesses in the US; the investment supports continued growth for Funding Circle which has reported monthly lending of over 100 million British pounds ($122.92 million) since November. Source
Challenger banks, including Virgin Money, TSB and Metro Bank, are seeing a market that is becoming more crowded by the day and profit margins in lending areas are being trimmed; mortgage rates coming down and customer acquisition costs going up are two of the main reasons for these worries; pricing in consumer credit has also forced some of these banks to pull out of that segment all together as competition has become too much; the newest space entrants, like Atom, Monzo and Starling, are only adding to the heated environment; Richard Iferenta from KPMG explains to the Financial Times, "The challenge is, if you want to build a bank, how do you get sufficient scale, attract a big customer base, and make a lot of money."; one group who is particularly benefiting is the consumer, they are seeing prices come down and new innovative products hit the market that are helping them to better understand their finances. Source
Folk2Folk has announced it will be using Microsoft Azure to support its loan management system; use of Microsoft Azure follows recent plans to significantly increase the firm's branch offices over the next two years; firm's business facilitates peer-to-peer lending through branch office locations. Source
A panel of finance executives discussed UK customer banking data at the UK Treasury's International Fintech conference in London; Antony Jenkins said financial data could potentially be controlled by varying companies with both alternative technology providers and financial institutions having different advantages; HSBC's Douglas Flint said a debate on data ownership and maintenance is still open for discussion. Source
The company's revenue increased from GBP20.6 million ($26.38 million) in 2015 to GBP33.2 million ($42.52 million) in 2016; its earnings also improved with a GBP -5.8 million (-$7.43 million) loss versus GBP -8.8 million (-$11.27 million) in 2015 and the company reported a fourth quarter operating profit; the 2016 results also showed loan originations increasing by 30% to GBP689 million ($882.4 million) in 2016. Source
The UK has triggered Article 50 and the 27 European Union countries will now begin negotiating with the UK for new terms; Innovate Finance's Lawrence Wintermeyer provides comments on the effects on fintech; says Brexit will make it more challenging for the UK to attract global investment and talent; Wintermeyer also says Brexit could potentially create new opportunities for regtech which will become increasingly important in cross-border activities. Source
In just three months the digital bank has brought in £5.4 billion of deposits across 100,000 customers; the savings account...
Firm is currently launching a new C share to broaden its investment offering and increase assets under management which are currently at approximately 167 million British pounds ($206.25 million); this is one of the market's most recently launched closed end funds with a diversified portfolio of P2P business loans; in its initial launch it raised 150 million British pounds ($185.25 million); the fund has no management or performance fees and targets an annual total return of 8% to 9%. Source
HSBC has moved 3000 members of its staff into a new building and are viewing this digital group differently than their core suit-and-tie employees; the bank believes separating them out will better help to fuel new innovative ideas; HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver said, "To survive for 150 years we've had to evolve. Most of the risk we've dealt with is political. Actually what's happening in the digital space is there is a threat, particularly to retail banking... in payments, in wealth management." Source
Monzo's CEO talks about the digital bank's growing business in an interview with TechCrunch; the firm was recently granted a UK banking license with some restrictions; the digital bank has 100,000 users with activity driven by pre-paid Mastercards and mobile applications; Tom Blomfield gives his perspective on the fintech banking market and new PSD2 regulations; Blomfield also confirmed Monzo has already turned down an acquisition offer from a major bank. Source