Personal financial management (PFM) apps have had a bad few months with Prosper shutting down Prosper Daily and Capital One closing Level Money; but banks in general are still looking for ways to provide customers with their financial health; a research report by Celent in July points out that while apps are closing, banks are beginning to integrate some of the features from PFM apps; instead of sending customers to a third party app they offer the features within their own app or website as part of the everyday customer experience; Cesar Richardson, vice president for Strands America, tells American Banker: "There's no separate path. It's inside your day-to-day banking." Source
Peter gives a recap of activity in 2016 which included issues across most all of the largest firms and reported many small firm closings with the launch of Marcus by Goldman Sachs changing market competition; compared to 2016, 2017 appears much better with equity investments already surpassing 2016 totals and many new startups launching lending platforms; overall, Peter says the industry is recovering but not recovered and notes that returns are dropping. Source
Jonathan Snyder has developed the Philadelphia Capital Consortium to provide increased capital availability to small businesses; Snyder developed a process that allows Philadelphia small businesses to submit a form which is then sent to the Consortium's lenders; Snyder directs the process and interested lenders respond to the inquiry within 10 days; the Consortium has completed four loans and is currently adding new lenders to its network, including online lender Credibility Capital. Source
PitchIt winner Nova Credit presents their company's solution to build what they call the Nova Credit Passport; a cross border credit reporting agency that connects to leading credit bureaus through a single API; PitchIt 2017 was a competition for fintech startups, in exclusive partnership with global venture capital fund 500 Startups, the world leader in investing in and mentoring early-stage fintech startups. Source
CEO Tom Burnside from LendingPoint provides his insight on how to be successful in the online lending business in this featured blog post; gives five factors for success; Tom Burnside is optimistic about the industry's growth and potential as well as the success of LendingPoint; in 2016, LendingPoint gained steadily as it continued to focus on providing credit for underserved consumers through fair credit underwriting. Sponsored Blog Post
Competition in the personal loan market has become quite heated since the financial crisis; banks of all sizes, and credit unions now have to compete with the likes of emerging fintech companies who have originated billions in loans; at LendIt USA 2017 Ken Lin of Credit Karma did a keynote presentation on some of the keys to success in this highly competitive market; helping to understand the trends of the last few years (higher defaults and increased APRs) can first give you a better understanding of current market conditions; the keys to success to overcome and reverse those trends are to continuously refine your underwriting models, solve real customer pain points and find a way to win on mobile; keeping ahead of the curve is not easy with so many players but making improvements to certain areas could go a long way. Source
Personal financial management app, Moven, is focusing on helping customers see the bigger picture when it comes to saving; features include savings account balance updates and a wish list timeline which helps keep consumers on track toward their saving goals; other apps such as Digit, Level Money, Chime, Dyme, Qapital and Simple are also providing similar services focused on motivating users to save for longer-term saving goals. Source
Philadelphia Fed president, Patrick Harker, gave a speech titled, "Fintech: Revolution or Evolution?" at the University of Pennsylvania; the speech was part of a lecture series at the School of Engineering and Applied Science; Patrick Harker discussed fintech in the context of technology, business and government noting innovation in cryptocurrency, blockchain, banking and regulation. Source
Fraud is rising, and with real-time payments taking an ever greater hold of the financial system, faster ways to combat are needed.
ProducePay was previously a LendIt PitchIt finalist; the company provides an online financing platform for farmers of perishable goods; they recently announced a $77 million debt and equity funding round that will help it expand its business financing. Source