WeChat recently started to offer users access to mutual funds, just another service they were able to add to the platform; the open platform based approach where you can plug in different services through an API is where financial services is headed; while those in Europe and the US might not be as advanced as China they know innovation like this is coming; “It really shows incumbents that they’ll need yet again to pivot to a new platform; that it’s not the bank that’s the platform anymore,” April Rudin, chief executive of wealth management marketing firm The Rudin Group, tells TearSheet; message based financial advice is the next natural step for clients who have transformed the way they interact in recent years from the phone call to the text message or chat service. Source.
In this guest post Alexander Prokhorov from FinSight Ventures shares what trends his firm is focused on in 2018. Source
The Community Reinvestment Act is a law that was first enacted in 1977; The Trump Administration is going to unveil plans to change the law which has some community groups concerned since the act historically prevented banks from just serving wealthy customers; some banks say that the rules haven’t kept up with technological innovation. Source
Google Wallet, Android Pay and Pay with Google will now all become Google Pay; this way the company can better brand their products and make it less confusing; Google has launched a number of products in the last 10 years aimed at different payments markets and found varying degrees of success; they hope ensuring the same brand for multiple layers of products will help to cut down on confusion and hopefully help them to build a better customer experience to compete with the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Source.
MoneyGram is testing XRP for reducing both the cost of transferring money and the settlement times; Both MoneyGram and XRP traded higher on the news; Ripple has signed on about 100 banks as customers, but is also targeting remittance companies; Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also tweeted that three of the five largest money-transfer companies would begin to use XRP this year. Source
Real estate investing startup Cadre signed a partnership with Goldman Sachs to allow their private wealth clients access to the platform; Cadre has already been able to secure $250mn in commitments from Goldman’s clients and has said their is a steady stream still in the pipeline; private wealth clients will get a log in for Cadre and access to vetted deals in commercial real estate; in addition to the partnership Goldman Sachs also becomes and investor in the company. Source
Since the financial crises banks, for the most part, have focused their time and effort on complying with new regulations and building up capital ratios in case another crisis hits; while they were doing this another industry, fintech, emerged and has eaten into some of the core profit making businesses of the banks; banks have started to catch up with technology and as countries like the US look to pare back some crisis era rules the banks see the next few years as the perfect opportunity to invest wisely in technology; the one thing the banks might not be able to handle is if Amazon, Facebook or Google begin to encroach further into fintech, potentially bring in competition who can immediately match up in size and strength. Source.
In recent months Jersey City has seen three more companies relocate to the area; companies recently relocating include Yellowstone Capital, World Business Lenders and Principis Capital; this is in addition to BlueVine and Funding Metrics recently opening up operations in the city; one of the main drivers behind the move is the Grow NJ tax program helping businesses save money by relocating. Source.
Online near prime lender LendingPoint to boost expansion into point-of-sale with acquisition of LoanHero. Source
Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced it has partnered with fintech firm CellTrust for messaging to clients; the new service will be focused on client to advisor text messages; the partnership will allow the bank to catalogue all communication with time and date stamps, tracking and logging activity; they plan to launch the new program over the next two months. Source.