Blockchain ETFs have received a lot of interest over the last two weeks and have raised almost $260 million; however, Bloomberg explores that the makeup of these ETFs contain many household names such as Cisco, Intel, Nvidia and IBM; thus, investors may be paying a high price to invest in stocks they could easily purchase themselves. Source
In an interview with Tearsheet Bradley Leimer, managing director and head of fintech strategy at Explorer Advisor & Capital says companies are underestimating content; most VC’s focus on who can be the next Robinhood or TransferWise when there is plenty of opportunities in the market; companies can use customer data to better educate and better target consumers for a specific financial product; there are a lot of interesting companies in the market who can find their niche to perform and offer consumers more choose. Source.
Investing startup Wealthfront is adding a new feature to their Path platform to help users with home buying; “With the introduction of Path’s home planning service, our clients can now easily plan for all of their major life milestones — from saving for their children’s future to one day retiring — with just a few taps on their phone,” said Andy Rachleff cofounder and CEO of Wealthfront to Business Insider; the new feature will use real estate dat from Redfin to help users explore the housing market and see whether or not they can afford a home. Source.
Goldman Sachs continues to show interest in consumer finance; CEO of Final, Aaron Frank announced that the startup would be closing in December 2017 but did not provide further details; a dozen engineers and product managers will be joining Goldman Sachs; Final was founded in 2014 and offered consumers a credit card; users were able to generate virtual cards unique to a merchant. Source
Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and others have launched or will launch their own robo products to compete with slicker startups; after seeing the success of startups in the space the banks realized they needed to improve their offerings to keep customers and attract newer, younger ones; the trend to move away from white labeling technology to building their own is a recent one as some traditional players like UBS, State Street and John Hancock are still using services from SigFig, Motif or NextCapital. Source.
Goldman Sachs has been busy acquiring companies to boost its consumer facing business; they now have expertise across consumer lending, small business lending and real estate; Lend Academy shares their latest acquisitions, including the acquisition of Final, a credit card startup; it seems as though credit cards was the missing piece and it's possible Goldman Sachs will enter the credit card business. Source
SBI Group, owner of SoftBank is investing into the mobile-first bank; SBI Group will also get a seat on Moven's board and the companies plan to form a joint venture in Japan; Moven is also splitting its business in two; one side is the software provider that powers digital banking software and the other is the neobank, MovenBank; Moven also announced that it is in the process of purchasing a US bank. Source
SoFi recently partnered with WeWork to offer discounted student refinancing to WeWork employees and members; the move is part of a broader strategy for the company to move beyond their initial target market of alumni from top universities; offering student loan repayments as a workplace benefit is a new trend as companies look to help young employees get out from under the mountain of student debt; “The bigger story is that the student loan pay down as a benefit is a massive industry that hasn’t even got going yet — every Fortune 500 company is going to have this as a benefit in the next year or two,” said Peter Renton, analyst and founder of Lend Academy, to TearSheet. Source.
Yahoo Finance's new app called Tanda has a unique approach to helping consumers save money; users pool their money over time with others; those who decide to withdraw money from the pool first pay a small fee while the last person in the group receives a small bonus; Lend Academy shares more details and screenshots of the the app. Source
Overstock.com has launched a robo advising investor platform that will be presented by tZERO Advisors; investors can choose from a group of portfolios or create their own for $9.95 a month; tZERO Advisors uses FusionIQ’s investment platform which allows for the online investing; “This service introduces robo-advising investment management services to our millions of customers and continues Overstock’s commitment to bridging Wall Street and e-commerce,” shared Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne to Crowdfund Insider. Source.