Leaders at the Federal Reserve, the OCC and the CFPB spoke at the Consumer Bankers Association annual conference about the need to be more flexible when applying oversight to bank & fintech partnerships; “We need to do a better job of educating our supervision staff, in some cases, in terms of interpretation of the guidance,” said Dan Quan, who leads the CFPB’s Project Catalyst, as reported by American Banker; they also talked about better coordination to ensure consistency in oversight. Source.
One of the co-founders of Funding Circle USA is stepping down and will become Chairman. Source
Lend Academy digs in to the complex topic of valuation with this Q&A piece conducted with Houlihan Lokey. Source
Speaking at EthCC, an Ethereum conference in Paris, JPMorgan’s Amber Baldet talked about the concerns of private and public blockchain builders; “These problems really aren't so far apart, it's just that people are trying to solve the problems in different ways,” says Baldet as reported by CoinDesk; she doesn’t think public and private blockchain need to be so different, what everyone wants is the ability to interoperate; CoinDesk went on to interview Amber about building connectivity, feedback loops and more. Source.
Beginning in June ads promoting cryptocurrencies and ICOs will be banned on Google; this follows a recent ban from Facebook; both companies have a large share of internet ads and combined collected 60% of online ad spend in 2017; many cryptocurrencies fell on the news. Source
deBanked has collected originations figures from many of the top small business financing companies; according to data available, OnDeck led 2017 originations with over $2.1 billion; PayPal Working Capital and Amazon Lending are not included in the list. Source
While speaking at the Futures Industry Association event in Florida the former JPMorgan executive talked about the issues women in finance face; It is somewhat disappointing having spent the better part of three decades in financial services to move to technology and find things are even worse there,” said Ms Masters, CEO of Digital Asset, as reported by the FT; other panelists brought up the idea that education needs to be better and more needs to be done to encourage women to focus on math and science. Source.
Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, added a provision to the bill for the FHFA to review credit scoring alternatives; the FHFA currently uses FICO’s classic scoring model for loan applicants; the provision adds a new piece to the ongoing argument occurring between FICO and VantageScore; FICO and some lawmakers say the FHFA is already going through a review process for credit scores; the FHFA did ask for input on new scoring models in December and is working through the comment process. Source.
Amazon is I Talks with JPMorgan Chase to offer a co-branded Credit card for small business owners; the credit card would have rewards points for purchases and they would also look to add business insurance plans; this is first time Amazon will look to have a credit card specifically for small businesses. Source.
The finalists for LendIt Fintech’s 2018 startup competition have been released; BitButter, BlockFi, CreditStacks, Flowcast, Genivity, Narmi, Spacequant and Trusted Key will pitch in front of judges at LendIt Fintech 2018 on April 10 in San Francisco. Source