While trying to raise money for their robotics and AI startup Trevor McFredries found an issue that he wanted to change, all investors were white men; he, along with his colleague Sara DeCou, stated they would not accept money unless the investors had a woman or a person of color in a senior position; 400 tech entrepreneurs have banded together to form a coalition called Founders of Change to make real progress on diversity; the group is inspired by the broader movement to make businesses more diverse and include more voices as the old ways of investing need to change. Source.
Many predict that Amazon will introduce a payments system for Alexa; American Banker looks at whether Amazon is really ready for to make this a reality; one of the biggest problems relates to the ability to authenticate transactions; Alexa isn’t able to distinguish whether a person is who they claim to be; article also shares the banks that are currently leveraging voice technology with some of the early adopters being US Bank, USAA, Ally, Capital One and TD Bank. Source
HSBC is looking to leverage AI to predict how customers might redeem rewards points; the bank is looking to market specific offerings to the person so they get a tailored experience; the bank has partner with Maritz Motivation Solutions who uses technology to suggest categories to cardholders based on their likeliness to redeem the rewards; with so much competition in the market the bank knows they need to better tailor their experience to the different types of customers they have. Source.
Mike Cagney was previously a co-founder of SoFi; after resigning last year he began work on a new startup which involves home improvement financing and HELOCs; the company is called Figure and is live at www.figure.com; according to the website, “Figure is a financial technology company with the mission of leveraging blockchain, AI and advanced analytics to unlock new access points for consumer credit products that can transform the financial lives of our customers. We provide home equity release solutions, including home equity lines of credit, home improvement loans and home buy-lease back offerings for retirement.” Source
Digital only banks have certainly attracted the attention of incumbents as they look to keep up with customer experience innovation; in the past year banks like Chase, RBS and others have started creating their own digital only brands; the digital only banks have been able to more easily create online marketplaces for products, better options for traveling and mobile workers and they have made the customers a part building the experience; this more nimble, quicker way of building has put pressure on big banks to keep up as many sizable banks have many layers of compliance and process to build. Source.
The round was led by Fifth Third Capital Holdings LLC with First Republic Bank and Columbia Seligman Investments also participating; existing and individual investors Vikram Pandit and Tom Glocer also participated; total funding for the company is over $130 million; the company posted 250% revenue growth year over year in 2017 and has had only two defaults. Source
Many consumers love the convenience of digital communication but still seek live human interaction. Source
According to Bloomberg, Google is working on its own blockchain technology in their cloud business; the distributed ledger would allow third parties to post and verify transactions and will also offer a white-label product for companies; Google has also been active in acquiring and investing in startups according to the source. Source
Punjab National Bank in India recently was the victim of a fraud that cost the bank more than $2bn; some have argued that if the system in which the bank used was on the blockchain the fraud would not have happened or it would have been detected quickly; banks still operate on systems that don’t always connect or still involve a lot of paper; enlisting blockchain will help to make the process more efficient, transparent and safe; when this could be implemented is a different question as banks have started testing the new technology, it has yet to be widely adopted across the globe in banking. Source.
The CFPB handles more than 84 thousand debt collection complaints in 2017; consumers also downloaded advice on settlement negotiations more than 800 thousand times; "From now on we will be working closely with the FTC to enforce the FDCPA while protecting the legal rights of all in a manner that is efficient, effective, and accountable,” acting Director Mulvaney said in a press release reported by American Banker; the CFPB and FTC filed more than 14 enforcement cases as a result of collections last year. Source.