Adam Fisher, head of macro investing at Soros Fund Management has received approval to trade cryptocurrencies but has not begun trading them according to sources; Soros recently spoke at the World Economic Forum in January stating that cryptocurrency is a typical bubble, but was more bullish on blockchain technology; his family office as of Q4 2017 had a significant stake in Overstock.com. Source
Bloomberg reports on Goldman Sachs’ new San Francisco office culture which has no dress code and offers kombucha in the break room; Jeff Winner was hired this year to run the office which aims to employ 80 people; Winner leads the engineering team behind their successful consumer brand Marcus; with their new office location they will compete for talent from names like Google and Amazon. Source
NEW! LendIt Fintech USA has expanded to a third day filled with six workshops running from 9:00AM - 1:00PM on April 11. Each workshop will be led by expert panelists and will provide training and case study discussions. ConsenSys Academy will be conducting the Blockchain workshop featuring intense learning on this headlining topic. Other workshop themes include Financial AI, Bank Technology, Success Through Diversity, RegTech, and Sales & Marketing. Workshops are available to all registered attendees. Three days away at Moscone in San Francisco. Register here
In this post we share the process of opening up a new LendingClub account, the first in a new series we will be sharing over the coming quarters. Source
Credit bureaus have had a tough past year with the Equifax breach of customer data and new legislation in the U.S. looking to increase competition by allowing lenders to use different sources; changing the credit bureau system is not as easy as it may sound as they have been intertwined in the financial services system for a long time; lenders still use the bureaus for a large majority of lending decisions, even though some alternative bureaus have seen traction; the breach at Equifax could have a lasting effect because people did have a lot of trust in the company to secure their sensitive information like social security numbers; as data sharing in financial services becomes commonplace a premium will need to be placed on how that data is secured. Source.
According to Bloomberg, Ripple attempted to provide financial incentives to exchanges Gemini and Coinbase for its XRP cryptocurrency to be listed; Some believe that the exchanges are reluctant to include XRP because the token could be deemed securities because it is controlled by one single company; the article by Bloomberg shares that a Ripple executive offered a $1 million cash payment to Gemini which was followed by other incentive offerings; Ripple also offered lending Coinbase $100 million of XRP to let users trade the asset. Source
According to a new report by CB Insights the most recent 5 quarters show that big investments in fintech companies from banks has slowed down; banks are instead beginning to develop and update core technology in house; Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and others have all developed and released their own digital investing and advising services; service provides like Diebold are offering the banks a chance to move all infrastructure online so they can focus on customer facing tools; banks are still working through transformation as almost all have now realized if they do not upgrade legacy tech they will be left behind. Source.
PeerStreet’s Series B round was led by World Innovation Lab with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Thomvest, Colchis Capital, Felicis Ventures, Solon Mack and Navitas Capital; PeerStreet is a marketplace for fix and flip loans; the company said funds will be used to expand to new types of loans and that the company may also be adding more international investors. Source
Mambu has launched a digital marketplace to offer cloud based apps, products and tools for banking; the company will allow for integrations to be done locally or globally; Ben Goldin, Mambu’s head of product and technology, tells Banking Technology, “the marketplace provides an opportunity to present their offerings to institutions and influencers with the Mambu engine powering a composable architecture”; current partners include Onfido, Form3, nCino, Avoka and Experian. Source.
We’ve seen Goldman Sachs enter a variety of consumer banking verticals over the last few years; now the bank has hired a senior JPMorgan Chase engineer to build cash management tools, deposit accounts as well as other products for big companies; commercial banking could bring even more deposits into the business and also help boost revenue; they will compete with other big names such as JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Source