The Senate passed a banking bill meant to roll back some of the financial regulations imposed after the crisis, but its fate is uncertain in the House; Republicans in the House want a further rollback of regulations; the bill is intended to help smaller banks avoid burdensome federal oversight and raises the definition of systemically important to $250bn from $50bn; the bill also makes adjustments to parts of the Volcker Rule and eases mortgage rules for smaller lenders. Source.
The Co-founder and Head of Business Development at SALT Lending introduces us to the world of asset-backed cryptocurrency lending. Source
- How Citizens Bank is reaching millennials
- Bank Fintech Partnership More Than Just a Good Idea
- Developing The Application of Anti-fraud Technology to Enhance Financial Risk Management
- Merchant Advance Capital Closes $30 Million Debt Facility
- ETHLend creates the first Fully Gamified and Decentralized Credit Profile
Small business lender Fundbox believes their new credit and payment product will help to solve the cash flow issue at small businesses; “We want to do for [small-business] B-to-B commerce what the entire credit card infrastructure has done for B-to-C commerce,” said Prashant Fuloria, chief operating officer of Fundbox, to American Banker; one of the biggest reasons for some of these issues is there is no credit scoring equivalent for small businesses; Fundbox Pay allows businesses to get paid immediately and gives those invoiced 60 days to pay at no charge, allowing businesses to handle the seasonal cash flow issues without too much pain. Source.
Lightning Labs announced it had raised $2.5 million and at the same time released a beta version of their technology; one of the criticisms of bitcoin is that it can handle a limited number of transactions per second; some believe that bitcoin should increase its block size to process more transactions; Lightning Labs is working on the Lightning Network to add another layer of transactions to sit on top of the blockchain network which would allow for more transactions to take place. Source
Options Clearing Corporation has set a three year plan to put their business on a cloud based system; the reason for the move is concerns over cybersecurity; the company clears more than 460mn trades a month and has recently added cryptocurrency futures; cloud based servers are cheaper and more secure than in house IT systems. 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
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.
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.
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.