Banks are beginning to see that marketing Zelle within their own apps can be a challenge; “It’s not a simple feature you can roll out and say ‘try it.’ Explaining all these things means you have to prioritize because there just isn’t enough time so you have to be very selective,” says Mark Schwanhausser, director of the digital banking practice at Javelin and author of a new report looking at this issue, to TearSheet; banks have tried a number of ways to highlight Zelle as part of their banking experience, though the task has not been easy; as the brand grows and customers get accustomed to the difference the job will become easier. Source.
Swift says that blockchain technology is not yet ready to handle the billions in daily cross border bank payments; they recently completed a proof of concept test to reconcile international payments between 34 banks; they said the test went well but that progress was still needed before they can trust the technology to handle the scale; the other aspect to consider is that the 11,000 thousand banks on the Swift system would still need to make upgrades to switch to blockchain based payments. Source.
The platform announced their latest securitization which is a $233.75 million deal; provisional ratings of AAA were given by both Moody’s and DBRS; this is CommonBond’s sixth transaction and they have now securitized a total of $1.22 billion in loans. Source
Digital investment startup M1 Finance drooped their assets under management fees to zero in December; the company plans to make money through back end services and charges fees fopr paper statements, wire transfers and transferring to another brokerage; “It’s taking a similar approach to how the rest of financial services works,” CEO Brian Barnes said to TearSheet. “Banks make money on cash, assets, transaction revenue and the ability to cross sell — the more users, the more assets, and the more money M1 will make.”; the company current holds more than $100mn assets under management. Source.
The main lobbying group for banks, the Consumer Bankers Association, is trying to get the government to add caps on how much graduate students and parents of undergraduates can borrow from the government; caps would force people to go to private lenders and would benefit those with better credit histories; there is also a group of investors trying to get clearer legislation passed for income sharing agreements; changes could result in billions of dollars worth of opportunities for banks and investors as the most recent academic year totaled $107bn. Source.
In 2017, SoFi spent $170 million on marketing and paid $756 to acquire each customer; in 2018 the company plans to spend $200 million; in comparison LendingClub and Prosper spent between $350-$450 to acquire a customer; back in 2015, SoFi spent $30 million on marketing and $375 to acquire a customer; at the time marketing spend as a percentage of originations was 0.6%; SoFi’s marketing strategy is different than other fintech firms who often show up on rate comparison sites. Source
Formed in 2016, the Golden Contract Coalition was designed to help small banks negotiate better with core banking providers; the mission has now expanded to include a FinTech Advantage unit dedicated to helping the banks by financial technology; the member banks of the coalition pay a fee for the group to provide more negotiating muscle; Fiserv, FIS and Jack Henry are the major core providers for banks and the group is there to help smaller banks even the playing field. Source.
According to researchers from the Federal Reserve and University of California, non-bank mortgage lenders are not prepared to weather a financial downturn and are a risk to taxpayers; According to the paper, “Non-bank failures could be quite costly to the government, but this issue has received very little attention in the housing-reform debate. The funding and operational structure of the non-bank mortgage sector remains a significant channel for systemic liquidity risk.”; non-bank lenders originated half of home loans in 2016. Source
Tim Draper was an early investor in the internet and is also a big believer in blockchain technology; in an interview on Fast Money he shares that he believes that crypto will be a main payment method in just five years and that none of us will be using fiat currency; Draper is known for purchasing 30,000 bitcoins in a 2014 US Marshals Service Auction and has said he still holds all of those coins. Source
Circle is planning to offer a similar product to Coinbase called Circle Invest; the platform has now launched in beta as users reported they were receiving invites; the app will support Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ethereum Classic; the app currently does not support cryptocurrency deposits. Source