JPMorgan Chase and the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) announced their 4th annual Financial Solutions Challenge to help improve the financial health of underserved communities; for the first time the competition will focus on entrepreneurs of color, women and individuals with disabilities; "The FinLab believes that diversity among leaders and teams also leads to more inclusive products and services with the potential to scale to millions of customers,” explained the press release that accompanied the announcement. Source.
Online lending data and analytics platform PeerIQ announced their latest offering, a consumer credit suite backed by TransUnion data; the suite includes TransUnion’s depersonalized consumer credit data from the year 2000 to present day; users of the suite can see credit trends, vintage analysis, benchmarking analysis and more. Source.
We are quickly approaching LendIt Fintech 2018 which will take place on April 9-11 in San Francisco. Lend Academy shares the three areas of fintech the agenda will focus on and some of the interesting speakers attendees will hear from. Source
The company is calling their strategy the digital everything model, which includes new mobile features and back office operations powered by the blockchain; “We’re not going to lose our financial discipline because we have to make an investment that we have to do or want to do,” CEO Jamie Dimon said when asked about their approach to the tech investment; branch expansions, investments in big data solutions and more were also discussed during the investor call as reported by American Banker. Source.
The WSJ reviews Goldman’s push into consumer finance; the company first started offering loans under the Marcus brand which is the new branding for their savings account; Goldman has higher aspirations though with more initiatives in point of sale, wealth management, budgeting tools, insurance, mortgages and car loans; the company is also working with Fortune 500 companies to offer bank accounts as an employee perk; beyond their internal efforts they have also been active in acquiring fintech companies. Source
New York State Senators held a roundtable last week for NY based blockchain companies to give their opinions on the BitLicense; the BitLicense is seen as being too restrictive, especially for startups, and the listening session was meant to get industry points of view before making reforms; one of the biggest complaints is the current regulations are too one size fits all; it is a good sign to see legislators engage the community but NY’s Department of Financial Services was not invited and so there is skepticism that any change will actually occur. Source.
Online lending has been maturing the last few years with more companies reaching scale and some beginning to be profitable; banks have diversified their partnerships with online lenders and in some cases have launched their own online brands; one of the big shifts in the last few years is that banks and fintech companies are not seeing each other as enemies anymore, they can and do exist together through a number of different means. Source.
Anthony Noto was interviewed on his first day at SoFi; Noto shared that before he makes any changes at SoFi he wants to understand how various leaders are thinking about opportunities and risks; he also touched on corporate culture and strategic focuses in the interview; when asked about a potential IPO Noto said, “We don’t have any specific timetable or commitment to do that, but it something that we think could be possible down the road.”; American Banker also reported that SoFi’s wealth management business has $44.7 million of assets under management across 10,000 accounts. Source
Varo Money has ramped up their marketing campaign to position themselves as a better option than the banks; the fintech company is not going directly at the banks in their ads as some other fintechs have done, they are instead highlighting their own offering; their ads can be seen on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest; they are also focusing on their customers overall financial lives, empowering their users to understand what they make and how they can spend wisely. Source.
Bank of America is the second big bank, following JPMorgan Chase, to announce a big expansion of branches; the bank plans to open more than 500 branches over the next 4 years and hire over 5,400 people; they also said they will redesign more than 1,500 branches with new technologies and layouts; the focus of the plan is to establish more branches in mid sized markets that are typically dominated by regional banks. Source.