As rates rise fixed income investors are looking for places to put cash; Lend Academy shares the latest rates on savings and CD accounts as well as a look at the newly branded Marcus by Goldman Sachs bank account. Source
LendingClub grew revenue and announced settlements in two class action lawsuits. Source
According to new data from the Federal Reserve mobile payments have seen a big growth among consumers but fraud has also risen; the shorter clearing period looks to have opened banks on the Zelle network to more potential for fraudulent transactions; Zelle has been using multi-layer and multi-factor authentication during the enrollment process; as banks look to innovate to suit their customer needs they are also looking at newer ways to protect themselves against threats that are evolving just as quick. Source.
Silicon Valley startup accelerator 500 Startups partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Huobi to incubate blockchain projects; Edith Yeung, a partner at 500 Startups, said to CoinDesk, in partnering with Huobi Labs, "Our teams will learn so much especially around the ins and outs of how a digital exchange works."; the companies will help startups to develop business plans, create and refine marketing strategies, fundraise and develop white papers. Source.
BlackRock, the world’s largest investment group, is setting up an AI research lab; the move is part of a wider industry trend by asset managers to use AI and machine learning for investments; the lab is meant to help their current teams and clients better understand how best to utilize the new technologies; “Big data offers a world of possibilities for generating alpha [market beating returns] but traditional techniques are not good enough to analyse the huge volumes of information involved,” said David Wright, head of product strategy in Europe for BlackRock’s scientific active equity division, to the FT. Source.
The student focused digital bank, BankMobile, has created an online magazine entitled Paradigm Money; the effort is an attempt by the bank to build brand awareness and help current customers manage their money; the site has news, opinion, interviews and advice for customers; Ash Exantus, BankMobile’s director of financial education, tells TearSheet “We wanted to create a site that was independent from the bank that’s not promoting our products or services, but as a place other people can go for financial news and financial literacy.” Source.
The round was led by TTV capital and included New Enterprise Associations, Relay Ventures, nbkc bank and Canapi; Greenlight offers a debit card with an app for kids and college students; the service costs $4.99 per month; big names such as SunTrust, Ally Financial, the Amazon Alexa Fund among others are forming financial education partnerships with Greenlight. Source
In recent years there have been several companies who are focused on what are called shared-equity contracts; these companies provide help to potential homebuyers by providing a portion of the down payment; some companies also offer the ability for current homeowners to sell equity in their home which is an alternative to a cash-out refinance; investors hope to participate in the upside as property values increase; some of the players in this space are Landed, Unison, Point and Patch Homes. Source
A new report by the Council of Economic Advisers said cyberattacks cost the U.S. between $56bn and $109bn in 2016; the council's report represents between 0.31% and 0.58% of the 2016 U.S. gross domestic product being at risk; the financial sector had the biggest number of attacks seeing about 471 breaches in 2016; the report made an ominous statement on detecting threats saying, “Due to common vulnerabilities, instances of security breaches occur across firms and in patterns that are difficult to anticipate.” Source.
Dozens of Coinbase users were complaining on Reddit regarding unexpected charges on their credit and debit cards; Worldpay and Visa issued a joint statement saying the issue was not cause by Coinbase; the Financial Times reports that the source of the problem was still not clear though it did seem related to merchant category codes that were assigned to Coinbase; the issues bring up concerns that regulators have been discussing, rules around the new digital currencies are not clear. Source.