As bigger breaches occur startups focusing on cybersecurity have seen investment double in the last year; globally there was $7.6bn invested in cybersecurity startups this past year after seeing $3.8bn in 2016; global spending on cybersecurity was estimated to be over $80bn in 2017 as companies look to protect their data and company systems from evolving threats. Source.
Visa notified WaveCrest that they were terminating their membership with the company for non compliance; WaveCrest is a third party processor where prepaid cards were being used for crypto based activities; the terms and conditions of their agreement with Visa stated that funds could only be loaded to the card via an employer on a regular basis; the termination note leaves a number of companies in limbo and looking for another option to service customers. Source.
Buying and selling of cryptocurrencies may be available as soon as June, but the bank is still working on how it will store them; Goldman remains one of the few banks who are leading the charge when it comes to trading cryptocurrencies and it remains to be seen whether other banks will follow suit. Source
The Senior Managing Director at Kroll Bond Rating Agency discusses trends in marketplace lending securitization. Source
There has been talk about one the big tech firms becoming a bank and potentially forever changing financial services; event without a banking license big tech firms are making noise in the finance market; Amazon and PayPal have been extending billions in loans and banks have started testing technologies like Alexa; the tech firms have also amassed a trove of data that could end up being as important as banking data; as banks become more digitized we will begin seeing a further mixing of interests to help offer the best experience as possible to the customer. Source.
Tiger Global has led Wealthfront’s latest $75 million round; the capital will be used to further build out their Path platform which connects users to their other financial accounts; Wealthfront now has $9 billion under management. Source
Chris Larsen, Ripple’s co-founder and executive chairman is benefiting from Ripple’s (XRP) recent rise; CNBC reports that his net worth climbed to $59.9 billion yesterday, at least on paper; this puts him high on the Forbes 400 list, just head of Larry Ellison; Larsen owns 5.19 billion of the digital currency and has a 17% stake in the company; he was previously a founder of Prosper. Source
The Financial Stability Oversight Council's annual report includes a section discussing the risks of marketplace lending. Source
Roostify CEO Rajesh Bhat sat down with TearSheet to discuss the online mortgage market and stated we are still in the first quarter of the game; Roostify is an enterprise mortgage origination platform and has secured deals with JPMorgan Chase and Guild Mortgage; topics discussed include why mortgages are so hard to digitize, how banks have addressed the move to digital mortgages and how did Roostify come to be. Source.
Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates put together his list of the top ten trends that will define finance in 2018; some of the highlights from the list include alternative data become less alternative and more part of the norm; regulators are better at getting things done as opposed to congress; continued innovation in the fintech space and the fear of a potential cyber breach in the space; banks will begin to focus more attention to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Source.