The Trump administration has announced a White House innovation office that will focus on modernizing technology of federal government departments; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will oversee the innovation office; private sector technology executive advisors to the innovation office include Tim Cook from Apple and Bill Gates from Microsoft. Source
Reg. CF crowdfunding platform, Wefunder, is now accepting Bitcoin; Wefunder has taken the lead on Reg. CF crowdfunded investments accounting for 33 of 46 offerings; after numerous requests from its investors the platform has been able to incorporate Bitcoin investments; says the acceptance of Bitcoin will make it even easier to invest in early stage companies. Source
States have voiced their opposition against the OCC's fintech charter proposal and could be a factor limiting the charter from proceeding; with the charter, fintechs can be granted special purpose national bank status which includes national governance with exemption from state laws; many states have actively integrated regulations and processes for alternative lenders, including state usury laws and regulations for payday lenders; opposing states say the charter would complicate existing state level laws and initiatives. Source
In this week’s PeerIQ Industry Update they cover the continued strength in the economy which grew by 2.6 percent in...
Oportun is making some changes in response to the pandemic; they have decided to dismiss all pending collections cases as...
iBuying quickly became one of the hottest terms in digital real estate over the last few years with firms like...
Fintech startup nCino has filed an updated S-1 that indicates it will be pricing shares initially in the $22 to...
We were already aware of Avant’s spinoff called Amount which provides various technology solutions to banks; Amount is now raising...
Venmo users have started to use the payments app to show their appreciation to sports stars or celebrities; in most...
Lend Academy provides more details on defaults triggering a breach in a SoFi securitization portfolio; the portfolio reporting the defaults was SoFi's first securitization of unsecured consumer loans, the SoFi Consumer Loan Program 2015-1 LLC; given the terms of the deal and the overall characteristics, the breach does not seem to have broad market indications; the deal arrangers set the trigger level at 3% which is a relatively low rate and the cumulative net loss is only reported to be marginally above the trigger; a chart from PeerIQ also provides more details on the cumulative net loss rates for SoFi. Source