Personetics Act will be offered to banks as a way to help their customers pay off their student loans ahead of schedule; the tool will use the Nudge Theory by identifying students who can repay loans quicker and helping them to do so or automatically pay more than the usual payment for them; David Sosna, Personetics’ co-founder and CEO tells Banking Technology, “we’re able to identify windows of opportunity for customers to make these extra payments with no effort on their end.” Source.
Petal’s new credit card will focus on the 65 million people who lack credit history for a traditional card; they have been working for three years on their product which uses AI to predict a consumer’s creditworthiness; the company raised a $3.6 million seed round last September and followed with a $13 million Series A in January of 2018; the partnership with WebBank will allow Petal to make the card available nationwide which they anticipate will happen over the next few months. Source
Petal uses information beyond credit scores like earnings, spending and savings to identify people who are a good fit for a credit card; users can then use the Petal card to build their credit history; the company raised $13 million led by Valar Ventures. Source
Peter gives a recap of activity in 2016 which included issues across most all of the largest firms and reported many small firm closings with the launch of Marcus by Goldman Sachs changing market competition; compared to 2016, 2017 appears much better with equity investments already surpassing 2016 totals and many new startups launching lending platforms; overall, Peter says the industry is recovering but not recovered and notes that returns are dropping. Source
Peter Renton has been providing a quarterly investment report showing the returns for his complete alternative lending portfolio in detail...
Peter Thiel has been discussing a bid for California governor with his advisors; Thiel has been active in political campaigns and could find a number of supporters should he run for California governor; as a Republican he speaks frequently with California House Majority Leader and Republican Kevin McCarthy; he also contributed to the Trump campaign and since 2000 has contributed over $8.5 million to federal candidates and political committees. Source
Speaking at the Financial Investment Initiative event the former founder of PayPal thinks that bitcoin detractors could be underestimating the currency’s potential; as CoinDesk reports, “underestimating [it] especially because ... it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments."; he has in the past criticized bitcoin and is not bullish on all cryptocurrencies. Source.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Founders Fund has amasses hundreds of millions of dollars or bitcoin recently; the fund started with about $10mn to $15mn worth of bitcoin and has since seen that initial investment skyrocket; while many traditional wall street names have yet to buy into bitcoin the move by Mr. Thiel and his fund point to their confidence in the currency; during an interview in October Mr. Thiel was reported to say, “While I’m skeptical of most of them, I do think people are a little bit underestimating bitcoin, specifically, because it is like a reserve form of money.” Source.
Jonathan Snyder has developed the Philadelphia Capital Consortium to provide increased capital availability to small businesses; Snyder developed a process that allows Philadelphia small businesses to submit a form which is then sent to the Consortium's lenders; Snyder directs the process and interested lenders respond to the inquiry within 10 days; the Consortium has completed four loans and is currently adding new lenders to its network, including online lender Credibility Capital. Source
Philadelphia Fed president, Patrick Harker, gave a speech titled, "Fintech: Revolution or Evolution?" at the University of Pennsylvania; the speech was part of a lecture series at the School of Engineering and Applied Science; Patrick Harker discussed fintech in the context of technology, business and government noting innovation in cryptocurrency, blockchain, banking and regulation. Source