Greenhouse, the new Wells Fargo banking app, will offer customers a new mobile banking experience to help manage finances; users will be able to manage their money and have the ability to send and receive payments; Crowdfund Insider reports Avid Modjtabai, Head of Payments, Virtual Solutions and Innovation at Wells Fargo said at an industry event, “We believe the Greenhouse experience will appeal to a broad base of consumers, many of whom have several income sources or are paid infrequently, which can make budgeting a challenge.” Source.
There have been a number of new funding deals closed in recent weeks and CB Insights reported that 278 fintech financing deals were done in the third quarter; Lend Academy provides the interesting mix of companies that have raised debt and equity capital. Source
PwC is out with new research saying alternative asset volumes will double by 2025; alternatives will make up about 15 percent of global assets under management by 2025 because investors are looking for diversification and reduced volatility; Rob Mellor, PwC asset management partner, tells AltFi, “We have seen the rise of the multi-strategy alternative manager and an increasing trend for traditional active managers looking to add alternative strategies to their product range.” Source.
Peter Renton, Founder of Lend Academy reports on the potential of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple being the fintech leaders of tomorrow. Source
According to data from TransUnion, financial technology groups originated $15 billion of personal loans in the first half of 2017; this represents nearly a third of the total US market for new personal loans; John Wirth, vice-president of fintech strategy at TransUnions stated, "fintech business model appears to be working nicely. Their use of the latest technology . . . has likely helped them become leaders."; Source
Writing an opinion piece in American Banker Jonah Crane, a fintech advisor, points out that the CFPB and other regulators need to keep a watchful eye on the data sharing guidance; the rules are currently non binding but offer the regulators a chance to use current oversight power to enforce egregious violations; ensuring a level playing field and working with industry players can help not only consumers but regulators better understand how data sharing can be done is the most beneficial way. Source.
The real time payments network Zelle has added new tech partners to their growing network; partners include ACI Worldwide, CGI, D3 Banking Technology and IBM; the new partners will help to accelerate technology, reduce risk and control costs for Zelle as their payments network grows over time. Source.
Brokerage app Robinhood is unveiling a new web based platform; the company currently has over 3 million opened accounts and is growing daily; Business Insider reports that co-founder Baiju Bhatt said, "When people are buying stocks, they are comparison shopping and they want an experience that's built for that."; the company has reached the size of Etrade and are working on building additional features. Source.
Keith Noreika, the acting Comptroller of the Currency recently signed the first full-service de novo national bank charter since the financial crisis to Winter Park National Bank of Florida; Noreika believes there are still too few new banks and part of the problem is the onerous process; Noreika outlines the lengthy process and discusses his suggested changes in his testimony back in June. Source
In an interview with Business Insider Acorns CEO Noah Kerner talked about the investment app’s success to date and how he see the company moving forward; the company has seen strong growth with 2.2 million US accounts; the app allows users to invest spare change from purchases; the focus of the future is to try to get all households with income under $100K using the app. Source.