Ant Financial announced at Money 20/20 a partnership with payment processor First Data and hardware provider Verifone; new move will expand scope of their wallet product, AliPay, into North America and Europe for wealthy Chinese travelers; AliPay has 450 million active users, totaling nearly 70% of the third party payment market in China. Source
Banks have historically made money on overdraft fees, out-of-network ATM fees, fees for not maintaining a certain minimum balance and more; this fee structure has helped give banks a bad name; big tech companies and fintech startups have garnered a better reputation for upfront fees for a simple service and transparency around other fees; “It’s important to let consumers understand what you’re offering, what the fee structure is — and be abundantly clear about it — and then you can build trust,” said Jay Shah, CEO of Personal Capital to TearSheet; studies show that customers are not turned off by fees, but are annoyed when they hear of free checking then see ACH transaction fees or overdraft fees; banks need to begin to understand what their customers want and how much they are willing to pay for it in a clear way. Source.
Investing startup Wealthfront is adding a new feature to their Path platform to help users with home buying; “With the introduction of Path’s home planning service, our clients can now easily plan for all of their major life milestones — from saving for their children’s future to one day retiring — with just a few taps on their phone,” said Andy Rachleff cofounder and CEO of Wealthfront to Business Insider; the new feature will use real estate dat from Redfin to help users explore the housing market and see whether or not they can afford a home. Source.
American Banker has released their inaugural “Best Fintechs to Work For” list; they highlight some of the unique perks fintech companies are offering their employees; some of the names making the list are Best Egg, PeerStreet, nChino, SmartBiz Loans, Nav, Cross River Bank, Jumio and Oportun. Source
There was some fanfare late last week when reports came out about Facebook securing partners for their blockchain based Libra...
Despite the rumors of a spinoff and losing Amber Baldet JPMorgan Chase is still pushing forward with their Quorum blockchain; they recently tested the issuance of a $150 million, one-year, floating-rate Yankee certificate of deposit on the blockchain, in parallel with the actual issuance of the CD according to American Banker; in regards to the spinoff the bank has yet to completely deny the rumors, though they could spinoff parts of the group and still house Quorom within the bank. Source.
Financial inclusion is a factor considered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in all of its banking charters; American Banker discusses how the fintech charter's financial inclusion provisions compare to the Community Reinvestment Act requirements for banks; the new fintech charter would require fintechs to detail how they plan to promote financial inclusion with accountability from the OCC for those goals and more direct OCC enforcement actions for fintech companies. Source
Midwest BankCentre in St. Louis has launched a digital only bank, Rising Bank, in a bid to stay competitive and...
According to a new report by CB Insights the most recent 5 quarters show that big investments in fintech companies from banks has slowed down; banks are instead beginning to develop and update core technology in house; Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and others have all developed and released their own digital investing and advising services; service provides like Diebold are offering the banks a chance to move all infrastructure online so they can focus on customer facing tools; banks are still working through transformation as almost all have now realized if they do not upgrade legacy tech they will be left behind. Source.
Industry experts such as Matt Harris (Bain Capital Ventures), Dan Ciporin (Canaan Partners Partners), Andy Weissman (Union Square Ventures) and others share what 2018 may look across fintech; perspectives included span payments, lending, Amazon vs. JPMorgan, M&A, asset management and funding. Source