A new bill has been introduced in Congress that would mandate the IRS to make their data available via API; the current process for lenders requires borrowers to fill out a form known as IRS 4506-T: Request for Transcript of Tax Return; Lend Academy provides additional information on the bill with thoughts from Congressman McHenry and Nat Hoopes, Executive Director of the Marketplace Lending Association. Source
Greg Carmichael is the CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp; in this in-depth interview he shares his perspective on the intersection of regulation and innovation in banking, Fifth Third’s fintech strategy, their partnership with QED Investors and more. Source
Barclays is launching the My Personal Bank finance service that will link all of a customer’s Barclays based accounts; they are testing the tool with 7,500 Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard cardholders. Source.
Roofstock provides a marketplace for buyers and sellers of rental properties; the company is up to 35 employees and has now raised their Series C led by Canvas Ventures; TechCrunch published a short Q&A with their CEO Gary Beasley; while the company doesn’t disclose actual number of properties, they have facilitated “hundreds of millions of dollars in value this year alone” and now operate in 15 markets across the US. Source
Renren, a publicly listed company in the US operates a social media platform in China but has also made several fintech investments; investments include LendingHome, Fundrise, Motif Investing as well as a significant stake in SoFi; a year ago Renren announced plans to spin off its minority venture stakes into a new subsidiary; under the plan retail investors would receive a cash payout, losing their exposure to SoFi; Ryan Roberts, director at MCM Partners stated in the Forbes article, “It certainly looks like Joe Chen is trying to strip the best assets from Renren, particularly SoFi. SoFi is basically the entire value of the company right now, the core business has really deteriorated.” Source
According to a form d filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission small business lender Kabbage is in the middle of a $161mn round; the filing shows they have thus far raised a little over $80mn; this round is in addition to the $250 million investment from a subsidiary of Softbank Group in August. Source.
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios now boasts $24 billion assets under management and has hired Cynthia Loh, the ex-general manager of Betterment for Business; article reports on Schwab’s robo-advice platform growth, the cannibalization the firm saw with the offering, and what the new hire might mean for Schwab’s future plans. Source
The US Department of Justice has approved the real-time Payments network after a yearlong antitrust review; the Clearing House, a consortium of the biggest banks in the US, was pleased by the news as they plan to launch their leading system later this year; this is seen as a step in the right direction of helping to modernize the US payments system. Source.
Overstock.com launches a joint venture with RenGen and Argon Group for an automated trading system for tokens via ICOs; according to Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne the JV will be the first platform to meet regulatory requirements of both the SEC and Finra. Source.
According to the WSJ, Goldman Sachs is considering a new trading operation dedicated to digital currencies; a spokeswoman for Goldman stated, “In response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them in this space.”; several banks have been exploring the use of blockchain technology; Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan Chase recently spoke out against bitcoin calling it a fraud. Source