There has been a lot of news coming out about SoFi recently; first came the departures of several senior executives; then news of a sexual harassment lawsuit came in August; now CEO Mike Cagney is stepping down as CEO from the company by the end of the year, having already stepped down as Chairman; in a letter sent to employees Cagney wrote, “The combination of HR-related litigation and negative press have become a distraction from the company’s core mission. I want SoFi to focus on helping members, hiring the best people, and growing our company in a way consistent with our values. That can’t happen as well as it should if people are focused on me, which isn’t fair to our members, investors, or you.” Source
Goldman Sachs said that their loan business would contribute almost half of the $5 billion in revenue growth it is projecting by 2020; the company will put $28 billion towards loans in the next three years in order to grow that part of the business; Revenue growth has remained flat since the financial crisis and trading revenues remain stagnant. Source
Speaking at an industry conference JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said bitcoin was a fraud and that it will eventually blow up; American Banker reports, “If we had a trader who traded bitcoin, I’d fire them in a second,” Dimon said. Not only would doing so be against company rules, but it would also simply be “stupid.”; he also talked about the bank's future plans in new locations and mobile banking. Source
Samsung has already been working with bank branches for five years; the new retail pop-ups will be rolled out in “sooner than a year”; an example of the pop-ups is a shopping center which usually has ATMs where banks could setup for a weekend to attract new customers; Samsung provides the devices that help bank employees engage with their customers. Source
Orchard has been working for a long time on their new platform called Orchard Deals; the platform has been redesigned from the ground up and boasts more than just a secondary market; features include deal listings, capital management, advanced analytics, data services and news & insights; Peter Renton from Lend Academy spoke with Orchard CEO Matt Burton and outlines what’s new in the blog post. Source
MoneyLion’s new feature is called Grow Your Stack; will help customers see a visual representation of their account balance as ‘cash’ over the real world; the feature will leverage iOS 11’s ARKit technology; Tim Hong, Chief Marketing Officer at MoneyLion stated, “If I write that you spent $350 on coffee as text, versus if I show you that in terms of a [visual] stack, you may be more likely to change your habits,” he said. “Not everyone learns in the traditional way.” Source
Groundfloor is a real estate crowdfunding company that has historically focused on retail investors; yesterday the company announced a whole loan purchase agreement with Direct Access Capital (DAC); this is their first institutional partner; Groundfloor to date has facilitated $40 million on the platform and has raised $8.5 million in venture capital. Source
AutoGravity CEO Andy Hinrichs was interviewed by CNBC’s On the Money program with Becky Quick; Andy explains the AutoGravity solution of simplifying the car buying process; successes to date include availability in 49 states, 500,00 app downloads and 20,000 dealership members since launch in 2016; they also discuss who the target buyer is for their product and how they generate revenue. Source
Robo advisors are meant to be simple and automated to keep costs low and allow your wealth to accumulate; in looking at the top four firms in the market the Wall Street Journal found that humans choose what goes into the portfolios; this begs the question whether investors are aware of this human intervention; the WSJ takes a closer look at how Vanguard Group's Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (PAS), Betterment, Wealthfront and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios allocate their clients money; while robo advisors are deemed a simple solution they might not be and investors should understand how their money is allocated. Source
Both Lending Club and Prosper have announced several programs to help borrowers affected by Hurricane Harvey; Lend Academy shares an email to Lending Club investors which states approximately 30,000 live in the affected areas; Lending Club has made changes around collections calls, late fees, credit bureau reporting and hardship plans; Prosper has taken similar actions by waiving late and NSF fees as well as adjusting payment schedules. Source