Banks of all sizes have been trying to figure out how to adapt to the changing landscape and at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a panel to look at the future of digital banking; panelists cover how they see the future of banking, is it mobile only or mobile first, how do millennials help to guide strategies and when life becomes more complex how many different devices do people use; panelists focused on how to leverage social networks and how important digital strategies are to grow your audience; when doing partnerships who really owns the customer, is it the bank or does the customer feel more ownership to the social network or other type of partner; how do you compete with larger incumbent banks and how are smaller more nimble players able to gain market share; the panel also touches on different types of fees, how to make money in the digital age and how smaller firms can keep costs lower as they scale. Source
PeerStreet, a platform for investing in real estate backed loans, has now integrated with Personal Capital which is powered by the Envestnet | Yodlee data aggregation platform; customers will now be able to view their PeerStreet positions within their investment portfolio on Personal Capital; this is the third such integration as PeerStreet recently announced integrations with Wealthfront and Betterment; "Many PeerStreet customers have asked for this integration with Personal Capital. We're always working to improve the experience for our customers and provide greater control and transparency," said Brett Crosby, co-founder and COO of PeerStreet." Source
Fund That Flip is a real estate crowdfunding platform; it has been around for three years and plans to add 25 employees to the Cleveland location; the company received a Job Creation Tax Credit on Monday, July 31st which applies to the company's plan to generate $1.5 million in new payroll. Source
JPMorgan will soon be using robot technology to execute trades across its global equities algorithms business; the artificial intelligence, also known as LOXM, will be launched across Asia and the US in the fourth quarter; LOXM's job is to execute client orders with maximum speed at the best price, by using lessons it has learned from billions of past trades; one possible evolution of LOXM is teaching the machine how to get to know individual clients, so that it could consider their behavior and reaction as it decides how to trade. Source
Money360 is a marketplace lender for commercial real estate; in Q2 the company closed $143 million in loans making Q2 the company's largest quarter; to date the company has closed $350 million in loans and expects to surpass the $500 million mark by the end of the year; the press release provides further information about the deals closed. Source
Ron Suber has been involved with Credible since 2015, investing in both the Series A and Series B rounds as well as acting in an advisory role; Suber will now spend about one day per week helping Credible in a broad range of activities from fundraising to helping the team as the company grows; Credible CEO Stephen Dash noted that despite headwinds many other industry participants faced, Credible continues to grow; Ron Suber will play a role in navigating the growth they expect going forward; the company also announced a pilot for a credit card marketplace which launched today. Source
APIs combined with banking has become an important topic for banks and fintech companies; we are seeing increasing interest in APIs as every bank has to have an API or open banking strategy; since APIs often need to be built on legacy infrastructure there are often many challenges involved; the panel has a wide variety of perspectives from API service providers to banks who share how to build APIs on traditional banking technology. Source
Elevate Credit reported its second quarter earnings results on Monday, July 31; revenue for the quarter was $150.5 million, increasing 18.7% from the comparable quarter; earnings per share were $0.08, increasing from a loss of -$0.59 in the second quarter of 2016; business highlights noted in the earnings release included over $200 million in total principal outstanding with more than 120,000 open accounts, the launch of Elevate Labs and the introduction of the RISE line of credit product in Kansas. Source
In its discussion of how banks can become digital lenders, The Financial Brand provides the above chart; while mobile lending apps are only one aspect of a comprehensive digital lending platform, they are a core feature that customers rely on; the chart outlines the key features customers seek from mobile lending apps with the top features including the capability to lock in interest rates, calculate loan amounts and check an application status. Source
The New York Business Journal reports on CB Insights' venture capital data by state noting that fintech investment in New York companies decreased by 35% from the previous quarter to $253 million while deals increased to 24 from 19; three New York City companies, Namely, Trumid and Payfone, were among the top 10 US fintech deals; Namely was second in top fundraisings with $50 million. Source