The startup donated its digital currency (XRP) to public schools in the United States; Ripple shared it is the largest cryptocurrency gift to a single charity and will be used to buy materials at over 28,000 schools in all 50 states; Ripple currently owns 60 billion of the 100 billion XRP in existence and has a market cap around $35 billion; the cryptocurrency will be liquidated over a two period in order to not disrupt the market price. Source
Groundfloor has partnered with IRA Services to offer clients investment through tax-deferred retirement accounts; Groundfloor is the US market's first and only real estate platform with all of its investments open to non-accredited investors; through IRA Services, which provides a unique platform for facilitating investment in alternative finance, investors can now invest in Groundfloor's range of real estate offerings, achieving returns of 5% to over 20% in tax deferred retirement accounts; Groundfloor's P2P real estate lending platform has been growing substantially with $16.5 million in loans originated in 2016, an increase of 621% from 2015. Source
Ally Financial recently added an automated savings tool to their product set that the company believes will help them deepen...
Karen Mills believes small business customers are not being served well by lenders and so she has decided to join Eastern...
China Rapid Finance has filed for an IPO in the US; it will be the fifth online lender to trade on a public US exchange and the second Chinese online lender to list in the US; Lend Academy provides more details on China Rapid Finance and the IPO in their article; the firm is hoping to raise $100 million from the IPO; it is a peer-to-peer lender matching borrowers with investors and does not lend from its balance sheet; the platform targets underserved consumers and uses thousands of data points from alternative data sources including information on work history, payments, e-commerce, telco, search and social data for its credit underwriting. Source
PeerStreet’s Series B round was led by World Innovation Lab with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Thomvest, Colchis Capital, Felicis Ventures, Solon Mack and Navitas Capital; PeerStreet is a marketplace for fix and flip loans; the company said funds will be used to expand to new types of loans and that the company may also be adding more international investors. Source
PayPal COO Bill Ready talked to Karen Webster of PYMNTS.com about the decision to join Facebook’s project Libra; PayPal exists...
The LendIt team has combed through hundreds of applications to determine the finalists in 21 categories. Source
Citigroup Chief Executive Mike Corbat sat down with the FT in a wide ranging interview that discussed a variety of pressing...
A HSBC report stated that robo advisors in the US need to manage between $11.3 billion and $21.5 billion in...