As more banks start utilizing new technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain current employees are beginning to worry about their future; Lyn Hall-Fore, U.S. director of BSA/AML compliance tells American Banker, “We told them, this is to make your job easier and better and give you more capacity to think, but still meet your production quotas”; finding the right balance will be a struggle as banks continue to innovate. Source
The new rule forces lenders to to assess whether borrowers can repay the loans and limits rollovers, where customers take out new loans to repay old ones; the new rule is likely to face legal challenges and is primarily focused on loans under 45 days. Source
deBanked reports that Google searches including “cash advance” do not include advertisements when searching; this is likely due to Google clamping down on payday loan advertisements and the term cash advance being related to payday loans; Merchant cash advances however are for businesses, making this a possible unintended consequence on the clamp down of payday loan ads. Source
According to the WSJ, OneMain is looking to sell and is in advanced discussions with multiple parties; the deal could be worth $4 billion or more; Most of OneMain’s personal and car loans are to people with credit scores under 660; the company has 1,700 branches and 2.2 million customers. Source
The American Bankers Association released their quarterly delinquency bulletin which shows steady delinquency rates at 1.56%; the 15-year average is 2.16%; Household debt hit a record $12.84 trillion in the second quarter with increases in automobile, mortgage and credit card debt. Source
PeerIQ’s weekly update includes a look at recent testimony on capitol hill by Equifax and Janet Yellen’s remarks at an event on reducing regulatory burdens on smaller banks; they also take a deep dive into the recent Navient acquisition of Earnest and how the servicer stacks up to SoFi. Source.
Overstock.com plans to launch their new regulated token exchange with its own initial coin offering; launched under Overstock.com's capital markets arm, tØ, the token offering will be the first listed event on the new exchange; CoinDesk reports that Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne said the company will be able to raise between $200mn and $500mn easily. Source.
The project will help to connect multiple digital wallets to process money transactions; they say this will allow different currencies to flow through wallets like HTTPS, SMTP and SIP information goes between web browsers according to Banking Technology; this would allow an individual making a payment through WeChat to send money to a friend who uses PayPal. Source.
PeerIQ released their third quarter marketplace lending securitization report; total issuance for the quarter was $2.6 billion down from $3 billion in the last quarter; SoFi closed two consumer deals and one student deal; Lending Club and Prosper both issued one deal; College Avenue issued their first ever student loan securitization. Source
Ken Sena runs a group within Wells Fargo Securities and recently introduced an artificially intelligent equity research analyst; the bot tracks stocks and put a sell rating on Facebook and Google, two of the top companies working on artificial intelligence; Sena provides his perspective on the new bot and where it might be falling short. Source