Jeff Garzik helped contribute to the underlying code of bitcoin and is now coming to market with Metronome; "We've really been beating this up on the economic-model side, the engineering side, the legal and tax side," said Garzik, who serves as CEO of Bloq, to American Banker; Metronome does not have it’s own blockchain and has the ability to jump from one blockchain to another; the new cryptocurrency could be appealing to banks because of the flexibility and they are looking to launch in December. Source.
Orchard stresses the importance of recovery rates in valuing pools of loans; blog post takes Orchard’s US unsecured consumer lending industry data and discusses what loan recoveries are, how they are calculated, how debt holders recover defaulted loan balances, and why recovery rates are so important. Source
Speaking at the Financial Investment Initiative event the former founder of PayPal thinks that bitcoin detractors could be underestimating the currency’s potential; as CoinDesk reports, “underestimating [it] especially because ... it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments."; he has in the past criticized bitcoin and is not bullish on all cryptocurrencies. Source.
After raising more than $232mn in an initial coin offering the company is now involved in a legal battle that could delay the launch into 2018; the dispute highlights the risk involved in the new form of financing since companies are raising money from a concept; how the case turns out could potentially effect future fundraising and whether or not investors feel secure enough to pour capital into young companies. Source.
Bill Miller discusses his $154 million hedge fund MVP 1 and its 30% allocation to bitcoin in a Wall Street Journal article; the fund is up 72.5% this year and according to a letter to investors the fund paid an average price of $350 per bitcoin; while his fund has done well he is aware of the risks that bitcoin could go to zero, providing his perspective in the article. Source
There is significant pain points for commercial clients of banks as they typically need to resend documents many times; as banks become more tech driven they have begun to solve these issues and clients are seeing the benefits; JP Morgan Chase has created Data Once and even smaller banks like Peapack-Gladstone Bank in NJ have new features for their clients; banks of all sizes see how the changes can impact client relations. Source.
LendIt is returning to the west coast next year for LendIt USA 2018; it will take place on April 9-11 at the Moscone Center; this year we are focusing on three core areas: lending, digital banking and blockchain; new for 2018 is the BlockFin Summit which will take place in a dedicated space within LendIt; it will cover a wide variety of topics including: enterprise blockchain using digital ledger technology, global finance built on AI and blockchain, tokenized VC and investment banking, blockchain infrastructure for markets, trading, and back office, decentralized banking and insurance, and crypto-economics; early bird pricing ends this Friday, November 3.
Personetics Act will be offered to banks as a way to help their customers pay off their student loans ahead of schedule; the tool will use the Nudge Theory by identifying students who can repay loans quicker and helping them to do so or automatically pay more than the usual payment for them; David Sosna, Personetics’ co-founder and CEO tells Banking Technology, “we’re able to identify windows of opportunity for customers to make these extra payments with no effort on their end.” Source.
Leading home solar financed Mosaic has partnered with PeerIQ on latest securitization; Mosaic used the PeerIQ platform to allow potential ABS buyers to have insight into their complete set of loan-level data; the partnership will allow for more transparency, streamline diligence and execution. Source.
With the recent hack of Equifax still top of mind for regulators and consumers alike, there are individuals beginning to explore potential solutions including blockchain technology; Bloom and Open Identity Exchange are working on protocols and standards that could be used by any entity to create an ID system on the blockchain; having such a system would allow for more security from hackers and help to verify individuals; while there are current limitations to the technology there are many groups looking to solve these issues and a potential government led initiative could speed up development. Source.