Tuesday June 5 2018, Daily News Digest

United States

British fintech startup Revolut to seek U.S. banking license (Reuters) Rated: AAA

British financial technology startup Revolut plans to apply for a banking license in the United States, Chief Executive Officer Nikolay Storonsky said on Monday.

The company, launched in 2015, could apply by the end of the year in California, Storonsky told Reuters in an interview at the sidelines of a fintech conference in Amsterdam.

Debate on Consumer Credit Health, TransUnion Summit (Peer IQ) Rated: AAA

US Economic Outlook from TransUnion Financial Services Summit 2018

1. Short-run GDP growth rate will be around 3%, driven by consumer spending and stimulus from the tax reform act. However, over the long-term, GDP growth will be hampered as the economy’s resources are approaching full employment, low trend productivity growth, and fading (and reversing stimulus) effects of tax reform.
   

   

2. Long-range inflation expectation is ~2% which would put a natural ceiling on the neutral Federal Funds Rate and the number of Fed hikes.
3. As the Fed raises rates and tapers the reinvestment of its balance sheet, the 1-5 year part of the treasury curve will be most affected, as that’s where the majority of the Fed’s holdings lie. This should lead to a flatter yield curve and put pressure on refinancing of corporate debt, most of which is benchmarked to the less than 5-year part of the yield curve. Rising rates will also cause the debt-laden US consumer to slow down spending as a larger portion of income goes towards debt service.
4. Tight lending standards and economic strength have brought down the delinquency rates in all asset classes except auto loans. Delinquencies in auto loans have picked up recently to 4.3%, with subprime auto doing worse.
   

   

5. US GDP growth has been aided by strong tailwinds in the form of stimulus from tax reform, low interest rates, and strong credit growth. As interest rates rise and consumer credit growth slows, investors need to keep an eye on economic fundamentals before making investment decisions.

SoFi’s Ex-Venture Head to Raise $ 150 Million Fintech Fund (Bloomberg) Rated: AAA

Social Finance Inc.’s former head of ventures and corporate development, Logan Allin, is raising a $150 million fund to invest in early stage financial technology firms in the U.S. and abroad, including Asia, Europe and Israel, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fin Venture Capital plans to invest in companies that will spin out of top fintech firms, like SoFi, Affirm Inc. and Stripe Inc. and sectors like real-estate technology, insurance technology and alternative lending. The venture firm will also look for corporate blockchain applications, but not investments in cryptocurrencies, the people said.

How student loan companies pretend to be your friend (The Guardian) Rated: A

This month, banking company Laurel Road announced that if you refinance your student loan with them, they will give you a year’s membership to MoviePass, the movie theater subscription service.

The partnership shines a light on the growing market for private student loans. Private lenders currently hold less than 10% of the $1.4tn in outstanding student loan debt but have been aggressively lobbying for legislation that would loosen the government’s monopoly.

Social Finance Inc (SoFi), one of the most high-profile private financial startups in the US, has led the charge in this regard.

Education Loan Finance Launches $ 50,000 Contest to Pay Off Student Loans (Digital Journal) Rated: A

Education Loan Finance (ELFI), a division of SouthEast Bank, focusing on student loan debt refinancing and consolidation, announces the launch of a video contest where the winner will receive a $50,000 cash prize towards their student loan debt.

According to the Brookings Institute, more than 44 million Americans have student loans that total nearly $1.4 trillion. Student loan debt is now the second-largest source of household debt in the U.S. after home mortgages.

Eloan Personal Loans Review: Fast Loans in As Little As a Day (Student Loan Hero) Rated: A

According to TransUnion, fintechs, or online lenders that use financial technology to streamline the lending process, originated 32% of personal loans in the first six months of 2017.

The rates on your loan will depend on your creditworthiness, as well as your loan amount and repayment terms. Here are the ranges you can expect depending on your credit score:

• Excellent: 5.49% to 10.49%
• Very good: 10.49% to 13.49%
• Good: 13.49% to 16.49%
• Pretty good: 16.49% to 19.49%
• Fair: 19.49% to 35.99%

Eloan looks beyond your credit score

Your credit score isn’t the only factor at play when Eloan reviews your application. The lender also looks at your debt-to-income ratio, length of credit, and debt repayment history before making a final decision.

Tom Burnside of LendingPoint (Lend Academy) Rated: A

In this podcast you will learn:

• Tom’s background building databases and credit systems.
• The founding story of LendingPoint.
• The loans terms that LendingPoint offers for their loans.
• The kinds of data they use for underwriting.
• How they are using technology to run their underwriting and elsewhere in their business.
• What was behind their decision to acquire LoanHero, the point of sale platform.
• How they have integrated LoanHero into their company.
• How they closed the additional $600m credit facility from Guggenheim.
• Tom’s thoughts on what we are doing well and what are we doing poorly as an industry.
• What they are working on at LendingPoint for the future.

Fintech startup SpotOn almost tripling staff this year as it squares off against Square (San Francisco Business Times) Rated: A

SpotOn, which started the year with 150 employees, now has a workforce of about 250 people, working at the company’s Financial District headquarters or in a Chicago office. SpotOn said it expects to have 400 employees by year-end.

SpotOn offers credit card processing services and a range of other services to small and mid-sized merchants, pitting the upstart against Square (NYSE: SQ).

Retail Banking Company Chime Raises $ 70M in Series C Funding (Finsmes) Rated: A

Chime, a San Francisco, CA-based retail banking company, raised $70m in Series C funding.

The round, which has valued the company at about $500m, was led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Aspect Ventures, Cathay Innovation, Northwestern Mutual, Crosslink Capital, and Omidyar Network.

Fifth Third adds new fintech partner to enhance service for corporate clients (American Banker) Rated: B

Fifth Third has struck a strategic partnership with Intellect Global Transaction Banking, a unit of Intellect Design Arena that has its U.S. headquarters in New Jersey.

Why Millennials Are Poised To Be The Next Wave Of Single Family Rental Investors (Forbes) Rated: AAA

While it may be a surprise given the stereotypes surrounding the millennial generation, research from the National Association of Realtors found that millennials continue to be the largest group of homebuyers, representing 65% of all first-time homebuyers last year. According to TD Bank, two-thirds of the generation are saving for a down payment. And they’re excited about the opportunities found in real estate investing. According to RealtyShares, 55% of millennials are enthusiastic about investing in real estate, though 83% wish the process were easier, an encouraging statistic for turnkey firms geared toward simplifying the real estate investment process. Also encouraging, 54% of millennials are interested in investing in real estate outside of their primary residence, significantly higher than the 55+ demographic. And 7% of renters are currently investing in real estate other than their primary residence, a trend likely to continue.

TD Ready Challenge launches (Finextra) Rated: B

TD today launched the TD Ready Challenge, an annual North American initiative that has ten $1 million (CDN) grants available to help catalyze innovative solutions for a changing world.

United Kingdom

BBVA Announces Completion of £85.4 Million Investment in UK-Based Atom Bank (Crowdfund Insider) Rated: AAA

On Friday, BBVA announced it has completed the £85.4 million investment into Atom, which was announced in March of this year. According to the firm, With this transaction, it increases its stake in UK’s first bank built exclusively for smartphone or tablet to 39%. Atom also secured capital from some other shareholders, bringing the total capital raised to £149 million.

BBVA added that the new investment will allow Atom to continue its impressive growth, and support the uptake of new clients and build core capabilities.

P2P lenders prepared for new data rules (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: AAA

PEER-TO-PEER lending platforms have welcomed the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and confirmed that their processes meet with the new EU standard.

A RateSetter spokesperson told Peer2Peer Finance News that the firm “has implemented a comprehensive cross-departmental project to ensure [we are] compliant with new data protection legislation,” while Landbay chief executive and co-founder John Goodall said that “we view GDPR as an opportunity to further build customer trust and confidence and continue to offer quality information to our customers.”

Light at the end of the tunnel for green energy P2P lenders (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: A

RENEWABLE energy is in the midst of a “turnaround”, according to Trillion Fund’s chief executive, which could benefit the peer-to-peer lending sector.

Theresa Burton heads up the wound-down green energy P2P platform, which closed to new investment in 2015 after government subsidies for the sector were cut.

P2P lenders show there’s life outside London (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: A

P2P lenders headquartered around the UK’s regions are demonstrating impressive growth, while helping create employment in other parts of the country.

One example is Manchester-based Assetz Capital, which recently passed the £500m lending milestone.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh-based P2P lender LendingCrowd recorded its best-ever month for completed loan deals in May.

Businesses should mind the scale-up gap (Spear’s) Rated: A

While some £8.27 billion was poured into SMEs last year versus £3.9 billion in 2016, 81 per cent of these deals took place at the seed and start-up stages. Of the 35,210 ‘scale ups’ – defined as companies posting annual growth above 20 per cent (across three years) with turnover between £1-20 million and ten or more employees – a mere 1,505 received investment. Furthermore the number of investment deals has plateaued over the last five years for these firms, at around the 20 per cent of investment.

The report from the Supper Club, an entrepreneurial network and advocacy group, shows that over the last five years the number of SME investment deals has risen from 1,010 in 2013 to 1,500 — a 50 per cent rise. The corresponding increase in the ‘scale up segment, however, was under 20 per cent, with the number of deals going from 260 to 280.

China

China Rapid Finance Receives ISO27001 Certification (PR Newswire) Rated: AAA

China’s debt collectors focus in on $ 200bn P2P debt pile (Financial Times) Rated: A

An estimated Rmb1.3tn in outstanding P2P debt as of May, according to online lending intelligence firm Wdzj.com, and a rising number of defaults have opened the door to a wave of start-ups using new technologies to try to recover tardy loans.

Ziyitong, which has sought to recover Rmb150bn since it was set up in 2016, recently launched an AI platform to help recover delinquent loans for some 600 debt collection agencies, and more than 200 lenders including Alibaba Group and Postal Savings Bank of China, Ms Sheng said.

European Union

Lendix raises $ 37 million for its lending marketplace (Tech Crunch) Rated: AAA

French startup Lendix has raised a new funding round of $37 million (€32 million). With this new influx of cash, the startup has one goal in mind. It wants to become the leading lending marketplace of Continental Europe.

Idinvest and Allianz are leading the round, with CIR SpA (De Benedetti’s holding firm) also participating. Existing investors Partech, CNP Assurances, Decaux Frères Investissements and Matmut are also participating once again.

Next year, Lendix  plans to operate in 7 countries.

BBVA teams up with Fintonic on loan marketplace (Finextra) Rated: A

Today the Spanish Fintech announced at the Money20/20 Europe event that BBVA has signed up to be part of the Fintonic loans platform, that processed the entire loan procedure for amounts of up to 30,000 euros without you having to leave the app, regardless of the institution providing the loan.

In addition to BBVA, other large banks and financial companies such as EVO Finance, Wanna, WiZink or Zaplo have partnered with the Fintonic loan platform. To date, the platform has processed over 7,500 loans for users, with a total volume of over 30 million euros and an average of 3,850 euros per contract.

First nine startups selected for EBAday2018 Fintech Zone (Finextra) Rated: B

Now in its thirteenth year, EBAday, a conference built by bankers for bankers, is expected to attract 1500 banking professionals and 70 exhibitors to the Munich, Germany conference on 12-13 June.

With interest in digital banking and fintech at an all-time high, the EBAday Fintech Zone will provide a dedicated space for innovative startups to network with and demonstrate their products to payment heads from across the European banking industry.

The first nine firms selected for this year’s Fintech Zone touch on many of the critical elements currently driving the digital agenda of banking and payments, from P2P payments to marketplace lending, Open APIs and artificial intelligence.

International

Personetics Accommodates Digital-Only and Challenger Banks (Finovate) Rated: A

Cognitive analytics company Personetics has traditionally served large banks, including six of the top 12 banks in North America and Europe. Today, however, the company launched a new offering that makes its solutions more accessible for smaller digital-only and challenger banks.

• Pre-built banking content: The offering includes hundreds of pre-built insights, financial tips, and personalized advice that the bank can easily modify and control
• API-first approach: Personetics uses open APIs to integrate AI functionality into a bank’s digital banking experience and allows banks to create their own brand identity and customer engagement strategy.
• Editing tools: These tools allow the bank to retain control over the content and develop new capabilities to support its own business goals.
• Fast time-to-market: Personetics delivers a production-level solution in just three months.

Australia

Online lenders challenging the big banks (Rate City) Rated: AAA

As the RBA leaves the cash rate on hold, new research has revealed the average home loan customer could save $82K by switching from a big four bank, to a low rate online lender.

New calculations show a family with a $350K loan looking for a fully-featured mortgage, could save up to $82,118 over the life of their loan, by going with the lowest comparable online lender, instead of a major bank.

Online lenders facts

• Around 30% of lenders in the RateCity database are online.
• Australia’s fifth largest home loan lender is online only (ING).
• Nine of the 10 lowest rate lenders in our database are online lenders.

5 killer EOFY home loan deals (Mozo) Rated: A

India

CoinTribe, a MSME Lending Marketplace, Raises $ 10M from Sabre Partners and Existing Investors (Disrupt) Rated: AAA

CoinTribe, Gurugram headquartered credit based lending marketplace for MSMEs, has raised over $10 million equity capital in Series-B round led by Sabre Partners along with participation from existing investor, Puneet Dalmia.

With this round of funding, total equity capital raised by CoinTribe has increased to over $15 million. CoinTribe plans to use this additional capital to further enhance capabilities of its proprietary online credit algorithm, expand to new markets and further develop technology to enable faster and nimble product and credit model innovation.

Asia

How can new crowdfunder GlobalSadaqah improve transparency, impact of Islamic social finance? (Salaam Gateway) Rated: A

Umar and Ethis Ventures are behind Ethis Crowd, the world’s first Islamic real estate crowdfunding platform that raises funds for social housing development projects in Indonesia. These projects are backed by the Indonesian government. Ethis Crowd began with retail crowdfunding and moved into the institutional space when it started working with Islamic banks and large investors.

Ethis is also behind Kapital Boost, which crowdfunds financing for small and medium-sized enterprises.

In Southeast Asia, The Fintech Era Is Just Starting (Thailand Business News) Rated: A

In Indonesia, for example, Go-Pay and a number of other apps target the 51 percent of folks without bank accounts by providing cash transfers. Meanwhile, a bank called Mandiri allows people to avoid having a bank account entirely, instead letting them link their e-wallet to a mobile phone number. The wallet is topped up at kiosks and stores around the country. You can even withdraw money from your e-wallet via a Mandiri ATM.

For Indonesia’s Investree, it works like this: a small business is waiting to be paid by a client, but that won’t happen until the end of the month. So Investree lenders immediately pay the business owner the invoice amount.

Latin America

Brazil online lender Agibank says IPO may raise around 2.5 bln reais -filing (Reuters) Rated: AAA

Brazil’s online lender Banco Agibank SA set on Monday the price range for its initial public offering between 13.87 reais ($3.70) and 16.96 reais per share, according to a securities filing.

Agibank’s shareholders and the bank may raise around 2.5 billion reais in the offering, considering the mid-point of the price range, 15.41 reais. The pricing is scheduled for June 21. ($1 = 3.7447 reais) (Reporting by Carolina Mandl; Editing by David Gregorio)

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