Peer-to-Peer Lender Prosper to sell $5 Billion in loans
Prosper Marketplace, America’s first peer-to-peer lending marketplace, announced on Monday that it had closed a deal to sell $5 billion of loans to a consortium of investors over the next two years. The consortium includes New Residential Investment Corp., Jefferies Group, and Third Point. “We’re very pleased to be working with this consortium of investors, and believe they will be great long-term partners as we continue to build a large-scale business,” David Kimball, CEO of Prosper Marketplace said. Founded in 2005, Prosper is an online platform that matches lenders and borrowers. The growth in peer-to-peer lending is part of a wider shift in the fintech industry as participants look to […]
FinTech investment swings from west to east, Accenture
Yet more research trumpeting Asia-Pacific’s rise to the top of the FinTech pile, this time from Accenture. It finds that global investment in FinTechs grew 10% in 2016, to $23.2 billion, driven primarily by a wave of blockbuster deals in China. Financing in Asia-Pacific in 2016 eclipsed that of North America for the first time, rising to $11.2 billion from $5.2 billion in 2015. North America attracted $9.2 billion and Europe $2.4 billion. The number of deals rose sharply in all major geographies, to nearly 1,800 from approximately 1,200 in 2015. However, the growth in total value of FinTech investments was due mainly to China and Hong Kong, where just […]
Wells Fargo robo-adviser to target young, first-time investors
Wells Fargo & Co’s wealth management business said on Tuesday it would launch its new robo-adviser Intuitive Investor later this year in a bid to develop a new revenue stream from existing Millennial customers who may be looking to open their first investment account in a crowded online market. Devon McConnell, Wells Fargo Advisors’ head of digital and direct investing, said the digital advice platform, which will initially be rolled out to employees in the first half of 2017, would be marketed to Wells Fargo customers who have savings and are comfortable taking big life steps online. “We know that there are many customers ready to take an early step […]
‘Software better than people’, says US robo-adviser
US automated investment pioneer Wealthfront has penned a public post arguing software can provide consumers with better financial advice than humans. In a blog post on the Wealthfront website, Wealthfront founder and CEO Andy Rachleff said human beings cannot compete with robots when it comes to many business services and social endeavours, including the provision of financial advice. “Software is far better at most jobs than people are. I realise that statement will make a lot of people uncomfortable, but it’s true,” Mr Rachleff wrote. “I believe this is especially true in the world of financial advice. Software does a better job than traditional financial advisers because it provides to […]
Ireland and Germany will battle for fintech crown post-Brexit: VC founder
Ireland and Germany are poised to step up to fill a void as leader of Europe’s fintech scene once the U.K. leaves the European Union (EU), according to the co-founder of a global venture capital firm backed by The Boston Consulting Group. While it’s difficult to tell exactly what it will be, Brexit, which will mean the U.K. will lose its easy access to Europe’s financial industry, is certainly going to have an impact on the fintech industry, says Raj Ganguly, co-founder and partner at B Capital Group. “It seems like London is going in the direction of a hard Brexit. And with the the passporting rules potentially going away, […]
Zopa to move into secured lending
ZOPA is looking to expand into the secured auto finance space, where it sees an opportunity to grow its borrower base. The peer-to-peer lending platform, which usually specialises in unsecured consumer loans, said it sees strong potential in the secured car finance sector as there are healthy levels of demand but typically a poor customer experience. “People are getting poor deals in that area and end up paying significantly higher annual percentage rates (APRs) than they would if they arranged their financing before going into a dealership,” said Amy Miller, Zopa’s chief marketing officer. Consumers looking to borrow money to buy a car tend to sign up to dealer-arranged loans, […]
P2P Bitcoin lender Bitbond raises $1.2 million in new funding
Peer-to-peer bitcoin loan market Bitbond has raised $1.2m in new funding. The web platform, which connects lenders and borrowers to facilitate the distribution of loans denominated in bitcoin, received the new funding largely from a group of angel investors, some of whom already have stakes in the startup. The round was led by Şekip Can Gökalp, founder of Mobilike, a Turkey-based mobile ad network formed in 2009, and that was acquired last year. Other investors include Janis Zech and Andreas Bodczek, who founded ad tech startup Fyber, and Alexander Graubner-Müller, co-founder and CEO of Germany-based online lender Kreditech. According to Bitbond representative Chris Grundy, most of the funding will be […]
Silicon Valley tried to upend Banks. Now it works with them.
In 2011, Brett King was promoting his book, “Breaking Banks,” and creating a start-up that he hoped would do to the banks what Amazon did to the retail industry and Facebook did to media. “We had grand ideas of being the Facebook of banking, and being a new form of bank account,” Mr. King said recently. Six years later, his company, Moven, has opened only 60,000 of those new bank accounts. Mr. King has now transitioned to selling his software to the banks he once scorned, who use it as a component of their mobile apps. “We realized that if you want millions of users as a bank, it is […]
