A Complete Beginners Guide To FinTech In 2017
You may have heard the relatively new term “FinTech” bandied about, but what actually is it? And why is it important for all entrepreneurs to know about and understand? FinTech stands for Financial Technologies, and in its broadest definition, that’s exactly what it is: technologies used and applied in the financial services sector, chiefly used by financial institutions themselves on the back end of their businesses. But more and more, FinTech is coming to represent technologies that are disrupting traditional financial services, including mobile payments, money transfers, loans, fundraising, and asset management. Don’t assume that FinTech is simply a fad or buzzword: Accenture recently released a report which found that […]
Fintech MarketInvoice aims for £900 million lending in 2017, launches Pro product
Fintech company MarketInvoice is planning to more than double the size of its business in 2017 as it launches new products in a bid to become the destination for small business short-term finance. MarketInvoice announced on Thursday that it hopes to reach £2 billion in total lending by the end of 2017, which would represent £900 million in lending in 2017 and 133% growth on its 2016 volumes. Founder and CEO Anil Stocker told Business Insider: “It took us five years to do our first billion; we’re trying to do our second in a year. It’s very exciting.” Peer-to-peer platform MarketInvoice started out in 2010 as a platform to let […]
Lending Works becomes first major P2P platform to launch new ISA
Lending Works, the first peer-to-peer lending platform to have insurance protecting lenders against certain borrower default risks, today becomes the first major UK platform to launch an Individual Savings Account (ISA). The new peer-to-peer lending ISA – which is better known as the Innovative Finance ISA or IFISA – is a new category of ISA set up exclusively for P2P lending. The IFISA can only be offered by platforms who have attained both full authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and subsequently ISA Manager approval from HMRC. Lending Works received confirmation of both permissions in late 2016, and the company has now become the first member of the industry-body […]
Most banks to adopt blockchain by 2020
More than 80 per cent of global bankers expect to see commercial adoption of the blockchain by 2020, and over half of global financial institutions investing or planning to invest in the technology this year. This was a key finding of a survey of 100 financial services professionals conducted by Infosys Finacle and reported in “Blockchain Technology: From Hype to Reality”. The research also concluded that the average investment in blockchain projects this year is expected to be about USD$1 million with 51 per cent of CTOs and CIOs driving initiatives. Only four per cent of the survey respondents said they had spent more than US$10 million on their blockchain […]
11 Fintech Companies in UK’s Trade Delegation to Australia & NZ
The Department for International Trade (DIT), the UK’s sole government department that negotiates to strike or extend trade agreements between the UK and non-EU states will send a Fintech delegation of 11 UK companies to Australasia. Aimed at promoting Fintech opportunities in the Fintech spaces in Australia and New Zealand, the trade mission will see a delegation of “eleven successful UK fintech companies” visit the countries in March. The 11 UK companies that form the delegation include credit rating specialist Aire; Fintech data analytics firm Clarus; asset allocation consultant ClearMacro; compliance solutions firm FundApps; investor relations firm Ingage; financial lenders Iwoca and Neyber; blockchain-based data platform ObjectTech; identity verification platform […]
Global online lender Spotcap partners with Heartland Bank, launches in NZ
European-based online lender Spotcap today announces a partnership with NZX-listed New Zealand bank, Heartland, with the bank providing Spotcap’s Australian operations with A$20million of funding. At the same time, Spotcap today launches its New Zealand operations in Auckland, further cementing Asia Pacific as one of the fastest growing regions for global fintech. * Spotcap provides flexible and accessible funding solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with unsecured credit lines and business loans of up to $250,000. Rather than basing credit decisions on historical financials, Spotcap has developed a unique, proprietary credit algorithm which provides deep insight into the financial condition of a business, enabling quick, sound credit decisions. “We […]
The Emergence of Fintech in Indonesia
Financial technology, or more popularly called ‘fintech’, can be defined as a phenomenon in which technology and financial features go hand in hand in altering the traditional financial institution business models and discovering solution alternatives to customers’ financial experience. Like other businesses, fintechs are established to answer consumers’ needs, challenges and wants. In this case, the emergence of financial technology is no exception. There are at least four main challenges surrounding the potential and necessity of fintech in Indonesia. Firstly, the large amount of unbanked population. It is estimated that only 40% of Indonesia’s 250 million population currently have access to banking services. Secondly, the large amount of underserved small […]
Peer-to-peer loans hedge fund LendingRobot combines robo-advice with blockchain
Alternative lending investment platform LendingRobot combines robo-advice with blockchain technology to make the fund fully transparent to investors. The investment platform also uses the cloud and offers a dollop of machine learning to enhance returns. The Seattle-based hedge fund will only invest in peer to peer loans: Lending Club, Sofi, Funding Circle and the like, allowing investors exposure to thousands of loans at once across consumer credit, small business loans, and even real estate loans. For investors, the returns in investing in these loans are extremely stable income-generating assets (people tend to pay them back), noted a spokesman. Historical returns on peer lending for investors average around 7%, while returns […]
