Head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, said she thinks it is inevitable that global regulators come up with new regulations for cryptocurrencies; the IMF has been primarily focused on how the new currencies are being used for money laundering and funding illicit activities; this isn’t the first time the IMF has hinted at and discussed cryptocurrency regulations; trends in the direction of new legislation have been hinted at for some time though nothing widespread has occurred yet. Source.
UK based Arrowgrass will offer investors fintech exposure through a new vehicle listed on the AIM Market; the $97mn IPO named TruFin, is the first time investors will have access to one of the country’s p2p platforms in Zopa; “Listing on AIM will allow us to provide further capital to our subsidiaries and scale faster, and take advantage of any developments in the current financial services market,” said Henry Kenner, chief executive officer of TruFin plc, to AltFi. Source.
After gaining approval from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Starling Bank has seen their partners grow; Starling now counts PensionBee, WealthSimple, Habito and Kasko as partners; the company plans to announce about 25 partners this year alone; Starling’s Chief platform officer, Megan Caywood, says the new partners take the marketplace to the next level. Source.
The Portuguese bank announced it will invest in notes issued by CrossLend; CrossLend is a European marketplace lending platform that operates across many European countries; Banco BNI Europa views the investment as a diversification play. Source
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority released a report on algorithmic trading to help set boundaries around the market; the report lays out best practices and presents guidance on how firms can implement AI in trading; the FCA does voice concerns at too much automation and talks about human intervention to avoid big issues occurring; the report was written to help trading firms comply with the Second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). Source.
P2P-Banking reports that the bank ING Diba has acquired the marketplace lender Lendico; the company had challenges in Germany where it is based and also had shifted from consumer to SME Lending. Source
According to a report by Which almost 92 percent of consumers have not heard of open banking; slow adoption by banks is one reason for the low numbers; another reason is many people have started to use non bank services for payments or other tasks, the term open banking is still relatively new; banks are starting to innovate, by building or partnering, and open banking will only help to push innovation forward. Source.
The UK first created a regulatory sandbox in 2016; the Financial Conduct Authority is now seeking feedback on whether it should expand their sandbox globally; fintechs would benefit by having the ability to test in other countries and regulators could work together on some of the issues related to companies seeking to operate across borders; the FCA stated, "The overall approach would be to better understand and solve common regulatory problems, as well as being more helpful to firms who have aspirations to grow at scale in multiple markets." Source
In an interview with the Financial Times Revolut’s CEO Nikolay Storonsky talks about the firm’s successes and how he has built the company; they have raised more than $80mn in capital and are currently valued at more than $415mn; the company has gained a reputation for working long hours and having high demands from Mr. Storonsky; the hard charging CEO believes his style has helped the company grow to where it is today, more than 600,000 users and considered one of the hottest fintech companies sin market today; they interview also covers his time as a trader, his upbringing and who he learns from in business today. Source.
Danny Masters ran JPMorgan’s commodities trading business in the 1990s; he is a strong believer in ICOs as a better mousetrap compared to IPOs stating, “I’ve raised for companies — angel, friends and family, series A, series B stuff — and it's a real pain in the arse. It's slow, it's time-consuming, it's duplicative. It's a really heavy duty process. I know some great companies who've raised £5 million, £10 million and they've spent thousands of man hours doing it.”; he also notes that there is a lack of quality ICOs and they have funded only a dozen; Masters setup a fund called Global Advisors which pivoted to crypto in 2014. Source