Ablrate was recently authorized by the FCA and is now launching their custom Innovative Finance ISA; Ablrate offers a self-select marketplace where investors hand pick the loans they look to invest in; this is one of many products the company will launch in this arena; Ablrate facilitates asset-backed loans with specialization in aircraft and capital equipment; they currently will take cash deposits for their IFISA but no transfers as David Bradley-Ward, CEO of Ablrate, tells AltFi, "We want to be able to get everyone going with their IFISA first and then allow transfers in from other providers after the first week of our launch." Source
News Roundup
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The UK online lender was launched with a focus on secured aviation lending and has expanded to other types of transactions including secured capital equipment and property lending; it says the authorization will help it to expand and further concentrate efforts on its technological development; the firm has reported an 850% increase in loan volume in the last year; the firm has plans to launch in Australia and also expand to other regions. Source
ABN AMRO launched New10 to offer an initiative for SMEs looking to take out a loan entirely online; Mark Schröder, co-founder and Commercial Director of New10, "New10 responds to the desire of SMEs to finance their growth ambitions online, quickly, easily and clearly."; New10 provides loans ranging between EUR 20,000 and EUR 1 million. Source.
Crowdfunding platform, Abundance, has launched the UK's first innovative finance individual savings accounts (IFISAs) for investors in crowd bonds; the investment offering follows an announcement from the UK Treasury that it will extend qualified investments in UK IFISAs to crowd bonds; platform offers bond investments from renewable energy companies; the company is able to offer the IFISAs because of its status as an investment-based crowdfunding platform. Source
Accion Venture Lab, a seed stage investment vehicle for financial inclusion firm Accion, has sold its stake in Varthana; Varthana provides specialized loans and services so people in India can afford to attend private schools; Accion Venture Lab's first investment into Varthana was in 2013; Varthana recently raised $14 million in the spring of 2016. Source
Vikas Raj, Managing Director at Accion Venture Lab, sat down with the...
Acorns is a US micro-investing app that invests spare change in ETFs; it has announced the appointment of former Wealthfront CEO, Adam Nash, to its board of directors; the firm also says it is researching behavioral economics as part of its marketing strategy and has added Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, to its board. Source
In an interview with Business Insider Acorns CEO Noah Kerner talked about the investment app’s success to date and how he see the company moving forward; the company has seen strong growth with 2.2 million US accounts; the app allows users to invest spare change from purchases; the focus of the future is to try to get all households with income under $100K using the app. Source.
Most financial services firms look to educate users by having a blog or providing some links to resources; Acorns CEO Noah Kerner says the company wants to go further, they have their own online magazine, interviews with celebrities and provide financial how tos; they will also push content to you based upon how you use the app, trying to customize your experience; the big difference they see is when they combine education with the app experience, helping to move education beyond just reading articles. Source.
Acorns has partnered with personal financial management app Clarity Money; Acorns now has two million investment accounts with users investing spare change into customized investments; Clarity Money launched in 2016 and is an app for personal finance advice and expense and savings management; users of both platforms benefit from the partnership with Clarity Money customers able to use Acorns' automated investing features and Acorns' investors able to sync their Acorns investment account to their Clarity Money dashboard. Source