I was in Washington DC last week for the fourth annual Online Lending Policy Summit. This one day event is...
The Federal Reserve made several changes to the Main Street Lending Program on Monday that should result in more businesses...
In 2016 government regulators became more involved in the fintech industry in a variety of ways; while new regulations were discussed across the globe, governments also got more involved in the industry through sandbox and innovation programs; China's fintech market continued to grow in 2016 with both private market funding and fintech company growth; in 2016 robo advisors and blockchain emerged with new services; the market now offers a broader range of robo advisor services and the leading asset managers have introduced their own platforms; blockchain also reported unprecedented growth with distributed ledger being used for a wider variety of solutions across all industries; all of these industry developments are expected to remain in focus for 2017. Source
Banks have been given a deadline of early 2018 to comply with new regulations that will allow for open banking; many industry experts believe this deadline is too tight; to comply, banks would need to completely overhaul their current security infrastructure and banks are not known to rapidly change anything; the UK's big four - Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland - control 77% of personal current accounts and 85% of business accounts; these new regulations will allow consumers to control access to their data and give them comparison tools to shop for the best mortgage, credit card or loan. Source
Last year the U.S. House passed a crowdfunding bill (H.R. 2930 – Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act) but it has...
I first wrote about the GAO report on p2p lending last year. The GAO have been doing an analysis of...
Chancellor Hammond and the newly established fintech delivery panel will meet in February to discuss the fintech industry; the group's purpose is to drive fintech specific policy recommendations for the UK; 24 industry experts will attend the February meeting including representatives from Funding Circle, Seedrs and MarketInvoice; on April 12 the UK government will also hold the International FinTech Conference in London to connect domestic and international investors with the UK's fintech market. Source
The Economist magazine's intelligence unit (EIU) has published a report on regulatory support for financial inclusion in developing countries and it is now gaining traction with press and analysts; the report scores countries on having an inclusiveness strategy and building governmental and private sector expertise, then provides in-depth details in areas including credit markets, non-regulated lenders, payments and insurance; Colombia ties Peru this year for the most progressive country; India has shown the most improvement; Latin America and East/South Asia are leaders regionally while Africa and the Middle East remain behind; the EIU performed the research in conjunction with the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Multilateral Investment Fund at the Inter-American Development Bank. Source
There is big news on the trade association front today. The Marketplace Lending Association (MLA), the trade organization for fintech...
Gensler said his biggest worry about the equity market was competition and consolidation. While retail investing has taken off, the PFOF that enables it is ripe for conflict of interest.