Deutsche Bank has hired Elly Hardwick as head of innovation and Philip Milne as chief technology officer for innovation; both will help to improve internal and external communication and integration of new technologies for the bank; Hardwick will lead the bank's innovation activities and manage the Deutsche Bank Labs; Milne will facilitate communication between the Deutsche Bank Labs and the bank's internal technology organization. Source
LendIt's Jason Jones writes about the marketplace lending opportunity for bank partnerships in a Lend Academy article; in 2016, many marketplace lenders reported partnerships with banks, exemplifying this new opportunity; three main types of partnerships have been prevalent including bank-fintech-bank (BFB), fintech-fintech-bank (FFB) and bank-fintech-fintech (BFF); co-branding or white labeling has also been a factor in the partnerships; some traditional banks have chosen to take the full cost of developing their own online lending platform including, Goldman Sachs and PingAn, however many banks are finding partnerships more cost efficient; LendIt's bank partnerships webinar on Wednesday will highlight this trend. Source
A legal case initiated by the city of Miami, Florida has reached the Supreme Court; the case (a combination of two earlier cases) claims that banks, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo, are financially liable for a decade of targeting blacks, Latinos and other minorities for loans with risky terms, including prepayment penalties, negative amortization and no documentation; there is concern that the case may be delayed until the Supreme Court regains a tie-breaking ninth Justice, or result in a return to the lower courts. Source
Earlier this week, the UK launched its bank referral scheme to help extend credit to small businesses not funded by nine of the UK's largest banks; it seems that UK banks outside of the UK consortium are also increasing their efforts to provide alternative options for business borrowers; this week NatWest announced it has added iwoca to its alternative lending panel, Capital Connections. Source
A new UK bank referral scheme began this week with a focus on nine of the region's largest banks; Lend Academy provides more details in their article; the referral scheme will require banks to refer small businesses to alternative lenders if they are denied credit; creates more opportunities for banks to partner with alternative lenders and also significantly expands credit access for businesses. Source
In Europe, slowing venture capital investment in fintech has caused increased reliance from the industry on traditional banks; as Brexit concerns have affected the fintech industry, traditional banks have increased their investment with more corporate and strategic participation in venture capital deals in Europe for the third quarter of 2016; over the last five quarters significant large bank investors in fintech have included Citigroup Inc., Banco Santander SA and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.; as the European market evolves with a number of regional factors continuing to affect both fintech companies and banks it is likely that more banking partnerships and fintech acquisitions will occur. Source
Georg Ludviksson, the head of Meniga, a digital bank that was started in Finland back in 2009, says that banks are at risk of losing the top spot among their customer base; tech giants like Google, Facebook and Alibaba are placing themselves between banks, and their customers are no longer seeing their traditional bank as the go to place for financial services; Georg Ludviksson also points out that the coming PSD2 regulation will shift the balance of power from banks to the customer and that the regulation has the potential to transform banking in Europe. Source
DH Corp., Fiserv Inc., Fidelity National Information Services Inc. and other vendors have seen a drop in spending by banking clients, citing slow technology upgrades and delays in interest rate rises; banks have also begun to outsource the technology these firms provide or they have let the current contracts linger as they search for the best long term solution; vendors are beginning to build solutions for digital banking needs in hopes of keeping up with technology trends, but bank partnerships with fintech firms are causing an uncertain outlook ahead for these leading vendors. Source
A new study entitled the World FinTech Report (WFTR) from Capgemini and LinkedIn finds that half of the banking customers worldwide use at least one fintech service or product; the report shows that younger customers and emerging markets adopt fintech more frequently, as China and India lead the way with 75% of customers using fintech; other important statistic from the report show that 17.4% of investment management customers rely on fintech solely, 46% of banking customers use more than one fintech firm and 60% of traditional financial firms view fintech companies as long term partners. Source
Bank holding company, CRB Group Inc., has received venture capital investment of $28 million from Battery Ventures LP, Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital; the large investment in a bank is unusual for venture capitalists which have mainly been known for early stage financing in new fintech startups; CRB Group however has been considerably growing its digital banking capabilities making the investment attractive for fintech venture capitalists; New Jersey-chartered, Cross River Bank, was founded in 2008 and has since partnered with numerous fintech startups to offer industry leading services for lending and payments; the bank is expected to use the investment to continue building on its industry leading fintech services; because the bank is FDIC regulated the VC investors will be limited in some of their investment activities. Source