Kabbage now has debt funding capacity of $750 million; the additional facility will allow the company to offer higher lines of credit with longer terms; Deepesh Jain stated, “The new, DBRS-rated facility, provided by Credit Suisse, speaks to Kabbage’s maturity in the financial markets and gives us diverse funding options to serve our small business customers. To earn an investment-grade rating requires a rigorous evaluation of not only our lending models, automated risk analysis, and successful history of reducing bad debt to an industry-low, but also our operational processes – from exceptional customer service to unmatched technology development.” Source
The first head of the CFPB has decided to step down at the end of the month without giving a formal reason; the bureau was established in the wake of the financial crisis in 2011; Mr. Cordray sent an email to all CFPB staff saying he thought the agency made a lasting difference to improve people’s lives and that new leadership will preserve what they have done; he is rumored to be interested in running for Governor of Ohio in 2018. Source.
A recent report by the Cleveland Fed on online lending has caused quite the controversy over its content; the Marketplace Lending Association said the Fed should retract the report; even TransUnion, whose data the report relied upon, took issue with how they presented the material; “We have no understanding of how the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland could have used our data to reach the conclusions they did,” Ezra Becker, SVP at TransUnion, said to American Banker; the Fed stated the terminology used in the report has caused confusion but have yet to retract the report. Source.
One of Ant Financial’s subsidiaries is Zhima or Sesame Credit; it is a private third party credit scoring service and clarified that it does not share user scores or underlying data with any third party including the government without the user’s prior consent; they point out in their response that they also do not monitor the content of users’ social media posts and share how the service works. Source
The price of bitcoin is the highest in Zimbabwe which reached $13,500 at the time of the article being published; this is due to the conflicts happening in the country; for people in Zimbabwe bitcoin is seen as a safer option; the US dollar and South African rand also trade for approximately twice their price in the country. Source
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has shifted back to a softer stance since the Trump administration took office; according to the New York Times the agency is using directives from the interim head to ease back regulations enacted during the Obama administration; the move is part of a wider push to set back financial regulations that some say have hurt banks in recent years. Source.
In looking for a new CFO the company posted an ad stating that the new officer would help to lead the company through an IPO in 3 to 4 years; Monzo has recently raised capital and talked about global expansion into Asia and the US; the UK based digital bank has also stated they are launching new products in 2018. Source.
Square has started to allow some of its Cash mobile app users to buy and sell the cryptocurrency through the app; a Square spokesperson said, “We’re exploring how Square can make this experience faster and easier, and have rolled out this feature to a small number of Cash app customers,” as reported by Crowdfund Insider. Source.
China and Hong Kong have raised $3.03 billion in proptech since 2013; this is approximately 41% of the total investment in proptech across the globe; the startups are focused on brokerage and leasing, investment and financing, project development and property management; half of the startups are in brokerage and leasing; article shares what has led to the current robust proptech market in Asia Pacific. Source