Personal Capital is a free app that allows individuals to track their financial life by connecting accounts including bank accounts, credit cards and investment accounts; the app is now tracking $4.9 billion and according to their CEO, Jay Shah, their customer base is increasingly affluent; the company upsells their app users on financial advice and is providing a dedicated financial advisor if users have over $200,000 of investable assets; Shah answers several questions in an interview with Business Insider including their pitch to users, who their paying users are, why he thinks users will pay for the service and where the company is headed. Source
iPayment, Inc. has created a new business unit, iPayment Capital, to offer merchant cash advances; the new business unit will utilize the firm's 137,000 SMB customers for merchant cash advance lending; the service will add to payment processing and point of sale services currently offered by iPayment, Inc. Source
German-based savings marketplace Raisin has received over EUR4 billion (USD $4.7 bn) in investments on its platform in less than four years; founded in 2013 it was the first investment marketplace of its kind in Europe and now has two times the total investment assets of its closest competitor; partnering with 34 banks across 17 European countries it helps customers find the highest retail deposit market rates. Source
Online mortgage broker Trussle is currently in the early stages of talks with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to potentially overhaul the mortgage application process; the plan that Trussle is pitching to the FCA is to help standardize documents needed in a format that they are needed in; Mr. Mahli told FTAdviser: "There's an unnecessary inefficiency in the way mortgage applications are packaged and submitted, which varies wildly from lender to lender. Uncertainty is the last thing a buyer wants when making what's often the biggest financial decision of their life."; currently the FCA will not comment on talks that are in such a nascent stage. Source
Fox Fintech, an affiliate of Sohu.com, was able to obtain the first micro-credit license by the Ningbo City Government in China; Alex Ho, Fox Fintech Group's founder and CEO, commented, "We are applying advanced technologies in big data, facial recognition, machine learning and self-developed algorithms to bring efficient, convenient and inclusive credit service to China."; the internet micro-credit license allows for Fox Fintech to lend across the country, traditional micro-credit licenses are limited to the city where they are approved. Source
Amber Baldet was ranked 31 and is working with the JPMorgan team to develop blockchain solution Quorum; others in fintech include Vitalik Buterin the creator of ethereum, Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, and Ernie Garcia, Ryan Keeton and Ben Huston from Carvana. Source
UK small business lender Funding Circle formed a strategic partnership with the Dutch financial services firm Aegon; Aegon will look to fund about $205 million worth of loans in the first twelve months and then steadily increase that amount for the next three years; the deal helps to ease the gap left by the European Investment Bank who pulled back a $129 million commitment in the wake of the Brexit vote; Funding Circle CEO and Co-Founder Samir Desai explained to AltFi: "This partnership is validation of the attractive risk-adjusted returns that are being generated to investors by lending through Funding Circle. We hope our joint programme with Aegon will develop to deliver increased lending to UK small businesses over the coming years." Source
Veritas is a specialist in commercial credit management services; through the partnership, MarketInvoice will be available to customers using the firm's VeritasVirtual platform; clients use this platform to monitor the status of outstanding payments and will now be able to obtain access to the MarketInvoice Pro credit line through the VeritasVirtual platform. Source
P2P Finance News breaks down the projected returns of marketplace lending platforms in the UK; notes that business and property lending platforms offer the highest projected returns. Source
China Rapid Finance (CRF) reports Q2 EPS of $1.93; revenue for the quarter came in at $15.15 million versus the consensus estimate of $10.46 million; for the full year ending December 31, 2017, CRF expects to add between 2.5 to 3.0 million new borrowers, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 350% to 400%; CRF also expects total gross billings on transactions and service fees to be in the range of $110 to $120 million in 2017, as compared with $67.9 million in the prior year. Source