Property crowdfunding platform Brickowner has completed its first investment for a real estate property in Abbeygate, Chester; their second listing will offer investment in a new housing development; the platform is open to all investors and requires a minimum investment of 100 British pounds ($124.46); it seeks to offer low-risk alternative investments with targeted returns of 8%. Source
Anil Stocker and Aman Mehra from MarketInvoice talk with AltFi about how marketplace lenders are revolutionizing the credit underwriting process; specifically noting the speed of approvals from sophisticated credit underwriting models; also the seamless aggregation and decision process which Stocker says is faster and more efficient than banks; the success of the firm's underwriting has helped it to maintain a steady client base and also gain endorsement from the UK's British Business Bank. Source
London-based technology company Misys has plans for an IPO; the company had planned to offer its stock in 2016 but decided against its IPO and now says it could still be a possibility; the firm's CEO Nadeem Syed said it is currently focusing on its new machine learning and P2P lending products; earlier in January it announced a new P2P lending solution for banks, FusionBanking Crowdlending; currently it offers its clients a broad range of solutions through its FusionBanking products and its targeting existing clients with its new products. Source
Zopa, the industry's first P2P lender, has reached a new milestone, originating over 2 billion British pounds ($2.5 billion) in loans since 2005; according to Zopa the firm has originated 300,000 loans from 246,000 borrowers and has 75,000 investors; in the UK, Funding Circle is also close to reaching the 2 billion British pound mark with cumulative loan originations of 1.92 billion British pounds ($2.40 billion) since its launch in 2010. Source
UK challenger bank Metro Bank sees the value in having branches along with the innovation they are doing; speaking at The Economist's Finance Disrupted conference, Metro Bank CEO Craig Donaldson explained that offering the right mix of both is the key for his firm; reliance on one solution or the other does not allow them to serve customers in the way they would like, though he did say that the market has room for the digital only bank. Source
UK online property sales platform, Zoopla, has acquired Hometrack; the acquisition is valued at approximately 120 million British pounds ($150.61 million); Hometrack provides property valuation and information and data on the property market; it will help to enhance the credibility of market information for Zoopla. Source
Orca Money has raised 280,000 British pounds ($354,425) in a funding round led by TechStart NI; the UK company provides a comparison service for investors interested in P2P investments; the funding will primarily be used for development of Orca Retail, a financial media site which it plans to open in 2017. Source
The UK's Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) has the potential to significantly change banking for consumers with access to open APIs; the article notes that banks that have only done the minimum to comply with PSD2 may run into issues if we ever see a PSD3; fully embracing PSD2 may save headaches for banks down the road; the trend of open APIs and data sharing is likely to make its way to the US; Japan is also leading the way in this area having explored domestic ACH on blockchain. Source
Artificial intelligence firm Cleo has raised 550,000 British pounds ($626,300) from angel investors; investors included Niklas Zennström, Jason Goodman, Alex Chesterman, Siraj Khaliq, Errol Damelin, Simon Franks, Wendy White and Joe White; Cleo is an AI-powered service working in connection with AI robots like Amazon Alexa to offer consumers personal finance advice; firm plans to use the new capital to further develop its technology and increase its user base of clients which are primarily in the UK. Source
A report from marketplace lender Funding Options says UK SMEs owe $3.25 billion in value added taxes (VAT); a leading factor affecting tax payments is late B2B payments creating an even greater opportunity for alternative financing in the region; Funding Options is promoting alternative solutions to help SMEs better manage their business taxes. Source