MoneyLion provides customers with a range of services for managing their finances and also includes credit products; the platform incorporates a unique rewards program that can help customers receive loan discounts and rewards from endorsements and on-time payments; company is a featured applicant in the 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards competition; led by co-founders Dee Choubey, Chee Mun Foong and Pratyush Tiwari, the company raised $650 million in debt financing in September 2016 and $22.5 million in a Series A equity funding round in December 2016. Source
A report from P2P lender BondMason says wealth managers are becoming more aware of and comfortable with marketplace lending investments; over half of wealth managers would now recommend marketplace lending investments as an alternative to mainstream cash products; institutional investors are also increasingly allocating to marketplace loans with over half of the product's investments attributed to institutional investors. Source
Former Goldman Sachs banker Mona El Isa has founded an asset management services company that will provide blockchain solutions for hedge funds; El Isa launched Melonport in February 2016 with co-founder Reto Trinkler and has now hired George Hallam, former head of external communications at the Ethereum Foundation; El Isa's hedge fund services will use smart contracts to automate various aspects of portfolio management for hedge fund managers which will lower the costs of building a hedge fund. Source
Dan Loeb of Third Point is the latest hedge fund to invest in marketplace lending; the hedge fund manager has reported a 10% allocation to marketplace loans and says that he will be reducing his investment in structured credit and specifically residential mortgage backed securities to allocate to the fixed income alternative; Loeb says he is working with marketplace lenders on securitized portfolios and is excited about the investment opportunities available in the marketplace lending market; the firm also has a venture capital business, Third Point Ventures, which is invested in SoFi, Upstart and Swift Capital. Source
Established fund management companies are leading the next wave of market computerization through investment in robo advisors; robo advisors offer automated investment options with lower fee structures; investment managers are buying and integrating these services to expand their offering and mitigate competitive factors; a partnership between John Hancock Financial and NextCapital is one of the latest examples; other deals have included SigFig with Wells Fargo and UBS, BlackRock with FutureAdvisor and Fidelity with eMoney. Source
The Victory Park Capital Specialty Lending Fund reported a net total return of -1.47% for the fourth quarter of 2016 with its marketplace loan investments dragging on total return; while reporting a loss for the fourth quarter, the fund says "…there has been further progress in the reallocation of capital to balance sheet investments"; the fund increased its balance sheet investments to 51% of the fund's net asset value in the fourth quarter, up from 22% at the beginning of the year; firm continues to reallocate its fund and is also buying back shares. Source
Babak Hodjat is managing a hedge fund in San Francisco run completely by artificial intelligence (AI); his firm Sentient Technologies Inc. has been building an AI system for analyzing markets and automating trading for over a decade; performance for the firm is not publicly disclosed; numerous firm's in the wealth management industry are using some form of unbiased automated trading however Sentient is one of few firms that completely uses AI technology for comprehensively managing assets. Source
A number of new smartphone apps are now available with varying methods for inspiring consumers to save; apps such as Stash, Acorns, Digit, Qapital and Long Game are making it simpler and easier to make incremental savings deposits and investments through automated technology; with these new apps, investors can automate the investment of unused cash and round up purchases, saving extra pennies. Source
Global wealth managers have been increasingly partnering with fintech companies to provide their customers with new digital wealth management solutions; the Morgan Stanley Addepar partnership is one of the market's most recent deals involving new digital wealth management services; the chart below provides insight on some of the leading factors involved in digital wealth management strategies for global wealth managers; the ability to increase access and collaboration potential with clients and experts is one of the market's top factors. Source
The marketplace lending industry has evolved with investments coming from a range of market channels; to help marketplace loans integrate even further into the mainstream the industry needs involvement from 'gatekeepers' and needs to educate the asset allocator community; Lend Academy discusses the investment consultant process to bring new types of investments to asset allocators; to help facilitate this communication, LendIt is offering asset allocators free tickets to LendIt USA 2017 and is planning a special event at the conference for asset allocators, hosted by fund managers. Source