SoFi is one of the US's fastest growing alternative finance companies; the Financial Revolutionist talks with Mike Cagney about the firm's accomplishments, success factors and future objectives; Cagney provides insight on the firm's recent acquisition of Zenbanx and $500 million fundraising; discusses how these deals will drive growth for the firm and the other areas of the business the firm is working to expand. Source
ThreatMetrix is a provider of online fraud prevention services and authentication; using rules based technology they allow clients to customize risk factors for identity authentication and fraud prevention; in 2016 ThreatMetrix helped its clients prevent $1 billion in fraudulent loan applications; Frank talks about the company's systems, their recent $30 million fundraising from Silicon Valley Bank and what they are working on for the future. Source
Madden v. Midland has been proceeding since 2015; Judge Cathy Seibal of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a decision in the case on February 27; Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP provides their insight on the court's decision; the central focus of the case is on the inconsistency between the issuing lender (New York) and Midland Funding, the debt collector, (Delaware); the judge ruled in favor of the borrower in default setting a precedent for better alignment between rates of issuing lenders and the loan's affiliated debt collectors. Source
The Coalition for Responsible Business Finance (CRBF) has announced it will join the Innovative Lending Platform Association (ILPA) in efforts to more broadly support lending for small businesses; the ILPA's network is primarily led by existing members, OnDeck, Kabbage and CAN Capital; with the merger of the two organizations, the ILPA will gain representation from the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Small Business Association, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Association for Enterprise Opportunity; the expanded ILPA will provide even greater resources for advancing online small business lending education, advocacy and best practices; the ILPA is most well known for its work on introducing the SMART Box™ comparison tool for small business lenders; with the merger of the two organizations, the ILPA has also developed an updated industry code of ethics, leveraging the work previously done by the CRBF. Source
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based artificial intelligence (AI) platform Kensho has built a solution that can successfully predict market trading and is receiving significant attention from Wall Street; its AI-powered platform helped the company identify currency trends following Brexit that resulted in substantial gains from trades against the British pounds decreasing value; the company has announced a new partnership with S&P Global and has received investment from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, General Catalyst, Breyer Capital and Google Ventures; the firm is led by Daniel Nadler, a Harvard trained Ph.D; its new partnership with S&P Global Market Intelligence will supply new data feeds to power its AI analysis and support its numerous solutions including the Kensho Global Event Database and Kensho's Knowledge Graph; the business is expected to become integrated with Wall Street's mainstream banks, emerging as one of the market's leading solutions for AI-powered trading. Source
Leading digital transaction management firm eOriginal has been selected to manage electronic documentation processes for Fannie Mae; as a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) Fannie Mae works with lenders nationwide; the eOriginal services will help improve all of the GSE's associated mortgage loan transactions providing support for lenders and loan portfolio services for Fannie Mae; in comments on the partnership, Cindy McKissock, vice president of customer digital experience at Fannie Mae said: "We continually look for ways to help lenders who want to deliver an end-to-end digital mortgage experience. In addition to investing in new eVault infrastructure, we are also simplifying eMortgage adoption by transitioning to the MISMO SMART Doc™ Version 3.0 format in 2017. This will reduce complexity and allow lenders and technology solution providers to adopt eMortgage with greater ease." Source
Lantern Credit has acquired the Abstract Regression Classification (ARC) Machine Learning Library to enhance its proprietary machine learning solution, Beam AI; the firm expects the acquisition and machine learning enhancements to improve its credit advice, credit offers and support for financial institutions; according to Chad Swensen, CEO of Lantern Credit, "Leveraging the ARC software to advance the Beam AI technology produces the most advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning application in the consumer credit management space." Source
Financial reform is an uncertain topic for the fintech industry; Digiday talked with attendees at LendIt USA about their thoughts on the Trump administration's proposed regulatory reform; generally, participants reported that they believe the reform could increase interest from banks in partnering with fintech companies since deregulation gives them more flexibility for credit product expansion. Source
LendingPoint plans to expand its online balance sheet lending services nationwide with support from a new partnership with FinWise Bank; LendingPoint currently offers loans in 26 states with nationwide expansion now planned for the first half of 2017; the firm uses a proprietary credit model that seeks to provide loans for fair credit consumers with credit scores ranging from 600 to 700; LendingPoint has funded more than $185 million in loans; its loans range from $3,000 to $20,000, with terms from 24 to 48 months. Source
loanDepot has been steadily becoming one of the US's top mortgage lenders, rivaling both online businesses and traditional institutions; Anthony Hsieh talked with Forbes at LendIt USA about the growth of the business; the company has funded over $100 billion in mortgage loans and is building out a fintech ecosystem that will empower future market growth and product expansion; loanDepot is the third online mortgage company founded by Anthony Hsieh and the company is in its eighth year of operations; Hsieh says the firm is potentially considering an IPO. Source