BFS Capital Inc., a leading small business financing company, announced that it has appointed Michael Marrache as chief executive officer to succeed outgoing CEO and co-founder Marc Glazer; Michael has been with the company for four years and previously served as COO then President; "I began work with BFS Capital nearly four years ago because I thought the company had enormous potential, and I'm even more certain of this today. I'm honored to have been asked by Marc and the board to lead the company's next phase of growth," said the new CEO; Marc Glazer will continue in his role as chairman of the board. Source
Online lenders FIP, LLC and Future Income Payments, LLC are being sued by the State of Minnesota; the two lenders target seniors and veterans with pension advance loan products and charge exorbitant interest rates of approximately 200%; the interest rates significantly exceed Minnesota's usury cap of 8%; the court filings argue that the lenders are unregistered and unlicensed to offer loans in Minnesota. Source
Europe's PSD2 will require financial institutions to share data with third party service providers creating a new market opportunity for fintech developers with guaranteed account data access; in the US fintechs must still rely on relationship building to secure data partnerships thus making technology development more challenging; American Banker reports on details of a recently formed association that's seeking to make data access easier; the Consumer Financial Data Rights (CFDR) consortium includes 31 data aggregators and fintech companies lobbying for data access solutions and agreements; American Banker also outlines the progress that has been made in data sharing and proposals from the CFDR. Source
Invesco's digital wealth platform for financial advisors, Jemstep, is partnering with the retail broker dealer and investment arm of American financial services company KeyBank; this is the second big piece of news for Jemstep, they recently signed a deal with a network of US financial advisors called Advisor Network; Jemstep is a white label platform for financial advisors to offer their clients; Simon Roy, president and CEO of Jemstep, told AltFi’s Robo Advice News, "Jemstep is proud to partner with Key Investment Services (KIS) to deliver both a quality digital solution to help clients meet their financial goals and an efficient service that integrates within KIS's existing middle and back-office processes." Source
Currently reconsidering the Winklevoss brothers' ETF proposal, the SEC has now received another approval request for a bitcoin ETF; investment manager VanEck has submitted a prospectus to the SEC for a bitcoin-related ETF; the fund differs from previous funds, with its investments based on derivatives of bitcoin; VanEck is seeking to list the fund on the Nasdaq and says it will also include conventional investments such as US Treasury bonds and cash for risk diversification. Source
The panel explores the spectrum of responsible online credit; discusses what is clearly irresponsible lending and what are some of the borderline cases of credit being deemed responsible; panelists discuss the many of things to consider when it comes to responsible lending including sales tactics, APRs, transparency and loan stacking/debt traps. Source
Amazon has a number of clients using Alexa for financial advice and solutions architect Felix Candelario says, "Natural language processing is the new rocket science."; clients include UBS, LPL, Fidelity, Capital One and Betterment; overall, machine learning innovation is providing for new technology solutions and pairing it with voice automated interactions adds a new element of service for customers. Source
Overstock.com has announced it will allow customers to pay in over 40 cryptocurrencies through support from ShapeShift; the e-commerce website is the first well-known retail platform to allow coin payments beyond bitcoin; the payments are facilitated by an API built by cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift. Source
Tom Lee, founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, is projecting bitcoin's value to reach $25,000 in the next five years; the strategist also projects a bitcoin value of $6,000 by mid-2018; the cryptocurrency is currently trading at $4,284.14, gaining approximately 330% in 2017; Lee cites bitcoin derivatives as a key catalyst since they have now been approved and are increasingly being used in wealth management strategies and also expects bitcoin derivatives trading will lead to increased institutional investment. Source
The SEC's report on ICOs as securities has prompted ShapeShift to review the listings on its cryptocurrency exchange; ShapeShift will likely delist some of its traded listings and says it does not want to be characterized as a securities exchange; ShapeShift and its legal counsel will apply the Howey Test to the cryptocurrency listings which is the current market standard also used by the SEC for determining whether an offering is considered a security. Source