United States

SoFi Introduces Crypto Trading With SoFi Invest (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

SoFi announced today that it has added crypto trading to its fast-growing SoFi Invest platform, as a response to demand from its over 800,000 members. SoFi Invest is now the first platform to offer automated and active investing with stocks, ETFs, and crypto through a single app.

SoFi Adds Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum to Invest Platform (Cheddar), Rated: A

SoFi goes live with crypto trading service for its over 800K users (The Block), Rated: B

SoFi users can initially buy and sell three cryptocurrencies – bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and litecoin (LTC). The Block first reported the story last week, saying that the firm is beta testing the service in partnership with Coinbase.

SoFi CEO on what’s next for the company (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

Sofi CEO Anthony Noto joins The First Trade to discuss what’s next for the company.

Watch the video here.

Charlie Lee {LTC} praises SoFi as crypto-investing with Litecoin kicks-off (Our Bitcoin News), Rated: A

Litecoin is ranked at #6 underneath Tether, as well as Bitcoin Cash, in the market. The price jumped up at a rate of 0.60% in the course of the past 24-hours. This led to LTC scaling all the way up to $57.03 where it presently rests. The trading volume recorded stands at roughly $2.957 billion, whereas the supply has 63,337,479 LTC coins included as part of circulation. The total market cap of Litecoin amounts to $3.612 billion which depicts a massive decline compared to the value attained a week back.

SoFi CEO: Start investing in your 20s (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

SoFi Refunds Investors Hit By Capital Gains from Proprietary ETFs (ETF Trends), Rated: A

Financial technology company SoFi is offering refunds to investors hit by capital gains taxes following the change of replacing Vanguard funds with their proprietary ETFs in certain portfolios managed by their robo-adviser.

Some Investors Locked Out of Investing in LendingClub Loans (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

Over the last 24 hours we’ve received several messages from Lend Academy readers alerting us that they have received information that they are no longer able to invest in LendingClub notes. There is is also an active discussion on the Lend Academy forum.

Funding Circle urges US regulators to follow UK model (P2p Financ News), Rated: AAA

FUNDING Circle’s US division is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to amend its restrictions on peer-to-peer retail investment.

The US financial regulator limits annual investment to five per cent of an investor’s annual income if their yearly income or net worth is under $107,000 (£86,075), rising to 10 per cent if the investor earns more than that.

Two Franchise Trends Aspiring Franchisees Should Look Out For (Forbes), Rated: A

Over the past 14 years, I’ve coached more than 1,500 people who were searching for the best franchise for their situation. I recently read the 2019 Small Business Trends study, conducted as a joint venture by Guidant Financial and Lending Club.

According to the Small Business Trends study, 58% of women are “starting their business from scratch,” the number of women-owned businesses grew almost 60% between 2007 and 2018, and nearly 40% of African American small-business owners are women.

The Small Business Trends study also found that 69% of franchisees’ acquisition costs were less than $250,000.

Fintech Fundbox raises $ 176M to lend to business using AI (Information Management), Rated: AAA

Fintech Fundbox Inc. has raised $176 million in a new funding round from investors including Allianz SE and General Catalyst. The company planned to announce the funding along with a new $150 million credit facility.

A Fundbox spokesman said the new round valued the company at between $500 million and $1 billion, but would not disclose the exact valuation.

U.S. Subprime Auto Loan ABS: Evaluating Recession Scenarios (DBRS), Rated: AAA

Summary Highlights

• Under the hypothetical Recession Scenarios, DBRS found that credit enhancement (excluding excess spread) coverage of remaining expected losses, as determined by a multiple calculation, decreased at the inception of the hypothetical recession for all of the Sample Transactions. The senior debt tranches experienced a swift deleveraging whereas some of the subordinated debt tranches could be at risk for a potential downgrade during the hypothetical Recession Scenarios.
• After the initial decline in the multiple calculations at inception of the hypothetical Recession Scenarios, the deleveraging nature of the sequential pay structures of the transactions resulted in the calculated multiples for the analyzed debt tranches to move into the multiple range corresponding to the original rating of the debt tranche over varying lengths of time. The multiples for some of the debt tranches originally rated BB were weaker and moved into the BB range at a slower pace. As a result, those tranches would be more likely to be considered for a potential downgrade as compared to the more senior debt tranches where the structures delevered more quickly and the multiples reached the range corresponding to the original rating over a generally shorter period.
• Over the life of the Sample Transactions, the credit enhancement multiples for all of the debt tranches analyzed, some on a delayed basis, ultimately moved into the AAA rating multiple range.
• In each of the Recession Scenarios, the structure of each of the transactions provided sufficient credit enhancement for timely payment of interest and ultimate payment of principal of all debt tranches.

Read the full report here.

A Cooling in Recession Talk, Heat Up in Housing (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

Lower rates, improved credit scores, and tighter housing inventory are improving the outlook for housing. Housing market achieved an 18-month high in housing starts and a record high in FICO scores.

The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index – a measure of actuals vs economist’s expectations – has also registered readings above the neutral baseline suggesting slowdown fears may be exaggerated.

Consumers with Significant Liquidity Needs Often Access Alternative and Traditional Credit Markets Concurrently (GlobeNewswire), Rated: AAA

Many lenders believe that consumers who turn to the alternative credit market for liquidity do so because they have no other options. However, a TransUnion study presented today at the Lend360 conference found that these borrowers are frequently applying for and receiving traditional credit at the same time. While traditional subprime installment lenders and alternative lenders are competing over the same consumers, the study finds that the liquidity need is often not fully met in either market.

Risk Levels Higher for Traditional and Alternative Loan Borrowers

Controlling for risk score, 8.5% of the alternative credit-active consumers had a serious delinquency in the first 12 months, vs. just over 2% for the control group. Bankcard performance was also worse. While these borrowers exhibited a preference for unsecured personal loans under $1,500 within 12 months of the alternative credit origination, they also originated auto and bankcard credit during that time.

Read the full report here.

Lendio to Double Sales Force, Expand Loan Product Offerings (Benzinga), Rated: A

Lendio today announced plans to double the sales force at its Lehi, Utah, and Woodbury, New York, offices. The company has hired 80 employees in 2019, and intends to add another 40 sales representatives by the end of the year, with plans to bring on another 40 in the first quarter of 2020. In addition to the expanding workforce, Lendio plans to bolster its selection of loan products for small businesses, with a 10% increase in the number of product offerings in the coming year.

Fintech lenders taking more market share from banks, survey finds (American Banker), Rated: A

Fintechs are continuing to siphon away customers for unsecured personal loans from traditional lenders, according to a study released Wednesday by Experian.

The study found that digital lenders more than doubled their market share in the past four years, with consumers across the credit spectrum increasingly turning to fintechs like Lending Club and Social Finance.

Fintechs now provide 49.4% of unsecured personal loans as of March compared to 22.4% in 2015, according to Experian.

Fintech Lenders Could Hold the Keys to Recession Recovery (Salon), Rated: A

Born out of the last recession, young fintech lenders have not yet been tested by a significant economic storm, and many in the industry are wrapped up in a dialogue of speculation about the industry’s ability to ride out an impending recession. It’s time to turn the conversation instead to focus on how fintech lenders can position themselves to play a critical role in recovery from the next downturn, whenever it may happen.

WeWork should ask SoFi CEO for advice on how to save the company (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

The two new guys running the slowly sinking ship known as once hot tech startup WeWork should give SoFi CEO Anthony Noto a holla on his Apple iPhone. Trust me, Noto has some good, timely advice for Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham.

Because the former Goldman Sachs banker and Twitter chief financial officer, now SoFi chief clearly gets how to rebuild a promising tech startup after a high-profile challenge or two. And then possibly, take it down the path of a successful initial public offering.

Generation Z’ers want more financial education – and innovative tools to help them learn (PR Newswire), Rated: A

As high school students return to school, they may see the benefits of new state laws across the country that require curriculums to offer a class about personal finance. This is great news for young adults as 76% of recent high school graduates agree it should be required, according to a national survey by Experian.

Many Gen Z’ers surveyed say innovative tools are the way to go when it comes to learning about credit (45%) and almost half (48%) would prefer to use tech-driven tools versus textbooks to learn more.

Survey respondents also say they are currently learning about finances mostly through their friends (28%), YouTube (27%) and some form of social media (24%).

See the full report here.

D.C. Court Dismisses Challenge to OCC’s Fintech Charter (Manatt), Rated: A

In the latest battle over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC’s) plan to issue special purpose national bank (SPNB) charters, a D.C. federal judge has for a second time dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS).

The decision creates the potential for circuit split, as a New York federal court reached the opposite conclusion in a nearly identical action filed by the state’s Department of Financial Services (DFS).

9 Ways To Build an Empire Without Lifting a Finger (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

Another way to build your real estate empire is through real estate crowdfunding. As with investing in a REIT, real estate crowdfunding allows you to pool your money with other investors to invest in real estate. This could include multifamily units, commercial properties and bundles of single-family homes.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the top real estate crowdfunding platforms are ArborCrowd, RealCrowd, Groundfloor, CrowdStreet, PeerStreet, Small Change and RealtyMogul.

If you can afford the minimum investment — which is usually $25,000 — you can make big returns. Groundfloor boasts 10% returns for individual investors and CrowdStreet’s is even higher with 25.5% total average annual returns across all fully realized deals.

RealCrowd offers a breakdown of average annual income on a $1 million investment based on the property type: $78,000 for a suburban office, $72,000 for a retail space, $59,000 for a downtown office and $58,000 for a multifamily unit.

The Best And Worst MA Towns For Young Families (Patch), Rated: A

The online mortgage broker Lending Tree has tried to take some of the guess work out of that decision by ranking every community in Massachusetts with 5,000 or more residents based on their appeal to families with school-age children.

Hingham, under Lending Tree’s methodology, received a score of 72.5. Last-place Webster’s score was 31.9. Other towns in the top 10 included Winchester, Needham, Milton, Longmeadow, Wellesley, Cochituate, Pinehurst, Lexington and Nantucket.

JPMorgan donates $ 25M to get fintech in hands of underbanked (American Banker), Rated: A

JPMorgan Chase announced Tuesday a $25 million commitment to the Financial Health Network’s Financial Solutions Lab, a program meant to focus on the creation of fintech tools to help consumers better manage their finances.

The Financial Health Network (formerly The Center for Financial Services Innovation) previously received a $30 million philanthropic donation from the bank that spanned the last five years.

Bitcoin and Ethereum dive deep, is Bakkt to blame? (Mashable), Rated: A

“The disappointing BAKKT opening signals to the crypto community that institutions are less ready to invest in BTC at scale than was supposed, which means the price was probably too high and due for a correction. What we’ve just seen is short sellers and momentum traders piling on to make things worse, and now here we are back at support,” Alex Mashinsky, CEO at crypto lending and depository company Celsius Network, told Mashable in an emailed statement.

STRATA Trust Company Reaches $ 2 Billion AUC Milestone (PR Newswire), Rated: A

STRATA Trust Company (“STRATA”), a custodian dedicated to the complexity of holding alternative investments in tax-advantaged, self-directed retirement accounts, announced today that the firm has surpassed $2 billion in assets under custody. STRATA offers access to a range of asset classes that include private equity, private debt, real estate, crowdfunding, structured settlements and more. Since 2008, STRATA has been committed to empowering investors and the investment community with wider diversification and alternative asset custody solutions in retirement portfolios by delivering industry-leading service, education and support.

Online Pawn Lending Goes Back Offline (Business Wire), Rated: A

Prominent online lender Borro Private Finance unexpectedly ceased its collateral-based lending program this summer after nearly ten years of business. The UK-US-based establishment specialized in online pawn loans against valuable assets, including fine art, jewelry, and watches. Borro’s discontinuation of its operations comes nearly two years after the company’s withdrawal from the bridge loan market in July 2017.

Eleventh Circuit Tosses Online Lender’s Forum Selection, Class Waiver Clauses (Lexology), Rated: A

Siding with six consumers who filed suit asserting violations of state usury laws against online lenders, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh…

Marqeta Hires Vidya Peters As First Chief Marketing Officer, as Company Continues to Build Out Expansive Global Vision (Business Wire), Rated: B

Marqeta, the first global modern card issuing platform, today announced the addition of Chief Marketing Officer Vidya Peters to its executive team.

White Oak Commercial Finance Acquires Veritas Financial Partners’ Asset-Based Loan Portfolio (ABL Advisor), Rated: A

White Oak Commercial Finance (“White Oak”), an affiliate of White Oak Global Advisors, announced today it has purchased a portfolio of asset-based loans from Veritas Financial Partners, a Boca Raton, FL based specialty finance company.

Alchemy Technology And Equifax Partner To Drive FinTech Innovation (PR Newswire), Rated: B

Alchemy Technology Inc. and  Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) today announced a new partnership to drive FinTech innovation. The relationship is designed to help banks, specialty financing firms and FinTech startups accelerate their time to market with easily deployable white labeled lending solutions. The two companies will make the “tech” in FinTech available to organizations of all sizes with a powerful combination of the Alchemy Lending Operating System and Equifax data analytics, credit, identity and income verification solutions.

Ex-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Joins Lendingblock as Strategic Advisor (Lendingblock), Rated: B

Lendingblock, the regulated, open exchange for institutional borrowing and lending of digital assets, today announces the appointment of John Macpherson as a strategic advisor.

CoreLogic Credco Integrates its Three-Bureau PreQual Solution with eLEND Solutions (CoreLogic), Rated: B

CoreLogic, a global provider of property information, insight, analytics and data-enabled solutions, today announced that CoreLogic Credco integrated its Three-Bureau PreQual credit report and score solution on eLEND Solutions, an automotive technology company specializing in online and in-store credit and finance solutions. The integration of the prequalification solution gives CoreLogic Credco customers who use eLEND instant, single-source access to a consumer’s credit report and FICO score from all three national credit bureaus – Experian, TransUnion or Equifax.

Tavant Named to 2019 IDC FinTech Rankings (Business Wire), Rated: B

Tavant, a Silicon Valley-based provider of AI-powered digital lending technologies, announced today it has been named to the 2019 IDC FinTech Rankings, the most comprehensive vendor ranking within the financial services industry.

United Kingdom

Klarna Surpasses 12M Transactions This Year (PYMNTS), Rated: AAA

FinTech payments disruptor Klarna has announced the start of its “No drama, just Klarna” retail campaign in partnership with 13 brands in the U.K., the company said in a press release on Wednesday (Sept. 25).

Klarna offers “pay later” payment options and attracts 50,000 new users each week. The startup said that in the past year, it has processed 12 million transactions. In August, more than 100,000 U.K. shoppers downloaded the Klarna app.

Klarna reports surge in payments, merchant growth during first half of 2019 (Mobile Payments Today), Rated: A

Klarna, a London based installment financing provider and challenger bank, said it surpassed 3 million active users in the U.K. and 170,000 retail merchants worldwide.

Brits hit financial maturity at 31 (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

THE age at which UK men and women finally feel secure in their finances is 31, according to Zopa.

The survey showed a clear split between age groups, with 21 to 25 year-olds believing 32 would be the age when they finally felt good about their finances, while those age 26 to 30 were less optimistic about the future, saying they would reach money maturity at 38.

OakNorth Bank completes £20m loan to specialist lending fund (London Loves Property), Rated: A

OakNorth Bank, the UK bank powered by OakNorth, has provided a £20m loan to the RAW Mortgage Fund, a specialist fund providing buy-to-let property loans against residential real estate in the UK.

Wonga borrowers have less than a week to submit payday loan reclaims (The Sun), Rated: A

Anyone who believes they have been mis-sold a Wonga loan is allowed to apply for compensation, but its administrators set a deadline of 11.59pm on September 30.

If you miss the deadline, you won’t be able to apply anymore and you won’t get any compensation for mis-selling.

Nexo Now Accepts Tokenized Gold for Instant Credit Lines and Will Offer Interest-Bearing Accounts on Gold (Covington Journal), Rated: A

Nexo is adding the NYDFS-regulated PAX Gold as a collateral option for its signature , bringing gold-backed lending to the blockchain.

With PAX Gold, now offers gold investors instant access to their gold wealth in over 45 fiat currencies via same/next day transfers and across 200+ jurisdictions.

European Union

Kreditech Eyes Expansion After Securing EUR 20 Million in Equity Financing (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: AAA

Kreditech is ready to scale globally in the near-prime customer segment – declares David Chan, Kreditech CEO. The Germany-based online direct lender and Point-of-Sale (POS) financing provider estimates its global target market at ca. EUR 300 bn in consumer credit issuance. It aims to reach EUR 1 bn in revenue by 2025, which will be driven by growth in existing markets where Kreditech is present, as well as expansion into new geographies. Kreditech currently operates in India, Poland, Russia and Spain, and serves over one million customers. The company has raised EUR 20 million in its latest equity financing round.

You’ve heard of challenger banks, now meet the challenger lenders (sifted), Rated: AAA

For better or worse, it was Wonga that first put “challenger lenders” on the map. The UK payday lender’s meteoric rise saw it become a household name before its collapse last year after a string of irresponsible, inflated loans.

This month alone, large funding rounds were announced by Sweden’s Capcito and Lendify, as well as by UK’s Sonovate, an invoice lender for SMEs with over 750 active clients. Banks are also watching closely, with Goldman Sach’s equity arm being a notable funder in Lendable, recently ranked the UK’s sixth fastest-growing private tech company.

International

Marketplace Lenders Navigate The Choppy Waters Of Compliance (PYMNTS), Rated: AAA

Regulators the world over are beginning to take a closer look at the alternative and marketplace lending business model.

In June, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority announced plans to impose stricter restrictions on marketplace and peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders beginning this December following the watchdog’s decision to place P2P lending platform Lendy into administration — a result, the FCA said, of the industry’s lenient requirements to disclose governance arrangements and controls.

Also, in China, analysts at Yingcan Group pointed to the government’s P2P and marketplace lending crackdown as being likely to shrink the industry by as much as 70 percent this year.

This Fintech Safari Could Be a Wild Ride (The Washington Post), Rated: AAA

From ATMs to credit cards and PayPal, the West’s dominance of innovation in consumer finance appears to have exhausted itself.

At the top of the emergent new order is the fintech duo from China — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Next in line are Alphabet Inc. and Walmart Inc., whose highly localized smartphone payment rivalry is playing out between Google Pay and PhonePe in India. In Southeast Asia, two homegrown ride-hailing giants are aspiring to dominate commerce.

The rise of African mobile money is associated with M-Pesa, Kenya’s digital-wallet revolution. Now traditional lenders like Standard Chartered Plc, with a presence on the continent going back more than a century, are discovering that online banking can help them mobilize low-cost current and savings accounts more profitably than acquiring customers via physical branches.

Australia/New Zealand

Harmoney says the P2P lender has been ‘slowly moving to lending our own money’ since 2015 (interest), Rated: AAA

The founder of Harmoney, New Zealand’s biggest licensed peer-to-peer (P2P) lender, says he can’t see a viable P2P lending model in New Zealand which is why Harmoney has started lending its own money.

Neil Roberts and David Stevens of Harmoney (Lend Academy), Rated: A

Harmoney, the first peer to peer lender to be licensed in New Zealand, has originated more than NZ$1 billion in loans since launching five years ago.

Read the PDF transcript here.

India

Kreditech targets India after EUR20m funding boost (Finextra), Rated: AAA

Kreditech, a German-based online lender and POS financing provider focused on “near prime” borrowers, is looking to the Indian market after raising EUR20 million in funding.

Southeast Asia

Accumulated P2P lending exceeds W6tr (The Investor), Rated: AAA

Accumulated peer-to-peer loans in South Korea have surpassed 6 trillion won ($5 billion), data showed on Sept. 26.

Outstanding P2P loans extended by 220 companies stood at 6.2 trillion won in June, compared with 4.7 trillion won at the end of last year, according to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service.

Indonesia’s Investree in talks to raise series C funding for regional expansion (Tech in Asia), Rated: A

Indonesia’s fintech peer-to-peer lending startup PT Investree Radhika Jaya is in talks with several investors to raise a series C funding as the firm looks to boost its expansion in Southeast Asia.

The Securities Commission Malaysia Approves EdgeProp as First Property Crowdfunding Platform in Malaysia (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has registered EdgeProp Sdn Bhd as the first “Recognised Market Operator” to establish and operate a property crowdfunding platform in Malaysia. EdgeProp was granted an approval in principle in September 2019.

FINTECH COMPANIES FACE TALENT SHORTAGE (StaffingIndustry.com), Rated: A

The majority, or 94%, of fintech companies in Singapore, say the country requires fintech talent, according to survey data from Michael Page Singapore.

The number of Singapore consumers adopting fintech products and services has drastically risen in the last two years, tripling from 23% in 2017 to 67% in 2019, according to Michael Page.

Bitcoin Daily (PYMNTS), Rated: B

And Singapore-based exchange Bitrue has announced the launch of a low-interest crypto lending platform, which goes live on September 30.

MENA

Qatar Boosts FinTech Focus (PYMNTS), Rated: A

As reported by Crowdfund Insider, the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) has expanded the number FinTech-related activities that will be awarded licenses. The additional support will come from the QFC platform.

The seven firms include DecisionLogic, which focuses on advanced bank verification that lets lenders qualify borrowers.

Africa

Proven ways you can make money in real estate (Daily Monitor), Rated: A

You can utilise a variety of methods that includes any of the following:
•Seller financing through lease options
•Trading fixed assets such as cars, jewellery and more
•Taking over someone else’s mortgage payments who might be in a distressed situation
•Bringing in an investment partner with cash
•Borrowing from a bank or getting a hard money loan
•Taking out a home equity line of credit
•Utilising a peer-to-peer lending network

Caribbean

Victoria Mutual acquires shares in Barbados-based FinTech Carilend (Jamaica Observer), Rated: AAA

Victoria Mutual Investment Limited (VMIL) has acquired a 30 per cent stake in Carilend, a Barbados-based financial technologies (FinTech) company, that is said to have revolutionised borrowing and lending in the Caribbean.

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