During the week I share the latest marketplace lending and fintech news on Twitter as it happens. Then every Saturday I take the most interesting news items and blog posts from the past week and share them here.
Strong Bank Earnings, The Copernican Revolution in Banking, PeerIQ’s Securitization Tracker from PeerIQ – The latest edition of the PeerIQ newsletters looks at bank Q1 earnings and the new white paper from Frank Rotman “The Copernican Revolution in Banking”
New record as fintech funding hit $5.4bn globally in Q1 from Silicon Republic – In Q1 fintech funding hit a new record, led by the US, as investor appetite continued unabated according to the new report from CB Insights.
Banks & FIs Are Increasing Their FinTech Acquisitions and Investments from MEDICI – Banks are more heavily involved in fintech than ever before with 7 acquisitions and 35 investments made so far this year according to MEDICI.
Why Marketplace Lending Needs Less Transparency, Not More from PYMNTS – An interesting perspective coming out of a new report from Harvard Business School on marketplace lending, that savvy investors have a big advantage. I think it is less true today than five years ago.
The bank’s view of Open Banking from The Finanser – Good question from Chris Skinner: why can’t banks send a notification when a deposit is received in your account? So simple but it seems that most large banks can’t do that.
SoFi Becomes More Like a Bank without Becoming a Bank from Crowdfund Insider – The first SoFi Money customers are expected to come on board next month, and so the company continues to become more bank-like.
Fintech firm Digit adds credit card debt payment to savings app from American Banker – Savings app Digit is turning its attention to credit card debt, not to offer loans but to help pay the debt down.
Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen’s venture capital group is on a fintech tear from CNBC – Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen is quietly amassing a stable of fintech investments with his VC arm Point72 Ventures.
Credit Karma expands its identity theft monitoring tool to include dark web data from TechCrunch – Long known for their credit monitoring service Credit Karma will now let you know if your data has been exposed in a data breach.
Zopa sees £100m boost from IFISA investors from Peer2Peer Finance News – In the UK Zopa received more than £100m for its IFISA product in its first year.
Royal Bank of Scotland takes aim at challengers with digital-only bank from Tearsheet – We are finding out more about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to launch a digital-only bank later this year.
Unison sees 1,000% year-on-year growth in originations from FinTech Futures – Home ownership investing company Unison is growing fast and getting traction for its unique investment product.
Kirsten Gillibrand Unveils A Public Option For Banking from Huffington Post – Interesting idea out of Washington this week where new legislation was introduced to turn post office branches into providers of short term loans.
Revolut closes $250m fundraise, valuation climbs to $1.7bn from AltFi – Well, it is now official. Revolut in the UK just raised $250m at a $1.7 billion valuation making it the newest European unicorn.
US banks to get more freedom to offer unsecured loans from Financial Times – The head of the OCC, Joseph Otting, would like banks to offer small dollar, short term loans.
Revolut is coming to the US this summer from Tearsheet – One of the most important fintech companies on the planet, Revolut, is coming to the US this summer and they want to replace your bank.
Why Amazon and Google Haven’t Attacked Banks from The Wall Street Journal – Interesting piece on the complex relationship between Google and Amazon and the big banks.
From the Lend Academy Forum
The Lend Academy forum is where investors go to discuss p2p lending. Below are some topics that were being discussed this week.
FTC Files Complaint Against LC, Accuses of Deceptive Practices – Forum members discuss the FTC complaint against LendingClub.
Take on debt and put it in Lending Club? – An investor asks whether it makes sense to invest in LendingClub notes instead of paying off a 2.99% loan.
Account Liquidation- How did you get the last of your notes to sell? – A forum member shares that LendingClub allows you to forfeit loans in order to completely divest of notes in an IRA.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.