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.
Klarna and fintech peers fuel fears of fresh wave of retail debt from Financial Times – I am a big fan of point of sale lending but offering installment loans doesn’t mean consumers will make good choices.
[Video] sophisticated fintech leaders of Germany discuss the future of finance from the LendIt Fintech Blog – My good friend and partner Bo Brustkern just got back from a whirlwind tour of Europe. Here he shares some thoughts from German fintech leaders.
Monzo, the UK challenger bank, raises £113M Series F led by YC’s Continuity fund at a £2B post-money valuation from TechCrunch – Yet another massive funding round for a UK fintech leader. TechCrunch is reporting that Monzo has closed a £113M funding round that values the company at close to £2B.
State regulators expand multistate licensing process for fintechs from American Banker – Finally, some movement on bringing the states together to make licensing for fintech companies easier. This is is about money transfers, next, they need to tackle lending.
Small-dollar lending fintech attracts Prudential backing from American Banker – Small dollar lender Aura (formerly Insikt) has received a $10 million investment from Prudential to expand its operations and lending capacity.
Funding Circle set for its largest ever securitisation from Peer2Peer Finance News – In the UK Funding Circle is putting together their fourth and largest securitization to date, a £244m deal.
Federal Lawmakers Not Convinced NY Confession of Judgment Ban is Enough from deBanked – There has been movement on the regulatory front for small business finance in past week. Last week we had the confession of judgment ban in NY state and there is now a bill being introduced in Congress as well.
Regulators Have Doubts About Facebook Cryptocurrency. So Do Its Partners. from The New York Times – Interesting piece in The New York Times on Facebook’s partners in Libra. It seems that some of them were not fully on board.
Chatter: Digital Bank Varo Said to be Shutting Down Personal Loan Division as it Focuses on Becoming First US Fintech Bank from Crowdfund Insider – According to Crowdfund Insider digital bank Varo is shutting down their personal loan business “for the time being” as they focus on getting full approval for their bank charter.
A fintech innovation that may be hard for traditional banks to swallow from American Banker – This is one example of why fintech innovation has been so important for banks. They are finally realizing that they need to approach their business in alignment with consumers’ financial health and this has to mean less fee revenue.
FCA Competition Director Christopher Woolard Testifies before House Committee Fintech Task Force from Crowdfund Insider – This week the House Financial Services Committee Fintech Task Force held their first hearing. Chris Woolard from the FCA in the UK testified as did Beth Knickerbocker from the OCC and other US regulators.
SoFi Completes First Offering of Rated Pass-Through Certificates (press release) – An interesting development this week in fintech structured finance. Following on (I imagine) from the success of LendingClub’s CLUB certificates SoFi announced their own offering of pass-through certificates of post-grad student loans.
Are The Bankers Taking Over Fintech? from deBanked – It has been a couple of months since LendIt Fintech USA 2019 but this is a great write up in deBanked on what several of the attendees learned at the show.
Which fintechs are best positioned to handle a recession? from American Banker – This question is as old as fintech but American Banker tries to give a fresh take on how online lending platforms would fare in a recession.
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.