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.
‘We were willing to shock historical norms’: Otting on OCC’s makeover from American Banker – In a wide ranging interview in American Banker the Comptroller of the Currency, Joseph Otting, talks about the changes he has brought to the OCC and his vision for the future.
‘They Were Conned’: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers from The New York Times – There is more to the story about the collapse of taxi medallion prices in NYC than just the entry of Uber and Lyft. Reckless lending, loose regulation and artificially inflated prices played a big part as well. Fascinating two part story in The New York Times.
Credit quality declines at big US business lenders from Financial Times – According to the Financial Times non-performing loans at the 10 largest commercial lenders rose 20% in the first quarter reversing a steady improvement since 2016.
Monzo hits 2m customers, adding 1m in eight months from AltFi – The fastest growing bank in the UK is now Monzo where they just crossed 2 million customers, 8 months after reaching 1 million.
Goldman Sachs-backed Marqeta rides payments wave to a $2 billion valuation from CNBC – So, the rumors were true. Marqeta has closed a $260 million funding round that values the company at $2 billion.
Fintech Raisin Finally Crosses the Atlantic to Enter the Massive US Savings Market from Crowdfund Insider – Another European fintech leader is coming to the US. German savings platform Raisin has announced they have hired a US CEO and will be expanding here in the near future.
TransferWise now valued at $3.5B following a new $292M secondary round from TechCrunch – There is a new king of European fintech. TransferWise is now the most valuable fintech company in Europe after their latest $292m secondary round valued the company at $3.5b.
Small-business fintech launches lending platform for banks from American Banker – After implementations at two bank clients Biz2Credit is releasing a banking as a service product to all banks featuring loan management, servicing and risk analytics.
Plaid gives digital banks and fintech a new tool to bypass traditional finance from CNBC – For some time now Plaid has been connecting fintech platforms to banks. Now, they will allow these platforms to connect to each other, potentially bypassing traditional banks.
Once dismissive of fintechs, traditional lenders now feeling their bite from American Banker – In 2010 fintech lenders represented 1% of all personal loans, in 2018 that number was close to 40% and growing.
Facebook to Roll Out ‘GlobalCoin’ Cryptocurrency in 2020: Report from CoinDesk – More details are emerging about Facebook’s new digital currency that they intend to trial in the first quarter of 2020.
Backing For UK Fintech Soars But Investors May Be Becoming More Cautious from Forbes – A new report says that investment in fintech in the UK totaled £4.5 billion between 2015 and 2018 but can this pace continue amid so much uncertainty?
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.