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.
Revolut looks to raise $1.5bn to expand worldwide from Financial Times – Never a company to think small Revolut is looking to raise £1.5b in debt and equity and have hired JP Morgan to arrange what would be the largest round ever by a UK.
Google Shuts Out Payday Loans With App-Store Ban from The Wall Street Journal – First they banned ads, now Google is removing apps from payday lenders from its app store.
When Mission and Margins Meet, the Market Celebrates from Forbes – It was a bold move by Oportun to do an IPO. Jennifer Tescher talks about what makes them different to other fintech companies, many that have struggled as public companies.
Bank/Fintech Partnerships: The Fad Is Over from Forbes – While bank/fintech partnerships have been on the increase for several years now Ron Shevlin argues that it is not sustainable long term. He explains why and provides a new vision for the future in his latest Forbes article.
Fed Data: There’s Never Been a Better Time to Consolidate Credit Card Debt from Credible – Despite today’s declining rate environment credit card interest rates keep rising. Now, the gap between the average credit card rate and personal loan rate is at an all time high. Debt consolidation will remain compelling for some time to come.
Fintech Takes Root In America’s Farmland from Benzinga – You don’t hear much about financing for farmland when it comes to fintech innovation. FarmTogether is trying to change that. Good piece in Benzinga.
Apple and Goldman Sachs don’t report Apple Card information to credit bureaus from MarketWatch – It is unusual that Goldman Sachs is not yet reporting Apple Card payment behavior to the credit bureaus. According to MarketWatch it will begin happening “later this quarter”.
Chime Suffers Outage That Prevents Customers From Making Purchases, Accessing Cash from Forbes – The fastest growing digital bank in the country is Chime. They have been having some problems this past week as users became locked out and no transactions could be processed.
The battle to become the Mexican Nubank just started from TechCrunch – Mexico is one of the most interesting markets in the entire world today when it comes to fintech. Great rundown of the emerging digital bank landscape there by Thiago Paiva.
As neobank valuations bubble up, some investors think there’s an even better bet in fintech from Quartz – Sometimes it feels like every major VC is plowing endless dollars into the new digital banks. Point72 Ventures is taking a different tack.
Fox Corp. Closes $265M Acquisition Of 67% Of Fintech Start-Up Credible Labs from Deadline – It is now a done deal. Fox Corporation has closed on the $265 million purchase for 67% of Credible . Congrats to Stephen Dash and the team!
Here’s the old-line bank behind the online lender from Crain’s Chicago Business – BMO Harris Bank, Chicago’s second largest commercial banks, is providing a $25 million funding line to short term consumer lender OppLoans.
As for someone with no credit score, is it better to start off with financing something like a car or getting a credit card and making purchases on that?
A credit card is best. There are huge number of options for different credit profiles and you can start out small. Here are a couple of good options for people with no credit history:
1. https://www.petalcard.com/
2. https://www.openskycc.com/app/Application