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[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Stephen Sheinbaum, Founder of Bizfi, an aggregation marketplace that offers many kinds...
Citizens Bank has entered into a partnership with Fundation to extend capital to small businesses; Citizens Bank will offer a digital solution so small businesses can apply and get a loan through one process; businesses who don't meet Citizens' credit profile will then be underwritten by Fundation; this is the second fintech partnership for Citizens Bank as they recently entered into a partnership with digital wealth management service SigFig. Source
Lend Academy reports on the intersection of banks and marketplace lending in their article; Zopa, the industry's first P2P lender, is leading the way again; it is now the first P2P platform to seek a bank license; SoFi also says it has plans to take deposits and has been leading the market in product expansion; at the same time digital banks are becoming more prevalent and fintech partnerships are occurring industry wide. Source
Cross River Bank is leveraging its fintech customers to grow its payment transaction services; the firm has digital lending partnerships with 17 companies and is the issuing lender for some of the industry's top marketplace platforms; the firm's business relationships have helped to expand its payments system customers with many of its customers naturally migrating to Cross River Bank's payments system; the firm's CEO Gilles Gades says its payments activity could double next year with help from existing relationships with Stripe and Google Wallet providing access to Mastercard Send; in payments, Cross River currently manages approximately 2 million transactions per month and it sees a substantial opportunity for gaining more market share; industry participants are also watching Cross River Bank's plans for developing a newly branded bank called Almond Bank, which it has recently been investing in. Source
ApplePie Capital has received endorsement from Fifth Third Bancorp as more large banks take an interest in marketplace lenders; Fifth Third Bancorp participated in a funding round that resulted in a $16.5 million investment for ApplePie Capital; Lend Academy provides details in their article; the funding will help ApplePie Capital continue to improve its market positioning; it currently provides loans for franchisees affiliated with its 40 franchise brand partnerships. Source
There have been many bank partnerships with marketplace lenders however there haven't been any done with real estate crowdfunding platforms; Allen Shayanfekr, CEO of Sharestates, predicts banks will partner with real estate platforms in 2017; says banks could lower costs and require less investment in new products by partnering with real estate platforms; Allen Shayanfekr outlines three types of scenarios for partnerships including: bank as originator, bank as capital provider and white labeling. Source
As Lend Academy discussed in their November 14 blog post, banks are eager to partner with fintech companies; banking partnerships have taken three forms including: bank-fintech-bank (BFB), fintech-fintech-bank (FFB) and bank-fintech-fintech (BFF); choosing to co-brand or white label is also a significant factor to consider in banking partnership deals with white label services helping banks to cross sell their products; two major banks, Goldman Sachs and PingAn, have created their own online lending platforms; SunTrust has also been an industry leader with its acquisition of online lender LightStream in 2012. Source