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Nominations for the 4th Annual LendIt Fintech Industry Awards are Live!

The annual LendIt Fintech Industry Awards Dinner recognizes the leaders in fintech, nominations are open until February 29

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One of the highlights of LendIt Fintech USA every year is our Industry Awards Dinner which will take place on the evening of May 14th. In its fourth year, the dinner highlights the great accomplishments of the people and companies that are driving the fintech industry forward. It is a celebration of the industry, for the industry, by the industry.

We are currently accepting award applications on the LendIt website. It is important to note, because we continue to get questions about this, you are supposed to nominate yourself and/or your company. So don’t be shy, let us hear from you. You have until February 29th to get your entries in and the more complete your entry the better your chances are of winning.

The LendIt team will be selecting the finalists for each category and then a team of independent industry experts will select the winners.

The dinner will be held on May 14, 2020 at Tribeca 360 in New York City and the event will celebrate 500+ Fintech influencers and innovators and their outstanding achievements in 15 categories. We encourage fintech companies from around the world to apply for the categories that are the best fit. You can apply for multiple categories.

  • Executive of the Year
  • Fintech Innovator of the Year
  • Fintech Woman of the Year
  • Innovation in Digital Banking
  • Most Promising Partnership
  • Top Technology Service Provider
  • Most Promising Fintech Region
  • Top Service Provider
  • Top Small Business Lending Platform
  • Top Real Estate Lending Platform
  • Top Law Firm
  • Excellence in Financial Inclusion
  • Top Accounting Firm
  • Top Consumer Lending Platform
  • Emerging Lending Platform of the Year

We have already confirmed thought leaders from the industry who will be judging the various awards categories. Beyond recognizing the success of the companies chosen as winners, the event serves as a unique networking opportunity. We hope to see you there in May!

LendIt Fintech USA 2019 Event Highlights

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Roger Hochschild, CEO of Discover and Douglas Merrill, CEO of Zest Finance chat with Selina Wang of Bloomberg in LendIt Fintech USA 2019 opening keynote session

Last week the fintech world gathered in San Francisco for the 7th annual LendIt Fintech USA conference. As I do every year at this time I will share many of the highlights from the keynote presentations and other parts of the event.

We kicked off the event with a fascinating discussion that encapsulated so much of what is important in finance right now. We had the CEO of Discover, Roger Hochschild and the CEO of ZestFinance, Douglas Merrill on stage talking about bank-fintech partnerships and how machine learning is helping both banks and fintech companies expand their credit box to the previously underserved. Hochschild said that partnerships are so important for banks because they can get access to talent that they might otherwise not. My favorite quote from the session was from Merrill, “There is a moral beauty in finding people who have been mistreated by the [financial] system and fixing that”.

The CEO and Co-founder of Affirm, Max Levchin, had some harsh words to say about credit cards in his session. He basically compared them to pay day loans in that in both instances borrowers are allowed to refinance their own debt in perpetuity. Their business model is based to some extent on deceiving the customer. Far better to have an installment loan where you know exactly how much you are paying with a fixed payment every month. He also talked about Affirm’s groundbreaking partnership with Walmart and how both companies, while very different when it comes to scale, have a very similar customer-centric approach. He appreciated Walmart no longer offers a deferred interest payment option, something that Levchin dislikes intensely. He said that 2019 will be the year of big partnerships for Affirm both within finance and outside.

Sallie Krawcheck is the CEO of Ellevest and previously ran the wealth management operations for some of the largest Wall Street firms. She talked about an amazingly underserved investor segment: women. Investment management is such a male dominated industry with 90% of mutual fund managers and 95% of hedge fund managers being male. She made the interesting point that we have been socialized to think that something “for women” means it is inferior and likely just a marketing ploy. Women have not made the progress either in finance or other industries that we all expected a couple of decades ago. The gender pay gap is decades away from closing and one of the ways to help close this gap is to help women invest in a smarter way.

Sallie Krawcheck of Ellevest talks with Kat Utecht of Core Innovation Capital at LendIt Fintech USA 2019
Sallie Krawcheck of Ellevest talks about empowering women investors with Kat Utecht of Core Innovation Capital
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Women in Fintech Demolish Glass Ceiling

LendIt Fintech Woman of the Year 2019 award finalists target diversity, equality, education

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[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mark Lusky of Mark Lusky Communications, a writing and marketing communications firm, operating since 1982. He specializes in ghostwriting expert advice articles, blogposts and other bylined content for clients, along with writing e-books, whitepapers, case studies, websites, opinion pieces and other communiques—incorporating marketing skills and perspectives acquired as a regional marketing director for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He will be attending LendIt in San Francisco this April.]

LendIt Fintech’s Fintech Women of the Year 2019 award finalists champion the causes of diversity, equality and education—and shout it from the rooftops. In the process, they’re demolishing glass ceilings for women and other diversity-challenged groups.

They are dedicated to achieving gender, ethnic and racial equality. And they are educating a variety of audiences— including borrowers, investors and the Fintech industry—about ways to grow and thrive by becoming savvier and open to all people.

These finalists are changing not just their world—but the whole world.

Promote diversity, respect, collaboration
Valerie Kay, Chief Capital Officer at LendingClub, is responsible for overseeing LendingClub’s Investor Group. She addresses the need for diversity, inclusion, mutual respect and collaboration. She emphasizes the vital importance of diversity to drive better workplaces, happier customers and more profits.

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LendIt Fintech Industry Awards: Nomination Deadline Extended

Due to popular demand we are extending the deadline for awards submissions until Friday, February 15th.

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LendIt Fintech USA 2018 Awards Dinner

One of the highlights of the year is the LendIt Fintech Industry Awards Dinner which will take place on the evening of April 9th at the conclusion of LendIt Fintech USA 2019. In its third year, the dinner highlights the great accomplishments of the people and companies that are driving the fintech industry forward. The event includes a pre-dinner networking reception, a three-course dinner, live entertainment and the awards ceremony.

First and foremost, this is an event for the industry. It will be an evening of celebration where the industry recognizes the outstanding achievements of the past year. While LendIt will organize the event, it will be the industry judging its own and deciding who exactly are the standout people and companies. A large selection of judges will be chosen that will contain no LendIt staff and will decide on the winners in different categories. The large team of judges will be carefully selected to ensure no conflicts of interest with different judges being responsible for different categories.

Scott Sanborn of Lending Club, Yihan Fang of Yirendai and Brendan Ross of Direct Lending Investments at the 2018 Awards

We are currently accepting award applications on the LendIt website. Keep in mind that you are supposed to nominate yourself and/or your company. So don’t be shy, let us hear from you. You now have until February 15 to get your entries in and the more complete your entry the better your chances are of winning.

There has been over 450 applications submitted so far in the more than 20 categories listed below:

Best Journalist Coverage
Blockchain Innovator of the Year
Customer Alignment
Emerging Lending Platform of the Year
Excellence in Financial Inclusion
Executive of the Year
Fintech Innovator of the Year
Fintech Woman of the Year
International Innovator of the Year
Most Innovative Bank
Most Innovative Mobile Technology
Most Promising Partnership
Most Successful Cross-Border Partnership
Top Accounting Firm
Top Consumer Lending Platform
Top Emerging Technology Company
Top Enterprise Technology Company
Top Fintech Equity Investor
Top Law Firm
Top Real Estate Platform
Top Service Provider
Top Small Business Lending Platform

LendIt Industry Awards at the LendIt USA 2018 conference in San Francisco, CA on April 10, 2018. (photo by Gabe Palacio)

Don’t miss your chance to be recognized by your peers. If you have any questions about the awards please let us know.

Customer Alignment and The Future of Banking

The bank of the future will have a business model that is designed to win when customers win

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I have been thinking more about customer alignment lately. We are adding this category in the LendIt Fintech Awards in 2019 as Scott Sanborn, the CEO of LendingClub mentioned in his opening keynote in April. It is an issue which gets to the heart of what is wrong with banking today and how fintech can help create change.

First, let me begin with a personal story. I have had a banking relationship with the same large bank since 1993. I opened two accounts, business and personal, when I was getting my first business off the ground. Needless to say money was really tight. I would occasionally bounce checks and I used credit cards as a way to borrow money but I managed to get by. What I really needed back then, but didn’t have, was a financial institution that had my best interests in mind.

I remember one time when I mailed a batch of checks without the money in the bank but was confident by the time the checks were deposited the money would be there to cover them all. It wasn’t. So, I ended up bouncing four or five checks and paying a fortune in overdraft fees. But here was the kicker. The bank could have processed two of these checks but instead the largest one came out first, so all the checks bounced.

Thankfully not all banks do this but it is common practice in many banks and back in the 1990s I am guessing it happened a lot more. But I believe the days are numbered for this kind of program.

A Win-Lose Proposition is a Losing Game

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Wrap-Up of LendIt Fintech USA 2018

Highlights from the many keynotes and more at LendIt Fintech USA 2018 held in San Francisco April 9-11

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Peter Renton, Bo Brustkern and Jason Jones open LendIt Fintech USA 2018

Last week the sixth annual LendIt USA conference took place in San Francisco. Officially known as LendIt Fintech USA 2018 this event was, in my opinion, the best we have ever produced. As I do at this time after every LendIt event, here are my thoughts on some of the ideas that were shared by the keynote speakers as well as a summary of the rest of the event.

The opening keynote, for the second year in a row, was delivered by Scott Sanborn, the CEO of LendingClub. He gave a different kind of presentation this year. He didn’t talk much about LendingClub at all, instead choosing to focus his keynote on financial health and the looming crisis that maybe coming. He gave us all something to consider beyond just disruption, he said we should think about three key areas: financial inclusion, regulatory innovation and customer alignment. He ended with a call to action for the industry. He wanted everyone to focus on what problem you are solving and what you can do to help restore financial health to all Americans.

Scott Sanborn, the CEO of LendingClub, delivers the opening keynote at LendIt Fintech USA 2018

For the first time ever we had the CEO of Quicken Loans, Jay Farner, on stage at LendIt. Quicken Loans has become the largest mortgage lender in the country, bigger than all the banks. It was interesting to hear Jay talk about innovation. He said it is not enough today to just be faster. You need to fundamentally rethink the process, do it in a new and different way. This is where good entrepreneurial businesses will succeed because they start with a blank sheet of paper. He said there is no reason a mortgage should take longer than 10 days.

Long time readers of Lend Academy will know the name Chris Larsen. He was the co-founder and former CEO of Prosper. He left Prosper in 2012 to start Ripple, his most ambitious startup yet. Ripple is trying to revolutionize the way money is sent around the world. As he said in his discussion with Jo Ann Barefoot in finance, when it comes to moving money, we are living in a pre-internet world. It takes days to send money around the world and yet email moves instantly. It is inevitable that this will change and when it does Chris said there will be a Cambrian explosion in innovation and economic development.

Max Levchin first made a name for himself as a co-founder of PayPal but today he is most well known as the CEO and co-founder of Affirm. Affirm is attacking point of sale financing, a space that is somewhat fragmented with few big incumbent lenders. In his discussion Max said that software is eventually going to eat the credit card. We are going to move to payments made by phone but we have more work to do on the software side before that becomes the standard way people pay. Interestingly, he also attacked the APR (annual percentage rate) standard as a bad way of judging credit products. We need to reinvent a way to compare financial products that is not just focused on the APR.

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Finalists Announced for the LendIt Fintech Industry Awards 2018

The LendIt team has combed through hundreds of applications to determine the finalists in 21 categories.

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The LendIt Fintech Industry Awards recognizes the leaders in the fintech community. Last year we held the inaugural Awards show and it was a big hit. We quickly realized how much an event like this was appreciated and needed to shine the spotlight on people and companies who are working hard to innovate in financial services.

For 2018 we have built on last year’s success and received a tremendous amount of applications. The LendIt content team went through over 450 submissions and carefully chose the finalists listed below. Congratulations to all of the finalists!

From here we hand off to a community of judges who will then select the winners for each category. The winners will be announced at the 2018 Industry Awards ceremony held on April 10 (Day two of LendIt Fintech) in San Francisco. There are still a limited number of tickets left for the event, you can learn more and register for a ticket here.

Here is the list of all the awards finalists for 2018.

Fintech Innovator of the Year

  • Affirm
  • Varo Money
  • Better Mortgage
  • Upstart
  • Plaid
  • Circle
  • loanDepot

Executive  of the Year

  • Raul Vazquez, Oportun
  • Anthony Hsieh, loanDepot
  • Max Levchin, Affirm
  • David Klein, CommonBond
  • Renaud Laplanche, Upgrade Inc.
  • David Kimball, Prosper
  • Yihan Fang, Yirendai

Fintech Woman of the Year

  • Blythe Masters, Digital Asset
  • Kathryn Petralia, Kabbage
  • Stephanie Alsbrooks, defi SOLUTIONS
  • Marla Blow, FS Card
  • Denise Thomas, ApplePie Capital
  • Olympia De Castro, Community Investment Management
  • Stephanie Klein, Braviant Holdings

Blockchain Innovator of the Year [Read more…]

ABOUT LENDIT FINTECH NEWS

LendIt Fintech News, Powered by Lend Academy, has been bringing you all the news and information about fintech and online lending since 2010 when it was founded by Peter Renton. We not only have the industry’s most active news site, but also the largest investor forum and the first and most popular podcast.

We are a team of fintech enthusiasts who have been covering the industry for many years. With a deep knowledge of online lending, digital banking, blockchain, artificial intelligence and more our team covers the daily news and writes in-depth editorials.

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