Innovate Finance has released a report on fintech investment showing global investment in fintech increasing but decreasing in the UK; global fintech investment increased by 10.9% in 2016 to $17.4 billion; in the UK, fintech investment decreased by 33.7% to $783 million; fintech investment in China and the US accounted for $13.9 billion of the total $17.4 billion. Source
Old Mutual has reduced its stake in the VPC Specialty Lending Fund to less than 6%; the Fund's performance has been struggling since September 2016 and it has been steadily shifting to balance sheet investments; over half of the portfolio is now contained in balance sheet investments which is an increase from 43% in June 2016. Source
Sub-prime lender Elevate, while still awaiting the right time to go public, has expanded their product line by offering customers a line of credit for up to $3,500 called Elastic; Republic Bank is the issuer of the credit line and according to Elevate's CEO, Ken Rees, there are other institutions showing interest; Rees explains further, "Banks are terrible at lending outside of their branch footprint and they are not good at customer acquisition. We provide products and a set of underwriting tools that fits for non-prime customers." Source
Chancellor Hammond and the newly established fintech delivery panel will meet in February to discuss the fintech industry; the group's purpose is to drive fintech specific policy recommendations for the UK; 24 industry experts will attend the February meeting including representatives from Funding Circle, Seedrs and MarketInvoice; on April 12 the UK government will also hold the International FinTech Conference in London to connect domestic and international investors with the UK's fintech market. Source
A new UK bank referral scheme began this week with a focus on nine of the region's largest banks; Lend Academy provides more details in their article; the referral scheme will require banks to refer small businesses to alternative lenders if they are denied credit; creates more opportunities for banks to partner with alternative lenders and also significantly expands credit access for businesses. Source
ThinCats has received endorsements from the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB) and Defaqto for its business operations in the P2P lending industry in the UK; the NACFB has recognized ThinCats for its best practices within commercial finance brokerage activities and ThinCats has joined the NACFB as a patron; ThinCats has also been recognized by Defaqto with a 5-star rating for product quality and comprehensiveness. Source
UK crowdfunding platform Crowd2Fund has reported year-over-year transaction growth of 4,700%; in Q1 2017 it provided funding to a range of industries with the number of businesses receiving funding increasing by 3,900% in comparison to Q1 2016; growth rates are increasing by 50% per month and the firm expects to transact over GBP10 million ($12.82 million) per month; the firm's IFISA offering has been a factor supporting the firm's growth with 95% of the platform's investments made through IFISAs; the firm offers a variety of capital funding sources for businesses including loans as well as structured equity and debt based financing. Source
Assetz Capital has now been in business for four years with 240 million British pounds ($307.61 million) in loan issuance; the platform focuses on lending for SMEs and says it plans to double its current originations in the next twelve months; the firm offers secured loans that generate annual returns of 3.75% to 18%. Source
Chancellor Hammond has reported the UK Spring Budget which provides insight for the region on the UK's economy as it separates from the European Union; the Spring Budget included a 270 million British pound ($328 million) investment by Industrial Strategy challenge fund for development of innovative technologies; Crowdfund Insider provides comments on the Spring Budget from a few executives in alternative finance; of note is the Budget's continued provision that prevents investors from diversifying across innovative finance individual savings accounts and a change in the tax on dividend income. Source
Preserving singleness of money as stablecoins are introduced are just one of the challenges UK regulators will face in ongoing regulation.