Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
LendingClub Closing Down Their Platform for Retail Investors from Lend Academy – LendingClub announced this week that they would be closing down their retail investor platform at the end of the year. This has became the most read story in Lend Academy history (over the first three days).
Max Levchin’s lending start-up Affirm confidentially files to go public from CNBC – Who raises $500m in equity and then files to go public the following month? Apparently Affirm does as we learned this week taking advantage of the growing interest in the buy now pay later space.
Chinese Fintech Company Lufax Plans U.S. IPO from The Wall Street Journal – The former Chinese peer to peer lending platform turned wealth manager is planning an IPO this month on the NYSE that could raise $3 billion in stock, making it the largest IPO of a Chinese company since Alibaba.
Petal seeks borrowers with blemished credit histories from American Banker – Petal launches a new card they are calling Petal 1 targeted at those people with established credit histories but who are unable to qualify for mainstream credit due to some blemishes.
Ripple Enters Lending With XRP Credit Lines to Fund Global Payments from CoinDesk – Ripple announced a line of credit product this week for customers using its On-Demand Liquidity service helping to facilitate cross border payments.
Clearbanc comes for Europe’s venture capitalists with a $645 million fund for e-commerce startups from Business Insider – Revenue-based financing leader, Clearbanc, is expanding to Europe with a £500m fund targeting British e-commerce startups.
Banks, financial services firms boost usage of open banking to expand digital offerings from FinLedger – With the surge in digital banking caused by the pandemic has come broader adoption of open banking in the U.S.
A ‘platform built by us and for us’: Black leaders start neobank from American Banker – Rapper Killer Mike is joining with television executive Ryan Glover and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to start a a new digital bank targeted at Black and Hispanic consumers.
How Banks Can Grow Like Bank Of America, Chase, And Wells Fargo: The Reacquisition Imperative from Forbes – In his weekly Forbes column Ron Shevlin shares the results of a new study that helps to quantify customer engagement based on how often customers use their bank.
Highlights from the First Big Fintech Virtual Event: LendIt Fintech USA 2020 from Lend Academy – LendIt Fintech USA 2020 is in the books and as I do every year I share the highlights from the big show.
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.