April 2, 2020 @ 1:57 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee met today in a teleconference to discuss the impact of COVID-19 and small business. In brief, several Committee members expressed the opinion that it is going to be really bad. Martha Legg Miller,… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 12:28 pm By JD Alois  |  

Peer to peer lending research firm 4thWay is out with a short note on the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the P2P industry.  According to 4thWay, a minority of investors are selling their loans due to the affiliated risk of the outbreak. The… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 10:49 am By JD Alois  |  

The Banque de France – the central bank of France – has issued a call for applications to conduct a central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiment with the bank. According to the publication, the work relating to the experiments is being coordinated by the Infrastructures,… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 9:47 am By JD Alois  |  

Netherlands based challenger bank bunq has announced a new program where its customers may become “CO2 free” in under two years simply by using the bunq Green Card. bunq SuperGreen is a program that for each €100 spent on any bunq card the company will… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 9:15 am By JD Alois  |  

Binance has officially announced its acquisition of CoinMarketCap. It was reported earlier this week that an announcement of the purchase was pending. The rumored purchase price placed the acquisition at around $400 million making it one of the biggest crypto-focused acquisitions to date. Binance did not… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 8:49 am By JD Alois  |  

Salt Edge, an open banking and authentication platform, and Pannovate, a payment and digital banking provider, have partnered to provide PSD2 compliant banking and payments programs in the UK and continental Europe. Pannovate is a payment technology company targeting Fintech, crypto, and Regtech. The company… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 8:08 am By JD Alois  |  

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has published its annual report for 2019. FINMA said that blockchain technology continued to “preoccupy FINMA intensively.” FINMA currently oversees over 29,200 financial services firms and products. FINMA said it is increasingly seeing the development of digital securities… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 1:00 am By JD Alois  |  

Finturi, a Netherlands-based startup that leverages blockchain to power invoice financing, has received regulatory approval by the Dutch Authority of Financial Markets (AFM), according to a note from the firm. Launched in September 2018, Finturi uses technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to make… Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 10:14 pm By JD Alois  |  

Unless you are a student attempting to pay for university, or in the Fintech space, you may have never heard about Frank. But this Fintech has now matched about $12 billion in funding for over 400,000 students seeking higher education including scholarships, loans, grants and… Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 6:08 pm By JD Alois  |  

Earlier this week, an article in The Daily Caller targeted Itria Ventures. Itria is a financial services firm in the business of providing financing to its clients by making loans and purchasing accounts receivable – typically referred to as a Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) provider…. Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 3:15 pm By JD Alois  |  

Earlier this week, Monethera issued a rather brief statement via Twitter that it was ceasing all activities due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Details of the decision were said to be forwarded in an email to investors. Sorry to tweet this, but we are forced to… Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 2:54 pm By JD Alois  |  

Grupeer is the latest European peer to peer lender to shut down operations. Grupeer operates out of Latvia but also claims an office in Ireland. In a message posted on the site this week, Grupeer management claimed that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic made… Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 12:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

Current, an aspiring digital bank with over 800,000 accounts, has pulled some paycheck and purchasing data to provide some insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the economy. Of course, this is a snap-shot in time and a single set of data does not… Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 9:38 am By JD Alois  |  

Habito, an online platform that streamlines the entire home mortgage process, has topped £4 billion in mortgage submissions, according to a Tweet from the company. Habito is a Proptech firm that was launched in 2016 “to end mortgage hell forever.” You have to love that…. Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 8:43 am By JD Alois  |  

Zeux, a mobile Fintech app enabling payments, zero-fee foreign exchange, investment and savings alternative options, has announced the launch of a physical VISA card. While Zeux may be paddling upstream, the company said the move was to satisfy the growing appetite for a ‘phygital’ –… Read More

April 1, 2020 @ 2:03 am By JD Alois  |  

Digital bank Starling Bank is now offering an “overdraft interest holiday” to personal account holders who are struggling financially due to the COVID-19 crisis. Starling Bank customers may apply for a three month interest holiday beginning today (Apri 1, 2020). Effectively, Starling will waive all… Read More

March 31, 2020 @ 11:32 pm By JD Alois  |  

Crowdfunding advocate and Fintech expert Rodney Sampson has joined Draper Goren Holm as a Venture Partner. Draper Goren Holm is a partnership between Tim Draper, Alon Goren, and Josef Holm, focused on accelerating and incubating early-stage blockchain and Fintech startups, while simultaneously producing leading blockchain… Read More

March 31, 2020 @ 5:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

Tripoint Global Equities, an early advocate of issuing securities under updated rules for Reg A+, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to shut down its broker-dealer . The information was part of a recently filed Focus report. To quote the document: “On March 13,… Read More

March 31, 2020 @ 1:56 pm By JD Alois  |  

StartEngine. a full stack crowdfunding platform, has added Kevin O’Leary as a strategic advisor. O’Leary has become well known in the US as one of the “Sharks” on CNBC’s Shark Tank show – affectionately referred to as “Mr. Wonderful.” StartEngine says that as well as… Read More

March 31, 2020 @ 12:08 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has denied a requested rule change by the BOX Exchange to amend the fee schedule affiliated with entities that connect to the BOX network. On March 29, 2019, the Division of Trading and Markets at the SEC issued an… Read More