November 13, 2018 @ 9:24 am By JD Alois  |  

Online lender iwoca has selected Seema Desai as their new Chief Operations Officer (COO). iwoca provides loans of up to £200,000 to small and micro businesses across the UK, Germany, and Poland via its website and through partner integrations using its proprietary Lending API. Desai joined iwoca… Read More

November 13, 2018 @ 9:13 am By JD Alois  |  

Peer to peer property lender, CrowdProperty, has just surpassed £25 million in funding for property projects. The announcement arrives soon after announcing the platform had topped £20 million in funding. In an email distributed to platform users, CrowdProperty stated: “Having today fully funded our 56th… Read More

November 13, 2018 @ 8:34 am By JD Alois  |  

Fluidly, one of the 20 winners of the Nesta Challenge Prize on Open Banking in July 2017, has secured £5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by New York-based Nyca Partners with participation from existing investors Octopus Ventures, Anthemis and tech angels including Simon Murdoch… Read More

November 13, 2018 @ 8:19 am By JD Alois  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has announced a $5 billion program where the money is placed with private equity and infrastructure fund managers. The announcement was made during the weeklong Singapore Fintech Festival – an event that attracts tens of thousands of attendees each year…. Read More

November 13, 2018 @ 8:06 am By JD Alois  |  

Today, the Monetary  Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced the winners of their annual Global Fintech Hackcelerator which takes place during the Singapore Fintech Festival each year. Three winners have been selected from a group of 20 finalists. KPMG assisted in the competition. “The Global… Read More

November 13, 2018 @ 7:53 am By JD Alois  |  

Blockchain startup Sweetbridge has added former Director of the US Mint, Edmund Moy to its advisory board. Moy is said to be one of the first senior federal government officials to embrace the potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Sweetbridge is described as a network that will… Read More

November 13, 2018 @ 7:29 am By JD Alois  |  

The UK Department for International Trade (DIT) is out with a note this morning saying £109 million of foreign investment will create 359 new jobs as money goes into the high tech sector, including the important Fintech industry. DIT states that 11 different investments will… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 11:23 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to approve the first initial coin offering (ICO) portal at some point this month, according to a report in the Bangkok Post. The approval follows a royal decree from last May that stipulated that the Thai… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 10:52 pm By JD Alois  |  

Investment crowdfunding platform StartEngine launched a Reg A+ self-crowdfunding offer for security tokens some time ago. Unfortunately, the offering has not yet been qualified by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last week, StartEngine opened up a “limited time” $10 million security token offering (STO) using… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 7:10 pm By JD Alois  |  

Investing in early-stage firms is highly risky. As this publication has stated time and again, many, if not most, early-stage firms will fail or simply bounce along failing to achieve the founder’s expectations of great financial success. Investment crowdfunding platforms typically list mainly startup or… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 3:26 pm By JD Alois  |  

GTR Ventures, a global trade and supply chain investor, has inked three new deals with Fintech firms: Lucidity, iLoan and RM-Tech. According to GTR, these investments represent a pivot towards markets in China and South Asia. The investments were announced on the first day of… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 10:25 am By JD Alois  |  

WeSwap, a peer to peer currency exchange platform, is going public on AIM. Back in 2016, WeSwap raised £2.45 million on Seedrs at a pre-money valuation of £24.1 million. The crowdfunding round came soon after a venture funding where WeSwap raised  £6.5 million, led by investment firm… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 8:55 am By JD Alois  |  

Automated peer to peer platform Robo.cash has issued a note saying Russian microfinance company MFC Zaymer is joining their platform. The company operates Zaymer.ru that offers short-term (payday) loans with interest rates for investors of 14% in Euros and up to 18% for loans originated in Rubles…. Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 8:44 am By JD Alois  |  

Social media crypto PlusOneCoin can now be bought and sold on three different exchanges with the addition of SouthXchange. PlusOneCoin or PLUS1, is a mineable crypto that is intended to be used as social media currency. The use case is for authors and plaform owners to… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 8:04 am By JD Alois  |  

Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) helped to kick off the annual Singapore Fintech Festival today with a wide-ranging speech on the benefits of financial innovation. Singapore has become a hub in southeast Asia for Fintech development. The Festival attracts thousands… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 7:33 am By JD Alois  |  

Peer to peer property lender Kuflink has increased their interest rates on both the Innovative Finance ISA (IF ISA) and their auto-invest products. The investment platform says their 1, 3 and 5-year fixed-term investments have all increased and will now pay 5%, 6.1% and 7% pa… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 7:21 am By JD Alois  |  

Investment crowdfunding platform Downing Crowd is taking advantage of the new UK prospectus limit – a regulatory change that increases the crowdfunding limit to €8 million. Effectively a European rule, the threshold at which a prospectus for an offering was increased this past July from €5 million… Read More

November 12, 2018 @ 7:13 am By JD Alois  |  

LendInvest, an online marketplace for mortgages, has published the latest LendInvest Buy-to-Let Index report. The quarterly BTL Indes reviews 105 postcodes in England and Wales ranking four different characteristics: Rental Price Growth, Rental Yield, Transaction Volume, Capital Value Growth. According to LendInvest, key findings for… Read More

November 11, 2018 @ 11:52 am By JD Alois  |  

Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have announced a successful blockchain pilot of “Payment (DvP) capabilities for the settlement of tokenized assets across different blockchain platforms.” The two entities have a goal of simplifying back-office operations, post-trade processes while shortening trade settlement… Read More

November 10, 2018 @ 4:32 pm By JD Alois  |  

Last week, a report was circulating about EOS that slammed the ecosystem saying it was not even a true blockchain. There are other people in the blockchain world who would agree with at least some of the statements from the report. According to Whiteblock, the “world’s… Read More