April 18, 2018 @ 5:58 pm By JD Alois  |  

Joe Cammarata, President of tZero, was visiting with Security Token Academy last week when he made an interesting comment. Cammarata said he was scheduled to meet with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC this week to discuss regulation of tokenized securities. The transcript is… Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 4:10 pm By JD Alois  |  

Tala has closed on a $50 million Series C equity investment led by Revolution Growth with participation from existing investors IVP, Data Collective, Lowercase Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Female Founders Fund. Separately, Tala said it has also recently raised $15 million for its loan book…. Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 12:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told CNBC today they have not “lost their minds” by moving into the highly competitive consumer banking business with Marcus. Blankfein explained that the consumer business has moved to them because the digital world can allow them to scale. “If… Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 11:08 am By JD Alois  |  

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has fired off another enforcement action against a questionable cryptocurrency operation. The CFTC has charged multiple individuals, and several companies, with fraud involving ATM Coin (asset trading market coin) and binary options. The CFTC filed the Complaint in the… Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 10:38 am By JD Alois  |  

The Bank of England has approved the first non-bank payment service provider to join the UK payment system settling in central bank money. Described as a milestone event for the BoE in accommodating innovation, this is the first Fintech to gain direct accesss. Transferwise is… Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 10:03 am By JD Alois  |  

Lendingblock, an interesting spin on cryptocurrency lending, has easily hit its initial coin offering target (ICO) hard cap of $10 million early. The LND coin will be used as the currency for payment and receipt of interest on the platform. As CI covered last month,… Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 7:59 am By JD Alois  |  

UK peer to peer lending platform Crowd2Fund is opening an Australian office becoming one the first UK-based companies to utilise the new ‘Fintech Bridge’ between the UK and Australia that was recently announced by both countries. Signed in March, the agreement between the UK Financial… Read More

April 18, 2018 @ 7:32 am By JD Alois  |  

Investment crowdfunding platform FundedByMe has acquired Laika Consulting AB, a communications agency that focuses on the financial industry including investor relations. Specific terms of the deal were not released but company representatives indicated the purchase was completed via a combination of cash and the issuance… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 11:35 pm By JD Alois  |  

Seedrs is one of the leading crowdfunding platforms in the UK today. Since the online capital formation site launched in 2012 over 600 deals have been successfully funded. Investors have mainly been retail types but big VCs have frequently joined in to support promising businesses… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 11:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Singapore based Funding Societies has closed a USD $25 million Series B funding round. The peer to peer lending platform said the oversubscribed offer was led by Softbank Ventures Korea. Additionally, Funding Societies said it has received expanded credit facilities from banks and other financial… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 3:34 pm By JD Alois  |  

Lithuania has announced the creation of “Virtual Limited Liability Companies” (VLLCs). These companies would be registered and managed all using blockchain technology. The Baltic country expects to be the first country to offer this type of service and it expects to allow VLLCs as soon… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 3:04 pm By JD Alois  |  

The New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has sent a letter to 13 different cryptocurrency exchanges. Described as a fact-finding inquiry into the policies and practices of platforms used by consumers to trade cryptocurrencies, the AG labeled the move the Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative. The… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 9:52 am By JD Alois  |  

Neufund, a Berlin based Blockchain equity crowdfunding platform, has announced it will establish a “strong presence” in Malta to support its rapidly expanding ecosystem. Neufund has taking an interesting approach by enabling the tokenization of equity and raising capital on the blockchain. Malta has quickly… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 8:46 am By JD Alois  |  

A report yesterday stated that Barclays bank is considering launching a cryptocurrency trading desk. Barclays is not alone in considering this new line of business as it has been widely reported that Goldman Sachs is looking at doing the same. Other banks are expected to… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 8:22 am By JD Alois  |  

BondMason is out with their DIrect Lending Report that indicates that between 2016-2017, mid-sized online lending platforms increased their potential to compete, growing their market share by approximately 50% to £1.6 billion. Large platforms, meanwhile, grew their share by only approximately 6%. BondMason stated the… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 1:00 am By JD Alois  |  

Revolut’s newest feature Vaults a saving enabler that allows users to round up and save their spare change from everyday purchases. The service is available for any of Revolut’s 25 supported fiat currencies as well as the popular digital currencies Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin. Revolut say… Read More

April 16, 2018 @ 10:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

“Stop knee-jerk anti-competitive measures by banks” FinTech Australia is out with a note on the push to achieve Open Banking rules – somewhat similar to what the UK kicked off this past January. The advocacy group responded to a submission by the Australian Banking Association… Read More

April 16, 2018 @ 7:25 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is out with report covering the topic of Fintech Sandboxes. These new step in fostering financial innovation was first launched in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) but the concept has since been replicated in a growing number… Read More

April 16, 2018 @ 4:09 pm By JD Alois  |  

StartEngine, a full stack crowdfunding platform listing Reg CF, Reg D and Reg A+ offerings, has reported that Reg CF or “Regulation Crowdfunding” has now topped $100 million of successful funding (as of March 31st that number stood at $102.1M). There was an earlier report… Read More

April 16, 2018 @ 1:09 pm By JD Alois  |  

Speaking at Vanderbilt University Law School this past week, Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo made some interesting comments. Giancarlo, a Commodore Alum, spoke about the digitization of finance (Fintech) and the subject of virtual currencies. Giancarlo reflected on time spent with… Read More