October 20, 2017 @ 3:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

Everyone was talking about the Tezos Initial Coin Offering when it raised $232 million this past summer. Now everyone is talking about Tezos for all of the wrong reasons as an internal squabble has called the entire project into question. Tezos (ancient Greek for “smart-contract”), just… Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 3:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Alipay has partnered with Marqeta on real-time payment processing for millions of Chinese travelers visiting North America. Marqeta is an open API payment card issuing platform. Alipay, part of Alibaba, is the world’s leading third-party payment platform with more than 520 million users. Through the partnership,… Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 11:02 am By JD Alois  |  

CoinList, the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) platform behind the incredible success of the Filecoin ICO, has announced a new leadership team as the company revamps as an independent platform designed to dominate the ICO market. CoinList, a partnership between AngelList  and Protocol labs, launched their… Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 10:06 am By JD Alois  |  

iDisclose, a New York based legal technology platform, has announced that Michael Knox, President of private equity firm, Gold Ridge Asset Management, has joined the management team. Simultaneously, iDisclose announced that Knox has made an investment in the company. Specific details of the investment were not… Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 8:10 am By JD Alois  |  

Following the first full year of operations of the Fintech Sandbox, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a report outlining lessons learned. The UK has been the trailblazer in the concept of creating a regulatory sandbox to allow innovative financial firms to work… Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 7:55 am By JD Alois  |  

Digital pharmacy Farmaconfianza, a company that specializes in cosmetics and natural supplements, has closed a €345,425 crowdfunding round via Crowdcube to finance its growth plan. In total, 99 investors participated in exchange for 12.73% of the company’s capital.  According to Crowdcube, largest contributions came from… Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 7:36 am By JD Alois  |  

Portugal’s fastest growing digital only bank Banco BNI Europa and Parcela Já, a Portuguese Fintech firm, have partnered to launch an innovative solution for the Portuguese market to enable any retailer to offer its customers installment loans for any purchase without cost to the consumer…. Read More

October 20, 2017 @ 12:24 am By JD Alois  |  

The Australian Government has passed legislation crafted to remove the double taxation on cryptocurrencies. Industry participants welcomed the step as indicative of the maturing Fintech policy environment in Australia. The government has sought to position itself as Fintech friendly as the pace of financial innovation… Read More

October 19, 2017 @ 5:35 pm By JD Alois  |  

At Georgetown University today, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika reaffirmed his belief that Fintech s should have the option to apply for a national bank charter or Fintech Charter as it is frequently called. While there was little new in the presentation delivered… Read More

October 19, 2017 @ 12:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

Regtech platform iComplyICO has hired Piotr Piasecki, known in the crypto world as “ThePiachu” to serve as its “decentralization manager.” Piasecki is a grey beard in the Bitcoin community having wrote a master’s thesis on Bitcoin security in 2012 in the Technical University of Lodz… Read More

October 19, 2017 @ 12:11 pm By JD Alois  |  

LATTICE80, the world’s largest Fintech hub based in Singapore, will launch an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) at some point next year. Specific details on the ICO were not made available. LATTICE80 did disclose the ICO would only be made available in regulated environments including Singapore,… Read More

October 19, 2017 @ 10:07 am By JD Alois  |  

ING is calling this a “Mad Max Problem”, perhaps a reference to beyond Thunderdome’s plot surrounding power generation in a post apocalyptic world. Teunis Brosens, a Senior Economist with ING, says Bitcoin transactions, and crypto in general perhaps (ETH is more efficient), are more expensive… Read More

October 19, 2017 @ 9:41 am By JD Alois  |  

Earlier this week the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) published a Primer on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Buried with the document was an interesting statement. The CFTC said “virtual currencies are commodities.” The import of this statement means the CFTC is positioning itself as a… Read More

October 19, 2017 @ 9:22 am By JD Alois  |  

Sberbank and SWIFT have signed a memorandum of cooperation to develop and market Fintech products created and promoted by SWIFT. Sberbank is Russia’s largest bank and holds almost one third of aggregate Russian banking sector assets, it is the key lender to the national economy… Read More

October 18, 2017 @ 11:21 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) in New Zealand and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) have re-affirmed their collaboration on the expanding opportunities in Fintech innovation. The two agencies originally entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) back in 2012. Since that time, much… Read More

October 18, 2017 @ 7:50 pm By JD Alois  |  

VidAngel crowdfunded $5 million in less than 2 days. It went on to raise $10 million from a committed fanbase last year. The euphoria was short lived though as soon after raising the money under Reg A+ VidAngel received a court order to shut down… Read More

October 18, 2017 @ 2:40 pm By JD Alois  |  

Invesdor, a Finland based investment crowdfunding platform, has completed their 100th successfully funded offering.The platform the 100th funding round was completed by Seafire, a cross border IPO marketed in both Sweden and Finland. Seafire has been active in the Venture Capital space for the past 15… Read More

October 18, 2017 @ 2:14 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published principles for data sharing and aggregation regarding individual consumers. As data become ubiquitous there is a looming concern about who owns or controls personal information. In an age of rampant cybersecurity issues, setting guidelines for what banks… Read More

October 18, 2017 @ 11:54 am By JD Alois  |  

The annual Securities and Exchange Commission’s Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation has been scheduled for November 30th.  In a shift from years past where the Forum was held in the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, DC, the event will take place in Austin, Texas…. Read More

October 18, 2017 @ 11:36 am By JD Alois  |  

The Fundrise Equity REIT, or Growth eREIT, has filed with the SEC to raise up to $45,730,440 under Reg A+.  The amount includes $11.8 million from a previous offering circular. The Growth eREIT focuses on acquiring commercial real estate assets with the expectation they will appreciate over… Read More