July 21, 2017 @ 4:00 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Pan-European marketplace for savings products, Raisin has become the poster child of Fintech disruption as it managed to convince 75,000 investors to put more than €3 billion into savings accounts held at foreign banks. We spoke with Tamaz Georgadze, co-founder and CEO, who explained to… Read More

July 14, 2017 @ 5:27 pm By Therese Torris  |  

The German press reports that German incubator Rocket Internet is selling its participation in the multinational P2P lending platform Lendico to British hedge fund Arrowgrass. Arrowgrass already owns a small share of Lendico and wants to take over the company. Founded in December 2013 by… Read More

July 13, 2017 @ 6:01 pm By Therese Torris  |  

  Germany is a huge SME and VSME (very small business) credit market. But it is not as mature a market for online marketplace lending as the UK, the US, or even the Netherlands. This partly explains why Funding Circle Germany’s early loan book underperformed…. Read More

July 11, 2017 @ 6:10 pm By Therese Torris  |  

On July 11, at the 23rd edition of the Paris Europlace International Financial Forum, Edouard Philippe, the Prime Minister of France reached out to 1,500 leaders of global financial services firms: “Welcome to Paris.” He said in English. “The French government is committed to boost… Read More

July 11, 2017 @ 10:50 am By Therese Torris  |  

Banks represented by the European Banking Authority (EBA) and Fintechs represented through the Future of European Fintech are in profound disagreement about the technical standards for the implementation of the Second Directive on Payment Services (PSD2). Banks argue that screen scraping should be banned in… Read More

July 10, 2017 @ 9:16 am By Therese Torris  |  

German online consumer lending marketplace auxmoney announced that it has crossed a new milestone: the marketplace has granted more than 70,000 loans worth more than €500 million in cumulated volume. Raffael Johnen, CEO of auxmoney, commented: “Half a billion euros worth of loans. This demonstrates… Read More

July 3, 2017 @ 1:44 pm By Therese Torris  |  

The European Investment Bank Group (EIB) through the European Investment Fund (EIF) has announced that it will provide €18.5 million to back a joint investment fund designed to lend money to SMEs through crowdlending platform Lendix. The EIB is the European Union’s bank, owned by… Read More

July 3, 2017 @ 9:00 am By Therese Torris  |  

Founded in Estonia and headquartered in the UK, Funderbeam is a Blockchain-powered platform for cross-border startup funding with an extensive information database, a primary market for fundraising and a secondary market for equity and debt trading. End-to-end Startup Funding Funderbeam was founded in 2013 in… Read More

June 30, 2017 @ 10:00 pm By Therese Torris  |  

One day after we hear of the acquisition of the KissKissBankBank crowdfunding group by French bank La Banque Postale, crowdlending platform Credit.fr announces its acquisition by Tikehau Capital. These acquisitions seem to confirm the widespread view that Fintechs can’t go it alone. We asked Thomas… Read More

June 30, 2017 @ 11:41 am By Therese Torris  |  

  Station F, labeled the worlds largest startup campus, officially opened today. BNP Paribas, the global bank, will be opening a dedicated Fintech incubator at Station F later this fall. The inauguration of the campus was even more eventful as newly elected French President Emmanuel… Read More

June 22, 2017 @ 10:25 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Station F, the biggest startup campus worldwide will open in Paris this month with BNP Paribas joining in the fall of 2017. BNP Paribas, the global Top-10 bank headquartered in France, is transferring its Fintech and InsureTech accelerator there with the help of global Plug… Read More

June 21, 2017 @ 10:01 pm By Therese Torris  |  

  The German real estate crowdfunding market is set to more than triple in size this year. Real estate developers, asset managers, and, most recently, real estate agents are joining the fray of real estate crowdfunding platforms, trying to unseat the handful of leaders who… Read More

June 16, 2017 @ 4:47 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Yesterday the President of France, Emmanuel Macron received a standing ovation from an audience of tech startups and large businesses at Viva Technology. He spoke of France as a startup nation embracing hyper-innovation, of a revolution, a complete change of mindset. He shared his vision… Read More

June 13, 2017 @ 12:30 pm By Therese Torris  |  

This article highlights three takeaways for Fintech firms from Mary Meeker’s 355-page-long report: 1) The Internet’s center of gravity shifts to Asia; 2) The biggest get bigger; 3) Fintechs must use gamification to improve customer engagement. Since 2001, Mary Meeker, a Partner at venture capital… Read More

June 12, 2017 @ 11:59 am By Therese Torris  |  

Where do you apply for a student loan if, like 29-year old Amit, you are an Indian engineer in his first job in London who has just been accepted at a business school in France? With no credit history, no local co-signer and no knowledge… Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 12:10 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Big consultancies, such as PwC, Cap Gemini, KPMG, Deloitte and Accenture, research and analyze fintech developments to support the digital transformation of their banking customers. They promote this work through well-crafted free reports and white papers. The latest of such reports was published by Julian… Read More

May 31, 2017 @ 1:56 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Gregoire de Lestapis has left traditional banking, most recently the direction of BBVA France, for the world of fintech entrepreneurship. In 2016, he joined Lendix, the French SME lending group, as head of its Spanish subsidiary and member of the executive team. In this interview,… Read More

May 26, 2017 @ 3:02 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Individual Fintech startups can’t disrupt financial services. It takes an ecosystem to do so. We spoke in Paris with Anaïs Raoux, the Managing Director of the industry association France Fintech about how the association helps build an effective ecosystem for French Fintechs ‒ tackling issues… Read More

May 24, 2017 @ 12:20 pm By Therese Torris  |  

    After multiple formal and informal discussions with representatives of the crowdfunding sector, consumer associations and the German financial establishment, the Financial Committee of the German Parliament has drawn its conclusions from the review of one year of operation under the German crowdfunding regulation,… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 3:15 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Twino, one of the leading Baltic lending marketplace, has produced in conjunction with KPMG Baltics a report called Alternative Lending Index which assesses the potential of alternative finance in 23 European countries based on a set of economic credit data. While the report does not… Read More