General News

May 22, 2017 @ 6:16 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Peer-to-peer lending platform RateSetter has appointed Joanna Wright as Chief Risk Officer. Wright joins RateSetter from GE Capital where she was Chief Risk Officer for GE Capital Bank in the UK, leading a team of over 200 risk professionals with responsibility for prudential and enterprise risks… Read More

May 21, 2017 @ 9:54 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

A year ago, Numerai premiered itself as a “new kind of hedge fund built by a network of data scientists.” Unlike a traditional fund that makes trades based on human decision, Numerai lets anonymous programmers write open source trading algorithms based on data provided by Numerai…. Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 2:33 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges agains Robert W. Murray, a mechanical engineer from Virginia. Murray allegedly cooked up a bogus regulator filing in an attempt to manipulate the share price of Fitbit. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 11:23 am By JD Alois  |  

NextGen Crowdfunding is out with some data on the status of Title III Regulation Crowdfunding or Reg CF. NextGen has a tracking application that follows all past and active Reg CF offers. According to their numbers, over $37 million has been raised since the securities… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 8:02 am By Erin Hobey  |  

LevelUp, a Boston-based mobile app fintech firm, has secured $50 million in finance from long-term investors JP Morgan Chase and U.S. Boston Capital and from newcomer CentroCredit Bank, bringing the total raised by the startup so far to just over $85M, according to CNBC. LevelUp aims to… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 7:28 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Mobile payment platform Verse closed a $20.5 million Series B round of funding led by Spark Capital, according to multiple news sources. eVentures and Greycroft Partners also participated in the round whose funds will be added to the $8.3M in Series A funding secured last October. The Barcelona/ San Francisco-… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 4:29 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Chinese P2P lender Dianrong announced a new technology agreement with Maggie Ng, a leading consumer banking executive in Asia Pacific, to launch a global fintech marketplace connecting Asian investors with high-quality, low-volatility and largely untapped asset classes, including U.S. consumer lending. Founded in 2012, Dianrong originates… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 3:50 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial centre in Abu Dhabi, has joined R3 as a new member of its international consortium. ADGM is the first regulatory body in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to be part of the R3 consortium, comprising over… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 2:52 am By JD Alois  |  

Paytm is launching a bank. The news was published in advance of the announcement that SoftBank had invested $1.6 billion into Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications Limited. The SoftBank investment may have been incentivized due to the fact the Reserve Bank of India had approved the… Read More

May 19, 2017 @ 2:12 am By JD Alois  |  

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. Based in Switzerland, the FSB was established in 2009, in part, a response to the global financial crisis that shocked the world. Ostensibly the FSB is… Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 1:20 pm By Jonathan Nieh  |  

According to an article published on Trustnodes today, Ethereum is now handling almost half the transaction volume of Bitcoin. That might not sound impressive but you have to consider the fact that Ethereum launched less than 2 years ago whereas Bitcoin is over 9 years old…. Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 7:26 am By Erin Hobey  |  

M0ney360, a leading commercial real estate marketplace lending platform, closed more than $45 million in loans in April, bringing the company’s total production to over $250 million in closed loans, with an expected $500 million in transactions by year-end. Money360’s recent loan closings span properties… Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 7:10 am By Erin Hobey  |  

UK Fintech TransferWise has reached operational profitability six years after launch, according to a release. The Estonia-founded, London-based currency exchange startup indicated that it is currently amassing £8 million a month in revenue and is on target to reach £100 million for 2017. “To have hit… Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 6:45 am By Erin Hobey  |  

ESADE BAN, the business angels network of Barcelona business school ESADE Alumni, has partnered with the online investment platform Crowdcube Spain to enable coinvestment in startups and growing businesses in Spain. Under this agreement, the entire ESADE community (including alumni, students, faculty, recent graduates and staff)… Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 5:19 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Boston-based Eastern Bank has spun off an online loan platform for small businesses that was developed by its innovation lab into an independent company that has already raised $9 million in funding. Numerated Growth Technologies consists of a platform that allows banks to make loans in… Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 4:59 am By Erin Hobey  |  

A large majority (75%) of anti-money laundering (AML) professionals believe the current geopolitical landscape presents new risks and challenges for preventing financial crime at their organisations, according to a joint survey by SWIFT and Dow Jones Risk & Compliance. To address these risks, more than half… Read More

May 17, 2017 @ 9:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

Last week, Benzinga held its annual Fintech Awards event in Manhattan. The proceedings prior to the actual award presentations included some well known names from both traditional and alternative finance alongside a series of three minute pitch sessions. At the event, representatives from a wide range… Read More

May 17, 2017 @ 4:02 pm By JD Alois  |  

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will embark on a “major Fintech initiative” with the creation of LabCFTC. The venture was launched to promote responsible Fintech innovation and to encourage competition in the markets the CFTC oversees. “Simply put, LabCFTC is intended to help… Read More

May 17, 2017 @ 3:47 pm By JD Alois  |  

Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KRBA) has assigned preliminary ratings to three classes of notes issued by Prosper for $450.5 million that is expected to close on May 24, 2017. This will be the sixth securitization which is collateralized by unsecured consumer loans which have been… Read More

May 17, 2017 @ 10:37 am By JD Alois  |  

Lucerne University in Switzerland is out with their annual report on crowdfunding in the country. This is the third year in a row that the report has been published. The “Crowdfunding Monitoring Switzerland 2016 tracks the growth and trends in this sector of finance. In the… Read More