Global

October 2, 2018 @ 10:30 am By JD Alois  |  

A note from UK based investment crowdfunding platform Volpit indicates they have been acquired by Zion Capital. Deal terms were not revealed. Volpit was launched in 2014 by Patrick O’Flaherty and Simon Oberman, and received full FCA approval, but struggled to gain traction in the UK… Read More

October 2, 2018 @ 9:10 am By JD Alois  |  

According to CoreData Research, advisers believe MiFID II is a bigger challenging than Brexit. A study by the research firm of nearly 1000 UK financial advisors indicated that 19% deemed MiFID II a challenge followed by Brexit at 15%.  Macroeconomic and geopolitical risks stood at 13%,… Read More

October 2, 2018 @ 7:42 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Since Mr & Mrs Smith, a global luxury travel business, launched its equity crowdfunding campaign through Crowdcube in September, the business has been the first offering to top €5 million. At this writing, Mr & Mrs Smith has secured over £5,817,124 — overfunding by 581%–… Read More

October 2, 2018 @ 7:33 am By JD Alois  |  

VentureFounders has appointed Michael Gray to build their Channel Islands presence. Gray is the founder of MMG Consulting Limited (MMG), a consulting advisory firm, and a non-Executive Director of various companies and private equity groups in Europe, UK and Japan. VentureFounders states that until recently… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 10:01 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A show of Bitcoin- and cryptocurrency-inspired artworks is being held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the invention of Bitcoin and explore ways that Bitcoin and blockchains might be used to “disintermediate” the art world. The show runs September 28th to October 5th, from 10am to… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 12:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Last week, the Prime Minister of Malta, Dr. Joseph Muscat, addressed the United Nation’s General Assembly. As part of this speech, Dr. Muscat advocating on behalf of new technologies  which “pose endless possibilities.” “We are currently in exciting technological times: with the lightening pace of… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 10:59 am By JD Alois  |  

A note today from HM Land Registry indicates the government agency is investigating the use of blockchain for managing lan registration and the overall buying and selling process of property. More specifically, the agency is working with “Methods” a company that utilizes R3’s blockchain Corda…. Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 10:43 am By JD Alois  |  

Israel is red-hot when it comes to entrepreneurship and startups in general. The country has been recognized for years as punching above its weight class when it comes to an innovation driven economy. One of the hottest sectors for startups is Artificial Intelligence (AI). A… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 10:23 am By Cali Haan  |  

A self-regulatory group created to sustain Japan’s cryptocurrency sector is tightening rules on how much cryptocurrency exchanges are allowed to store in “hot wallets” connected directly to the Internet, Japan Times reports. The change is being advised about two weeks after hackers stole $60 million… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 9:09 am By JD Alois  |  

First Circle, a Philippine Fintech, is expected to announce a new credit facility for SMEs nationwide. This new facility has gained the support of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). First Circle is an online lender… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 7:33 am By JD Alois  |  

Crowd2Fund is out with a note on platform performance. The UK peer to peer debt platform states that current default levels stand at 1.42% and their best case model APR standing at 8.51%.  The crowdfunding platform says the current worst-case model, which assumes all defaults… Read More

October 1, 2018 @ 7:13 am By JD Alois  |  

On Tuesday (2 October 2018), Austria will become the first European country to issue a government bond using blockchain technology. The Austrian government is auctioning off €1.15 billion in Bonds using Ethereum to manage the security issuance.  The issuance will be handled by the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB)… Read More

September 30, 2018 @ 1:27 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Global accelerator program Plug and Play announced last week it has selected 158 startups to participate in its Winter 2018 batches. According to Plug and Play, the selected startups will take part in one of the following programs: Energy & Sustainability, Enterprise 2.0, Health, Insurtech,… Read More

September 29, 2018 @ 11:18 am By Xu Gao  |  

Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Goes Public in Hong Kong On September 26th, Bitmain, a Beijing-based Bitcoin mining giant, finally disclosed its IPO prospectus to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. CICC will serve as the sole sponsor. According to the prospectus, Bitmain’s net… Read More

September 28, 2018 @ 10:28 am By JD Alois  |  

Funding Circle has set the share offer price at the low end of the range, according to a note published by the company. Previously, Funding Circle had announced it would offer up to 136,039,416 shares at a price between 420 pence to 530 pence per share…. Read More

September 28, 2018 @ 8:41 am By JD Alois  |  

SIA Group, a consortium of eight European companies, has launched a new platform for financial service firms as they move to become compliant to Open Banking rules under PSD2. Their new digital platform is said to allow European banks, Fintechs, corporates, SMEs and public sector… Read More

September 27, 2018 @ 11:14 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, and the collaborative Fintech platform B-Hive Europe, announced it has formed an associate partnership during Digital Finance Europe on Wednesday. According to the duo, this new collaboration has been launched at the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels. While sharing more… Read More

September 27, 2018 @ 10:46 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA), a global platform for harnessing blockchain technology to solve social impact challenges, has created The Impact Ledger, an online registry of social impact blockchain projects, which span the nonprofit, public, and for-profit sectors. “Blockchain technology is emerging at a time… Read More

September 27, 2018 @ 9:08 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

UK-based payments platform GoCardless announced earlier this week it was launching its GoCardless for Xero in New Zealand. According to GoCardless, the new launch means users can automate payment collections and reconciliation against invoices in New Zealand dollars between GoCardless and Xero. The company wrote… Read More

September 27, 2018 @ 8:32 am By JD Alois  |  

UK Peer to Peer Lending Hurdles £1 Billion During 2nd Quarter The UK Peer to Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) has published their second quarter 2018 numbers from member platforms.  According to their data, the peer-to-peer lending industry contributed more than £1 billion to the UK… Read More