Global

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 @ 1:56 pm By Cali Haan  |  

TorrentFreak.com are reporting today that Telegram co-founder and exiled Russian businessperson Pavel Durov has vowed to donate millions of dollars in Bitcoin to providers of virtual private network (VPN) services. Consistently routing messages through VPNs, which obscure message origins, may allow Russian citizens to continue… 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 @ 9:34 am By Cali Haan  |  

After blogging last month about the risks of cryptographic currencies and assets, including their use in “darknet” marketplaces like AlphaBay, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde blogged this month about “the promise” of cryptocurrencies and urged an even-handed international approach to their regulation. Judicious consideration, wrote Lagarde,… 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 @ 12:08 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

ArchOver, the UK P2P business lending platform, aims to bridge the funding gap to enable businesses to continue to grow while waiting for their R&D tax claim to be repaid. ArchOver’s Research & Development Advance (RDA) service is reportedly the first provided by a P2P… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 11:45 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Santander InnoVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, has invested in the startup Creditas, a leading Brazilian secured lending platform. Creditas is Santander InnoVentures, Santander’s USD 200 million corporate VC fund, first investment in Brazil and second in Latin America. Creditas increased of… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 11:19 am By Erin Hobey  |  

CAN Capital, a tech-driven small business specialty finance company, has hired Tom Davidson as its new Chief Financial Officer. Davidson brings 25 years of financial services experience to the company, including deep expertise in capital markets, securitization, treasury, investor relations and risk management. “I couldn’t be more… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 11:05 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Chaineum, a crypto-finance engineering consulting company and reportedly the first French boutique specialized in raising funds through ICOs, has completed an ICO operation carried out for Naviaddress, a platform for digital addressing of locations and objects. Through its ICO, Naviaddress sold a total of 338… 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 @ 2:00 am By Cali Haan  |  

“Hashing power” dropped precipitously on the Monero network right after the system “hard forked” April 6th. The temporary decrease in competition for block rewards induced by the fork has been attributed to the fact that many minors had not upgraded their software in time for… 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