Global

March 3, 2021 @ 7:53 am By Omar Faridi  |  

UK-based Folk2Folk, a P2P lender supporting local and rural businesses, notes that “shifting sands” within the peer to peer sector have left some retail investors “high and dry.” Folk2Folk reveals that some retail investors have been “abandoned” in favor of institutional investors. There have also… Read More

March 3, 2021 @ 7:50 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Online lender Funding Circle (LSE:FCH) recently noted in blog to its small business customers what the roadmap out of the COVID-19 lockdown means for small businesses. On February 22, 2021, the UK government announced its “highly anticipated” four-phase roadmap out of the Coronavirus-related lockdown —… Read More

March 3, 2021 @ 6:30 am By Milena Naitoh  |  

The ASEAN economy is expected to become the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2030, growing at a pace of over 5% per year. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the biggest contributors to this regional growth — they account for between 89% and 99%… Read More

March 3, 2021 @ 1:02 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Australia is currently home to at least 733 active Fintech firms, up considerably from 629 back in September 2019, according to the KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020 map. This represents an increase of 104 firms that joined the nation’s financial technology industry between September 2019 and… Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 11:45 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Banking software firm Temenos (SIX: TEMN) has released a report, titled “Open Banking: Revolution or Evolution?”, which was authored by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and it’s also based on a survey of more than 300 senior banking professionals. The report revealed that almost half… Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 11:32 pm By JD Alois  |  

UK Finance has published a proposal for a “new service company” that will support the UK’s open banking infrastructure, according to a public statement. UK Finance is described as the collective voice for the banking and finance industry representing over 250 firms in the UK…. Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 10:53 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile had reportedly spent nearly $67,000 in October 2020 on a 10-second video artwork that he may have watched for completely free online. Pablo has now sold the digital artwork video for $6.6 million. The video has been created by digital… Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 6:13 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Security Token Market (STM), which focuses on providing the latest updates on blockchain-based security tokens, reveals that the total security token market cap stood at $536,878,278 for the month of February 2021. The market cap monthly change was +6.42%. The total February 2021 trading volume… Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 9:27 am By JD Alois  |  

Rewire, a digital banking startup that is targeting cross-border banking services has announced a $20 million Series B funding round. The round was lead by leading global crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and also included a line of credit from an undisclosed bank. According to a release,… Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 7:46 am By Omar Faridi  |  

During the past few years, the Fintech sector in Mexico has grown steadily to become one of the “most developed” in the Latin American (LatAm) region, according to a report released in January 2021 by the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (“National Banking and… Read More

March 2, 2021 @ 7:43 am By Omar Faridi  |  

On January 27, 2021, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that there had been a significant disruption of the NetWalker ransomware strain. FBI agents assigned to the case had taken down a website NetWalker attackers had allegedly used to communicate with the unsuspecting victims…. Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 11:25 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Leading crypto exchange Binance notes that their peer-to-peer service helps users establish a “competitive” peer-to-peer digital currency trading business. Since its launch back in October 2019 for just a single market, Binance P2P has become a major global marketplace for peer-to-peer trading of virtual currencies…. Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 10:55 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Buy Now, Pay Later or BNPL adoption is on track to grow significantly in the next few years with the Asia-Pacific region being one of the main drivers. A study performed by Coherent Market Insights reveals that the international BNPL market had been valued at… Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 10:24 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

At the end of last year, IOHK, the organization that supports open-source development including the Cardano project, announced their devnets plan to support the “longer-term strategic goal” of opening up Cardano to several different development languages – as explained in the ‘‘Island, Ocean, Pond” video…. Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 12:23 pm By JD Alois  |  

Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has become a crypto fan. During a discussion on CNBC today,  O’Leary said he was allocating a portion of his portfolio, reported to be around 3%, into Bitcoin. In the past, O’Leary has been less than complimentary of crypto in… Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 12:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

This past week the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a consultation paper addressing standards for the previously approved pan-European crowdfunding regulation. As covered in the past, the European Union has passed legislation to enable online securities offerings across its member nations. After many… Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 8:41 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Property finance platform LendInvest notes that supporting Limited Company Buy-to-Let clients is one of their “specialties,” with criteria tailored to support professional and portfolio landlords to “get the most out of our product range.” At LendInvest’s recently-held 2021 Broker Kick Off Event, their expert BDM… Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 8:13 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Online peer-to-peer lender Blend Network notes that the UK was the world’s first country to authorize and begin administering the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on December 8, 2020. The vaccine had been on track to immunize 15 million individuals by February 15, 2020. The immunization efforts have… Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 8:05 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Consumers have reportedly spent over $230 million purchasing and trading digital collectibles of NBA game highlights. The NBA’s Top Shot product is a blockchain or distributed ledger tech (DLT)-powered digital trading card system that has managed to generate more than $230m worth of gross sales,… Read More

March 1, 2021 @ 8:03 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

  Payment processing and global retail banking platform Klarna announced on Monday it secured $1 billion through its equity funding round to accelerate international expansion and further capture global retail growth. Klarna revealed that the round, which subscribed four times the amount it originally sought to raise, included… Read More