Opinion

June 12, 2017 @ 2:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

Alibaba has been a trailblazer in many ways. One area that Alibaba wants to dominate is finance for both consumers and SMEs and they are well on their way.  Ant Financial, their financial services subsidiary, is executing on this vision and last week Eric Jing,… Read More

June 11, 2017 @ 10:08 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA) is out with a report on the evolving Fintech sector and the authors are prodding regulators to work more closely together in a regional approach. ASIFMA is based in Hong Kong and while Hong Kong is… Read More

June 10, 2017 @ 2:22 pm By JD Alois  |  

This past week the House Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection, part of the Energy and Commerce Committee, held a hearing on Fintech innovation as part of their disruptors series. During the hearing several witnesses delivered prepared statements to the Committee members and one clearly… Read More

June 9, 2017 @ 5:16 pm By Duncan Keene  |  

Traditional banking is facing tough times ahead. It’s easy to see why. The UK has lost 40% of its banks and building societies since 1989, considering usage of online banking has more doubled since 2007. After all, who wants to queue for an hour to see… Read More

June 8, 2017 @ 10:38 pm By JD Alois  |  

Dodd-Frank has proven to be a horrible act of legislation. A reactionary swipe directed towards the financial services industry following the calamity known as the Great Recession, many portions of the law have not yet been fully enacted. The new regulations are simply too convoluted… Read More

June 8, 2017 @ 9:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced today that it had originated over $3 billion in loans to more than 20,000 small businesses since 2011. One billion of those loans came in the past 12 months. Peyush Nahar, VP for Amazon Marketplace, released a statement on the milestone; “We… Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 3:23 pm By JD Alois  |  

Earlier this year, the European Commission published a consultation paper on Fintech. Entitled, “Fintech: A More Competitve and Innovative European Financial Sector,” comments are starting to be published as the deadline nears (June 15, 2017). The ESMA published their comments today. The consultation was predicated… Read More

June 7, 2017 @ 2:30 pm By JD Alois  |  

Response Specifically Targets, AI, Crowdfunding, Blockchain, Regtech & More. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has responded to the European Commission consultation paper on “Fintech: a more competitive and innovative financial sector”. The ESMA welcomed the initiative to take a stock-take of the EU’s… 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

June 7, 2017 @ 7:06 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

Yao Qian, the Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Department at the People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, recently authored an extensive report on digital currencies. In the report, Yao Qian highlights many of the advantages and disadvantages of digital currencies, focusing much… Read More

June 5, 2017 @ 9:25 am By Joshua G. Hamilton, James H. Moon & Bret M. Geckeler  |  

Crowdfunding regulations were enacted with the goal of providing small businesses access to capital without imposing arduous registration and disclosure burdens.[i]  In that regard, the regulations have shown significant promise. Commentators have rightfully highlighted the substantial benefits to both issuers and investors based on their… Read More

June 4, 2017 @ 8:32 pm By Soren Godbersen  |  

In recent years, a growing number of online platforms have begun to offer direct investments in residential properties, allowing individual investors to access this asset class much more readily and at lower minimums. Some platforms offer investments in apartment buildings (multifamily properties, in industry lingo),… Read More

June 2, 2017 @ 3:19 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Jay Clayton published a request for comments today tackling a controversial topic. Chair Clayton addressed the Department of Labor’s “Fiduciary Rule” that deals with the conduct of investment advisors and broker dealers. It will also impact… Read More

June 2, 2017 @ 7:08 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

Earlier this week, Brave Browser, a software company seeking to revolutionize online advertising, held an initial coin offering (ICO) for its Ethereum-based token the Basic Attention Token (BAT). According to multiple sources online, the ICO raised over $36 million in about 30 seconds making it… Read More

June 1, 2017 @ 5:20 pm By Kathleen Minogue  |  

In Part 1 of this series on How To Fix Crowdfunding Education, I made the case for beginning all crowdfunding education by teaching the core fundamental that cuts across all forms of crowdfunding: participation. Part 2 addresses a key step we must take to make… Read More

June 1, 2017 @ 12:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Bank of England is out with some data on the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS). The FLS seeks to encourage more lending to the UK economy than would have been the case in the absence of the plan.  The current Extension allows participants to… Read More

June 1, 2017 @ 7:10 am By Jonathan Nieh  |  

According to a recent article published to Trustnodes, Ethereum now has 3 times as many nodes as Bitcoin. This revelation follows recent news of Ethereum quickly catching up to Bitcoin in total transaction volume which could signal Ethereum someday surpassing Bitcoin as the world’s number… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 5:18 pm By JD Alois  |  

Orchard X, the secondary trading platform being created by Orchard platform, received coverage from NYTimes.com yesterday shedding some light on the delayed launch. The electronic trading platform for online lending assets was announced in April 2016 but since that date little has been said about a… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 2:25 pm By Anthony Zeoli  |  

What was previously a relatively innocuous industry sector, the financial technology (or “Fintech”) industry has exploded over the past few years. With the litany of new Fintech startups and existing Fintech businesses, and even Fintech specific incubators and accelerators popping up, the Fintech revolution is… Read More

May 29, 2017 @ 1:17 pm By Barry James  |  

It may be counterintuitive but the research has been done and the results are now in – and it’s as we’ve been saying for almost five years. Fraud in crowdfunding is not just almost non-existent –  so much so as to be hard to measure,… Read More