Opinion

July 22, 2015 @ 8:08 am By JD Alois  |  

New forms of finance are poised to inalterably change the entire finance industry ecosystem we know today.  Investment crowdfunding, and the various iterations of alternative finance, are still in the early stages of its evolution.   The disruptive finance industry is measured in mere billions… Read More

July 21, 2015 @ 9:08 am By Therese Torris  |  

Alternativa.fr is an intriguing cross between an equity crowdfunding platform and an alternative exchange system which gives it something many crowdfunding platforms would like to have: a secondary market for trading SME’s private equity shares. Creating liquidity for private shares is an ongoing discussion in… Read More

July 20, 2015 @ 12:46 pm By JD Alois  |  

Dodd- Frank was a 895 page act of legislation designed to right the wrongs that caused the implosion of financial markets that ended up in the rubble of the Great Recession.  Five years ago this month, the bill was signed into law and set forth on… Read More

July 20, 2015 @ 9:15 am By Georgia Quinn  |  

For over a decade Gust, and its predecessor Angelsoft, has quietly been become one of, if not the, largest private investing platforms in the world. Gust is a SaaS platform that helps connect entrepreneurs with investors and other benefactors, in whatever form such investors take,… Read More

July 19, 2015 @ 4:36 pm By JD Alois  |  

  Christian Catalini, a professor at MIT Sloane School of Business, is a prominent crowdfunding researcher and he believes he has discovered the “killer app” for crowdfunding in partnering professional investors with the crowd. Angel investors and VCs have been leveraging “syndication” for a very… Read More

July 17, 2015 @ 1:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

Back in January of this year, Crowdfund Insider covered a patent lawsuit that sought to challenge many of the prominent US crowdfunding platforms in operation today.  This included both rewards/donations and investment crowdfunding platforms.  AlphaCap ventures, a company that has been described as a patent troll,… Read More

July 15, 2015 @ 11:00 am By Chris Tyrrell  |  

  According to Inc.com, the emergence of the JOBS Act has created around 1,500 to 2,000 jobs since its inception. And according to the organization Women Entrepreneurs as Economic Drivers, women will create more jobs and keep the economy churning, provided they have the capital… Read More

July 14, 2015 @ 8:47 am By Anthony Zeoli  |  

  What started as an action against a single company in late June has evolved into a probe of an entire industry. As reported by the Wall Street Journal late last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a new probe spurred by… Read More

July 13, 2015 @ 2:00 am By Geoff Miller, CEO, GLI Finance  |  

The Emergency Budget This week saw the first Budget in the UK since the Conservative Party achieved a surprise win in the General Election in May. As the previous coalition government had already made promising steps towards the implementation of legislation which will improve access… Read More

July 11, 2015 @ 12:11 pm By JD Alois  |  

One of the interesting (and helpful) aspects of marketplace lending is the volume of data that is made readily available. Many direct lenders are noted for their exceptional transparency with more than a few publishing data on their loans including default rates.  Orchard, the company… Read More

July 9, 2015 @ 11:01 am By JD Alois  |  

The Roosevelt Institute is publishing a series of policy papers tackling the trends and challenges that will sculpt our economy over the coming decades. Roosevelt notes that too frequently reactionary politicians take short term policy approaches to issues that require a more thoughtful, long term… Read More

July 8, 2015 @ 11:27 am By JD Alois  |  

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s summer budget was said to put economic security first and was a plan for “working people”. But incorporated in the policy statement was also aspects that should benefit disruptive financial firms on both the debt and equity side of… Read More

July 8, 2015 @ 10:52 am By JD Alois  |  

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne delivered an almost 10,000 word speech for the Summer budget to Parliament today.  The wide ranging policy statement from the Tory controlled government was big on the middle class & small business combined with reductions in certain entitlement spending. The… Read More

July 5, 2015 @ 8:29 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Office of the Investor Advocate is a relatively new addition to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its creation was mandated by Dodd-Frank which was enacted in 2010.  This new regulatory role is required by statute to file two separate reports each year: A report on… Read More

July 2, 2015 @ 12:39 pm By David Klein  |  

By now, you’ve more than likely heard about Goldman Sachs’ plans to launch an online consumer lending unit as early as next year. Yes, Goldman Sachs, the 146-year-old Wall Street giant best known for focusing on the 1%, is making a bet on Main Street with plans… Read More

July 1, 2015 @ 3:57 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Arizona Governor, Doug Ducey, has taken an outsized approach to promoting, and improving, the state of Arizona.  He was quoted last month in the Capitol Times as saying; “What we’re not going to have are overly aggressive regulators who are going beyond the scope… Read More

July 1, 2015 @ 12:14 pm By Anthony Zeoli  |  

  Last week the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued  a Cease and Desist Order (the “Order” embedded below) against two related companies for acting as unregistered broker-dealers in connection with the sale of securities under the “EB-5” Investor Program (also sometimes referred to… Read More

June 23, 2015 @ 10:30 am By JD Alois  |  

The states of Massachusetts and Montana have filed a joint preliminary statement of issues. Once again the two state securities regulators, William Galvin in Massachusetts and Monica Lindeen in Montana, are reiterating their criticism of the SEC and recently enacted rules for Regulation A+. The… Read More

June 23, 2015 @ 9:52 am By JD Alois  |  

The German Crowdfunding Network joined a broad coalition of business advocates last month to plead with the German government to not raise taxes on capital gains. Typically politicians are always in search of revenue (new taxes) to spend on public projects and services. Some with merit,… Read More

June 22, 2015 @ 7:30 am By Samuel Guzik  |  

And Regulation A+’s Forgotten Crowdfunding Cousin Quietly Comes to Life in Congress Some History Lessons Though some may quibble over the details, June 19, 2015, was an historic day in U.S. regulatory history, at least as far as raising capital for small businesses is concerned… Read More