Earlier this week, the UK launched its bank referral scheme to help extend credit to small businesses not funded by nine of the UK's largest banks; it seems that UK banks outside of the UK consortium are also increasing their efforts to provide alternative options for business borrowers; this week NatWest announced it has added iwoca to its alternative lending panel, Capital Connections. Source
With controversy around ESG investing coming to a head, solar loans could offer respite, doing good and doing well as an asset class.
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The financial markets were slightly surprised by the presidential outcome with Dow futures down approximately 250 points on Wednesday morning; uncertainty over some big changes specifically in financial services from Donald Trump will be a factor for markets and the industry going forward; in financial services Trump looks to deregulate the industry easing many of the controls implemented by Dodd-Frank; another factor for fintech will be Trump's position on net neutrality which could limit open source internet development; overall, speculators see increased volatility and uncertainty for the near-term. Source
Applied Blockchain has been trialling a system for companies to process their invoices on blockchain and in turn will allow the companies to tap the securitization markets; the current trial is with a UK SME called Emplas that makes windows; "Our platform may now allow for securitization of invoices as the underlying for bond issues," Ben-Ari, Founder of Applied Blockchain, tells Euromoney; "It brings transparency as to the ownership and establishes the provenance of invoices for bond buyers in ways that the existing processes and technology simply did not allow." Source
Orchard has announced a new data services partnership with investment bank, Sandler O'Neill; Sandler O'Neill provides investment banking advisory services for clients in the financial services industry; the partnership will provide access to Orchard's full suite of marketplace lending data analytics services for Sandler O'Neill and its clients making Sandler O'Neill a leading investment advisory service for financial institutions considering bank partnerships. Source
A Lendit Fintech and Amount white paper came back with results from 1,000-plus international banks, fintechs, and fin service providers building BNPL.
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Total investments crossed 1.13 billion euros in 2018 according to Barkow Consulting GmbH; investments in the fourth quarter alone were...