PayPal’s shares have climbed close to 75 percent in 2017 and now is considered more valuable than American Express; their market cap has doubled since spinning off from eBay in 2015; while it now finds itself on the heels of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs there is still some who fear they might be valued a bit too high; acquisitions, product diversification and partnership agreements have helped push the company in the last year. Source.
Many of the major US banks are now adopting digital strategies into their business; Lend Academy shares progress from JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi and Goldman Sachs. Source
A case study at the Harvard Business School was presented as part of the executive MBA program on the bank’s digital strategy; Goldman CFO Marty Chavez recently stated “Goldman is for risk what Google is for search”; the move to becoming a tech company is not easy as other areas of the bank do not see the same benefits; Goldman is clearly on the front edge of innovation in banking today. Source.
Goldman CFO Marty Chavez said the bank surpassed $2bn in originations, a mark they were looking to reach by year’s end; the portfolio has an average APR of 12 percent, loans have an average length of four years and the typical amount if for $15,000 as reported by Business Insider; the company estimates they will reach $13bn in lending after three years in operation. Source.
Goldman Sachs head of commodities research, Jeff Currie, told Bloomberg TV that bitcoin is a commodity though with less liquidity than gold; he explains, “"It's a commodity. A security, by definition, has a liability attached to it. Take a dollar bill, it has a liability to the US government. Commodities do not have liabilities.”; similar to gold it is not backed by a government or a company but is significantly more volatile. Source.
While banks might have initially been slow to act when it came to embracing digital strategies they are now able...
Last week I was at the Digital Lending + Investing conference in New York. One of the most interesting sessions...
Peter Renton, Founder of Lend Academy was at the American Banker Digital Lending + Investing conference last week; Renton reflects on the discussion with the leaders of Marcus, shares the progress of the company thus far and his perspective on Goldman's venture. Source
A consortium of banks that include JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Citi trialed a distributed ledger platform that proceeded equity swaps from beginning to end; the AxCore platform by Axoni would allow for payments to process instantly and reduce potential disputes; Greg Schvey, CEO of Axoni, said in a statement reported by CoinDesk, “Equity swap data is infamously complex and difficult to manage, making it a terrific fit for distributed ledger technology.” Source.
TearSheet put together 5 interesting charts helping to provide greater explanation to certain areas of fintech; the charts include where and how banks spend on innovation, Goldman Sachs job listing, ethical concerns in using AI, mobile wallet traction and the top reasons for borrower dissatisfaction; the charts helped to reveal that Goldman is working hard to become a technology company, mobile wallet traction is quite low and interest rates by online lenders is the second biggest reason for borrower dissatisfaction. Source.