IBM Watson will be further expanding in financial services by partnering with H&R Block's 70,000 tax professionals at 10,000 locations; Watson has learned 74,000 pages of tax code through its natural language processing capability and will be able to help tax professionals at H&R Block's branches; the new services have been tested at 100 locations and will begin being used in February; overall, IBM plans to market Watson as a business service solution with its capabilities offered to consumers through innovative business partnerships. Source
dv01 and Experian have announced a data partnership that will increase transparency for institutional investors; the collaboration will bring new data to dv01's platform allowing for broader risk analysis of marketplace loans and bonds; dv01's clients include leading hedge funds, banks and asset managers; the data enhancement will specifically provide for better analysis of origination trends, loan performance and borrower attributes. Source
A recent report by Startupbootcamp and PwC points out that startup trends in 2016 moved towards artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning companies compared to blockchain; the data shows that 16% of applications to Startupbootcamp are from artificial intelligence and machine learning companies, whereas blockchain applications account for only 6%; blockchain was certainly a bigger buzzword in 2016 but one reason that AI and machine learning has more startups is because companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon have made significant investments in the technology; additionally, the report points out that as blockchain becomes more industrialized more startups will use the technology instead of being a blockchain startup. Source
The Royal Bank of Scotland's NatWest Brand has announced the launch of direct lending platform Esme; the platform will offer loans up to £150,000 ($187,257) for small and medium-sized businesses with approvals in one hour; NatWest developed the Esme platform internally through an innovation lab; the platform was developed to provide a more competitive loan offering and will also support initiatives for cost reduction. Source
One of the top three P2P platforms in the UK loses their new chief risk officer only six months after he was initially hired; Cyrille Salle de Chou, who initially came from Lloyd's Banking Group, is now headed to HSBC to be the chief risk officer of their European retail business; Salle de Chou told the Financial Times: "[It is] a great opportunity I could not refuse. Not a sign of concerns re RateSetter. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at RateSetter." Source
Innovative Finance Individual Savings Accounts or IFISAs has the potential to see millions pour into UK P2P lenders from retail investors; Samir Desai, CEO of Funding Circle, tells the FT, “We have done lots of surveys and a huge proportion of the base told us they would like to put all of the money they invest with us through the ISA.”; the IFISAs were approved in April 2016 but the big P2P lenders in the UK have just started to offer them. Source.
The Hyperledger Project, a fast growing open blockchain initiative, has added eight new members; the newest members are CA Technologies, Factom Foundation, Hashed Health, Koscom, LedgerDomain, Lykke, Sovrin Foundation and Swisscom; the Hyperledger Project now has over 100 members; Hyperledger is hosted by the Linux Foundation and seeks to create standards for distributed ledger technology. Source
Biz2Credit has announced a new partnership with Tradeshift for expanded small business access to capital; Tradeshift is a cloud-based business procurement network supporting over 800,000 businesses; companies that use Tradeshift will gain access to the Biz2Credit platform for financing options; Biz2Credit says the partnership will help Tradeshift's clients secure financing more quickly and easily. Source
Stockholm, Sweden has announced it will be opening a fintech hub; leading developers of the Stockholm Fintech Hub include Matthew Argent of BLC Advisors, KPMG, NFT Ventures and Invest Stockholm; the Stockholm Fintech Hub is currently seeking partners and will be led by a steering committee including the Fintech Hub's developers; motivation from the developers for a fintech hub was driven by an ecosystem of fintech startups and high growth companies in the country; according to lead developer, Matthew Argent, the Stockholm Fintech Hub will seek to maintain standards and evolve the support ecosystem that provides resources for fintech companies. Source
PPDAI plans for an IPO this month and co-founder Shaofeng Gu owns more than 25% of the business; Ning Tang of Yirendai, a US listed public company, owns 36% of the company; This year three Chinese fintech companies have gone public, raising $2.45 billion; Bloomberg provides data on the rise of the wealthiest billionaires in China. Source