Personal Capital is a free app that allows individuals to track their financial life by connecting accounts including bank accounts, credit cards and investment accounts; the app is now tracking $4.9 billion and according to their CEO, Jay Shah, their customer base is increasingly affluent; the company upsells their app users on financial advice and is providing a dedicated financial advisor if users have over $200,000 of investable assets; Shah answers several questions in an interview with Business Insider including their pitch to users, who their paying users are, why he thinks users will pay for the service and where the company is headed. Source
iPayment, Inc. has created a new business unit, iPayment Capital, to offer merchant cash advances; the new business unit will utilize the firm's 137,000 SMB customers for merchant cash advance lending; the service will add to payment processing and point of sale services currently offered by iPayment, Inc. Source
In an interview with CNBC last week, former PayPal COO and serial entrepreneur David Sacks talks about how cryptocurrencies are fulfilling the original PayPal vision; he explains: "A payment is just a credit to one account and a debit to another. That's a database entry. We believed that, if we could get enough people to participate, money would never need to leave the system. PayPal could become the database of money."; he talks about blockchain technology helping to build web 3.0 and a new wave of innovation; the interview also touched on how the current environment shows some of the same signs of the dot com era, the two ways digital assets are a threat to traditional venture capital and some of the biggest challenges that lie ahead. Source
DocuSign will now be a federal technology provider as it was certified by the Federal and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP); the company is the first and only e-signature company authorized for use; the FCC will be the first to use DocuSign for procurement and human resources; DocuSign has previously worked with local government agencies. Source
Orchard reports on the diversity of business lending, breaking lending down by industry and state using data from Orchard; reports that they have the most data on retail trade followed by health care and social assistance, and construction; shares the concentration of lending of several industries by state. Source
Amber Baldet was ranked 31 and is working with the JPMorgan team to develop blockchain solution Quorum; others in fintech include Vitalik Buterin the creator of ethereum, Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, and Ernie Garcia, Ryan Keeton and Ben Huston from Carvana. Source
An article from Bloomberg highlights bank investments in fintech companies; the article cites a report from Opimas noting that both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are investing in companies that aim to disrupt banking; Goldman Sachs has invested in 15 fintech companies focusing on capital markets; JP Morgan Chase has invested in nine; the report states that banks and other companies will invest $1.7 billion in approximately 44 deals this year; this comes at a time when venture capitalists are shying away from the market. Source
Bank of America has struck a partnership with Samsung to start a pilot program that will allow Bank of America customers to login using a picture of their eye; the program will start with a group of 1,500 Samsung and Bank of America employees who will test the authentication for six months; according to a past report by American Banker, about half of Bank of America customers login to the mobile app using their fingerprint and the other half login with a username and password; according to Finovate, Samsung debuted this iris scanning technology at their Unpacked event in March and they claim it to be more secure than fingerprint scans. Source
Coming up with a 20% down payment on a home can be quite a challenge, San Francisco based Unison is looking to offer help to these prospective buyers; a Unison deal typically involves the homebuyer putting down 10%, Unison putting down 10% and the remaining 80% would be borrowed; Unison charges a 2.5% fee and shares in 35% of future appreciation or depreciation; this allows for the homebuyers to keep payments lower and save on private mortgage insurance (PMI), which is required if the loan to value exceeds 80%; "We are partnering with the homeowners by investing alongside them in the house," Unison Co-CEO Jim Riccitelli told the San Francisco Chronicle; the Unison offering looks to replace local bay area assistance programs offered to lower income household and first time buyers. Source
Gellman is the firm's first chief marketing officer; he joins the firm from Esurance and also has experience at Wells Fargo; Credible is a personal finance marketplace that provides offers for student loans and personal loans; in July it also announced a credit card marketplace; Gellman will help the platform expand its business and continue to focus on supporting its customers. Source