Acorns has partnered with personal financial management app Clarity Money; Acorns now has two million investment accounts with users investing spare change into customized investments; Clarity Money launched in 2016 and is an app for personal finance advice and expense and savings management; users of both platforms benefit from the partnership with Clarity Money customers able to use Acorns' automated investing features and Acorns' investors able to sync their Acorns investment account to their Clarity Money dashboard. Source
One of China’s leading online wealth management companies Lufax is looking to go public in Hong Kong at a $60bn valuation; the South China Morning Post reports the company intends to file their application by the end of January; Lufax was last valued at $18bn in 2016, they have more than 33 million users and over $75bn in assets under management. Source.
Personal financial management (PFM) apps have had a bad few months with Prosper shutting down Prosper Daily and Capital One closing Level Money; but banks in general are still looking for ways to provide customers with their financial health; a research report by Celent in July points out that while apps are closing, banks are beginning to integrate some of the features from PFM apps; instead of sending customers to a third party app they offer the features within their own app or website as part of the everyday customer experience; Cesar Richardson, vice president for Strands America, tells American Banker: "There's no separate path. It's inside your day-to-day banking." Source
According to Reuters Goldman Sachs is acquiring the boutique wealth management firm, Folio Financial, for an undisclosed amount; Goldman Sachs...
Lending Club and Prosper allow for tax efficient investing on their platforms through an IRA; Lend Academy provides details on opening an IRA with Lending Club or Prosper and explains why investing in P2P lending is best done through an IRA. Source
Lend Academy provides a resource for new investors in Lending Club and Prosper; their article includes five basic principles for investing in the platforms; the five key elements for investing include: 1) diversify investments 2) expect defaults 3) keep cash balances low 4) automate investing and 5) avoid taxes by investing through an IRA. Source
Goji is marketing a P2P lending bond product, the Goji Diversified P2P Lending Bond, which is targeting annual returns of greater than 5%; the firm is based in London and offers a range of services for the P2P lending industry including tools and resources for investors and financial intermediaries, an investing platform, IFISA account servicing technology for platforms and now a new P2P lending bond; the Bond will invest in a minimum of 200 loans across all options available in the UK P2P lending sector. Source
A new report from Numis entitled The State of AI in 2017 explains the potential AI and machine learning for wealth managers; as AltFi reports, “AI enables asset managers to deliver to the mass affluent a degree of personalisation and service quality previously reserved for high net worth clients.”; the technology can also help to improve quality, decrease cost and help to make most of the asset management industry into robo advisors. Source.
Income& has developed a new real estate investment product, the Prime-Rated Individual Mortgage-Backed Obligation (PRIMO) and is one of LendIt's finalists for the 2017 Emerging Real Estate Platform award; the product allows investors to invest in secured mortgage loans and targets yields of 6% or more; it is open for investment to accredited investors and investment advisers and the firm also has plans to offer the product to all investors. Source
Building on the success of the LendingRobot Series Fund announced in January 2017, LendingRobot has launched LendingRobot Professional; the product has new advisor-focused features and functionality and can be optimized by advisors for multiple clients; it has an advisor minimum of $250,000. Source