The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has told asset managers that they need to focus more on customer interests and stop the bad behavior; the rules come after a more than 2 year investigation into the sector; Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA, tells the FT, “Today’s announcements are an important part of a package of measures that, combined, aim to achieve a fair, transparent, open and accountable market.”; some of the new rules include hiring independent directors, profits from moving money from one fund to another will be mostly banned and they will need to switch investors to the cheapest version of their funds. Source.
UK online marketplace lender ThinCats is the latest P2P platform to receive full authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); the firm is a secured business lender and says it has a number of developments in progress including the launch of an IFISA; in comments regarding the authorization, John Mould, CEO of ThinCats, said: "We are delighted to have been granted FCA authorization, proving the dedication of our team and processes. We are very happy that more and more alternative finance providers are now being authorized, as it ultimately proves that the industry deserves the trust and confidence of investors, advisors and SME borrowers alike." Source
MoneyThing has announced its authorization from the UK Financial Conduct Authority; says it will no longer be pre-funding loans and revising its terms for new lenders; plans to seek HMRC approval for innovative finance individual savings accounts. Source
The FCA has placed Lendy under special supervision in January citing concerns about their ability to meet the standards required...
UK peer-to-peer lender FundingSecure is a pawn broker providing loans against secured assets including jewelry, property, classic cars and fine art; its representative APR for borrowers is 35.4% and it markets interest of 16% annually for investors with a minimum investment of 25 British pounds; with the FCA approval it plans to offer IFISAs in the next two months. Source
The Financial Conduct Authority's Director of Strategy and Competition Christopher Woolard has reported some concerns over fintech regulations globally; in a speech at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London, Woolard specifically discusses fintech sandboxes noting concerns about establishing them before any government regulatory standards are in place and suggesting that countries institute some guidance before introducing sandbox initiatives; the UK has been a leader in sandbox innovation and the country plans to publish a full report in May on its first sandbox initiative. Source
CEO of LendIt Fintech Bo Brustkern recently traveled to London to meet with fintechs, regulators and investors; in this post...
As of January 2017 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fully authorized ten peer-to-peer lenders, according to AltFi, while the remainder of the industry operates with interim approvals; AltFi speculates on some of the characteristics of the authorized and interim lenders; of the authorized firms, Folk2Folk is the largest with originations of approximately 100 million British pounds ($120.44 million); the UK's largest platforms including Zopa, RateSetter and Funding Circle still have not been approved; loans from these lenders are primarily unsecured; characteristics identified by AltFi as issues for the FCA include: pre-funding, collective investment, auto-investing and institutional investment. Source
In this conversation, we have a really cool conversation on fintech, crypto assets, payments and all the things around it with Ivan Soto-Wright, the CEO and Co-founder of MoonPay.
More specifically, we discuss Liability-driven Investment (LDI), the proliferation of AI in personal finance to drive sound decision-making, innovation in finance is following the same trajectory that resulted in VOIP for the telecommunication industry, the geographical maze of crypto KYC, payment networks, and crypto payment processing.
The international group of regulators called the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) has expanded to 29 countries and is inviting...