A WeBank employee wrote a post in WeChat Moment, announcing that the loan amount of Weilidai (WeBank's micro loan product) is over RMB100 billion ($14.92 billion); Weilidai's loan amount has increased almost 300% over the past seven months; according to its financial results, WeBank lost RMB583 million ($86.97 million) in the first year (2015); but in 2016, it made a profit of RMB401 million ($59.82 million); in the first four months of 2017, WeBank made a profit of RMB500 million ($74.59 million); in terms of product, WeBank has launched an enterprise-grade product, "Weiyedai"; Weiyedai provides unsecured loans of up to RMB3 million ($447,507) to enterprises, with annual percentage rates ranging from 10.95% to 16.43%. Source (Chinese)
Marketplace lender, Bitbond, has been an industry leader, providing the first global P2P lending platform for small businesses and now known as the world's first P2P lender allowing transactions with digital currency; Radoslav Albrecht, Bitbond's founder, sees digital currency, and specifically Bitcoin, as an opportunity to expand lending availability to borrowers and help returns for investors; Bitbond is able to offer digital currency transactions through its licensing from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority which took three years and required in-depth investigation of the company's operations including their know your customer and anti-money laundering procedures. Source
Diagram has raised $25 million (USD$19.13 million) for a new fintech venture capital fund that will be led by Paul Desmarais III; Paul Desmarais is part of Quebec's Desmarais family which has built a $7 billion (USD$5.36 billion) fortune through investment in the insurance business; the new fund's initial fundraising effort has come from Portag3 Ventures LP and over 50 individual angel investors; the fund will invest in a variety of Canadian fintech companies. Source
Funding Circle has announced a new equity investment of $100 million; the funding round was led by Accel and included existing investors Baillie Gifford, DST Global, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Rocket Internet, Sands Capital Ventures, Temasek and Union Square Ventures; the funding brings the firm's total capital raised to $373 million and makes it the largest and best capitalized SME lending platform in the world. Source
Starling Bank is launching a business account focused on entrepreneurs, sole-traders and small business owners; the account is free to set up and will like to a number of features including payments and their Marketplace product for accounting based services. Source.
Understanding the millennial customer is a key for most lenders in the market today and Stephen Dash of Credible explains how his firm handles this challenge during his fireside chat at LendIt USA 2017 with Dakin Campbell of Bloomberg; identifying who the millennial is and how they consume information will help you to tailor your products to this group; 25% of consumers today fall into the millennial category and Credible believes a strong, focused product set will help them to service this generation efficiently; before looking to sell other types of services you must first build a relationship with them, trust can be eroded in an instant; ensuring a compelling value proposition is the key and fully understanding what the customer needs will help you to hold that customer over the lifetime; ultimately customers are co-owned and you can help to make sure your relationship lasts by showing a loyal and durable product set. Source
In an opinion article, one investor shares emails that have been leaked at Chinese marketplace lender Yirendai (NYSE: YRD); leaked emails show the company's chairman requiring parent company employees at CreditEase to invest in a fund to purchase undisclosed US equities; the author states the fund is likely purchasing shares of YRD and presents his case for shorting the stock; the stock recently saw volatility following China's new regulatory guidance for P2P lenders. Source
Automated mortgage transaction technology firm Roostify has announced Frank Gelbart as its new chief revenue officer; Frank Gelbart has over 20 years of experience with technology companies and was previously president, CEO and co-founder of Appfluent Technology; Roostify is a fast growing startup and is currently partnering with JPMorgan for mortgage lending technology innovation. Source
Google Play has created a guide for developers focused on fintech financial health apps; the guide was created in partnership with the Center for Financial Services Innovation and specifically its Financial Solutions Lab; the guide provides best practices for developing financial health focused apps for Android and distributing them through Google Play; Google Play is also featuring a page with financial health apps. Source
National Public Radio has surveyed research on the impact of micro-lending to entrepreneurs around the world; in a number of well-controlled studies, the finding was that the loans were used to expand businesses, but the expansions were modest even by local measures and in none of the studies did the average borrower end up significantly increasing their income; micro-loans did have other benefits such as debt consolidation; one MIT economist, Abhijit Banerjee, found that straight cash grants to global entrepreneurs with low incomes did have a significant effect on long-term income generation, and hypothesized that the strict repayment structure of microfinance might be limiting its potential; the average microloan size is $200 in South Asia and $3,000 in Eastern Europe. Source