The UK based digital banking firm 11:FS has hired fintech expert Sam Maule to help head up their expansion into North America; "Having made a great impact in the first 15 months of 11:FS' life, we now feel we can have a similar impact with Sam at the helm in North America and Canada, helping organizations really understand what digital transformation within their banks and insurers truly means," CEO David Brear explained; 11:FS is also looking to open a New York office and named entrepreneur and investor Lisa Gansky as non-executive director. Source
P2P ratings and research firm 4thWay has released a list of the UK's top P2P lenders by loan originations; Zopa, FundingCircle and RateSetter lead the market with originations nearing 2 billion British pounds ($2.46 billion); UK property lender Wellesley, which has reportedly been struggling for capital, tops the list with 366.5 million British pounds ($451.48 million) in loan originations. Source
Multi-lending platform Alternative Business Funding (ABF) will become the fourth alternative finance business to be involved in the UK's bank referral scheme; the bank referral scheme began in November 2016 and has been reporting success with over 8,000 SMEs being referred to alternative funding sources; the other three businesses in the referral scheme network include Funding Options, Funding Xchange and Bizfitech. Source
Crowdfunding platform, Abundance, has launched the UK's first innovative finance individual savings accounts (IFISAs) for investors in crowd bonds; the investment offering follows an announcement from the UK Treasury that it will extend qualified investments in UK IFISAs to crowd bonds; platform offers bond investments from renewable energy companies; the company is able to offer the IFISAs because of its status as an investment-based crowdfunding platform. Source
Artificial intelligence firm Cleo has raised 550,000 British pounds ($626,300) from angel investors; investors included Niklas Zennström, Jason Goodman, Alex Chesterman, Siraj Khaliq, Errol Damelin, Simon Franks, Wendy White and Joe White; Cleo is an AI-powered service working in connection with AI robots like Amazon Alexa to offer consumers personal finance advice; firm plans to use the new capital to further develop its technology and increase its user base of clients which are primarily in the UK. Source
The UK marketplace lending industry is likely to see several factors causing change in 2017; the Financial Conduct Authority has reported several concerns which may increase regulatory pressure; demand for loans and capital investment are also slowing; larger platforms will have a greater advantage while the smaller platforms may see greater challenges; competition and partnerships among traditional financial service providers and fintech companies will also continue to be significant for the market overall. Source
Innovate Finance is planning to move from Canary Wharf to a new location in the Square Mile; the industry body also plans to provide space for startups; Mark Boleat, the City of London's policy chairman, also noted they plan to bring broader and faster wireless coverage in order to attract small businesses stating that the Square Mile was a "natural place for fintech to coalesce." Source
The UK online lender was launched with a focus on secured aviation lending and has expanded to other types of transactions including secured capital equipment and property lending; it says the authorization will help it to expand and further concentrate efforts on its technological development; the firm has reported an 850% increase in loan volume in the last year; the firm has plans to launch in Australia and also expand to other regions. Source
The LIM Asia Special Situations Master Fund has increased its ownership in the Ranger Direct Lending Fund to 9.2% from 5.48% reported in July; the Ranger Direct Lending Fund is primarily focused on high yield direct lending platforms; it has recently been troubled by its exposure to losses from marketplace lending platform Argon Credit which it invested in indirectly through the Princeton Alternatives Fund. Source
In our latest guest post Jorrit van Rijswijk of Dynamic Credit digs into all of the European SME support programs...