Bringing home the bacon: Three ways you can use alternative finance to invest in property August 18, 2016 Property crowdfunding and marketplace lending aren’t for everyone. The former can involve high fees, and you won’t know what your investment is worth without selling it – which can be hard if you’re buying a stake alongside numerous other people. There are risks even with the latter. The property market is very sensitive to the [...]
Show me the money: How to complete a fundraising round in a post-Brexit vote world August 17, 2016 In this post Brexit vote world, we’ve heard a lot about the forthcoming apocalypse but, thus far, the sky hasn’t fallen on our economic heads. Sure, sterling has taken a pounding against the mighty dollar (less so against the rather feeble euro) but it seems tourism may have surged as a result, Arm is under offer (though [...]
Fintech is thriving in Edinburgh too – and it’s great news for the whole of the UK August 15, 2016 One of the good things about the Rio Olympics, quite aside from the sport, is the fact that it reminds us of four years ago when we hosted the Games. It was a month of celebration and positivity for the whole UK, not just London, and it showcased the best that Britain has to offer. [...]
New fintech strategy group will help Scotland capitalise on sector growth August 14, 2016 | City Talk A new national fintech strategy group has been launched by Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE) in Edinburgh, to help Scotland capitalise on the growth within the sector. The SFE Fintech Strategy Group has brought together over 30 leading figures from the world of fintech in Scotland and met for the first time this May in Scotland's [...]
How Edinburgh is driving the fintech revolution August 14, 2016 | City Talk According to recent figures published by Innovate Finance, global investment in fintech has rocketed from $930m in 2008 to $12.5bn in 2015, with recognised tech clusters such as Edinburgh supporting London’s global dominance. Fintech is, to coin a phrase, white hot right now. It’s not only empowering new start-ups with the ability to launch disruptive [...]
Lending Club second quarter earnings reveal further financial hurt August 9, 2016 Being the first company to tap into a new market often is hugely advantageous. For Lending Club this has been anything but the case as second quarter results released overnight indicate. The peer-to-peer lender widened its losses from $4m (£3m) to $81m, its loss per share was nine cents – worse than analysts expected – and Carrie Dolan, [...]
Banking bazooka? CMA report great for fintech, costly for banks August 9, 2016 The competition watchdog has today handed fintech startups a bazooka for their mission of disrupting banks, with new rules for making data more open to improve customer choice. The so-called big four – HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland – and other smaller high street banks will have to work together to create standards for sharing [...]
Fintech founders choose their favourite business books August 8, 2016 Stuck for what to read this summer and want to use the time improving your business acumen? City A.M. has asked five of London’s leading fintech founders what they’d recommend. Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder of GoCardless, the online direct debit provider Five dysfunctions of teams, by Patrick Lencioni I love books that introduce me to [...]
Nine up-and-coming fintech startups to watch (and Lloyds thinks so too) August 2, 2016 A handful of startups from around the world are hoping to disrupt the big banks with new innovations after being chosen as ones to watch in the world of fintech by one of London's top accelerators and top global businesses. Startupbootcamp's fintech programme, backed by the likes of Lloyds and PwC, have chosen nine new up-and-coming early stage fintech [...]
Thomson Reuters is the latest to join this major blockchain consortium August 2, 2016 Thomson Reuters is the latest financial institution to join one of the major consortiums working on blockchain technology, joining several of the world's biggest banks. The global firm is joining R3, the group which is spearheading efforts to standardise blockchain technology and now counts more than 40 members, including Barclays, HSBC and Goldman Sachs. Read more: The UK [...]