Crowdfunding platform set up to help students August 14, 2015 A FINANCIAL technology start-up is attempting to revolutionise student finance by dramatically reducing the cost of student loans. EdAid, which, pending approval by the Financial Conduct Authority, will launch in September, and is offering prospective students an alternative to government loans through a digital crowdfunding platform. Under the programme, the loans will be repaid at [...]
How businesses are using crowdfunding in their CSR strategy: The evolving relationship between platforms and corporates August 13, 2015 Crowdfunding has democratised investing and made it more efficient. But the landscape has evolved significantly. Once dominated by platforms simply enabling people to make donations to causes, debt-based crowdfunding is now by far the largest subsector, and fashionable equity gets a lot of airtime. But despite less exposure these days, the original donation-based crowdfunding is [...]
Are old-school financial services running scared of peer-to-peer? Or do they just not understand it? August 11, 2015 I was heartened recently to read the chief executive of Bibby Financial Services – what I would call an old-school financial services company – warning of a ‘bubble’ in peer-to-peer lending. As the co-founder and chief executive of one of Europe’s largest peer-to-peer lenders, I knew this warning meant one of two things; either the [...]
Annuities heavyweights Just Retirement and Partnership Assurance unveil £670m merger as pension changes bite August 11, 2015 Annuities giant Just Retirement has announced it is buying Partnership Assurance in a £670m all-share merger, after massive changes to the UK's pension regime caused sales of annuities to plummet. Shares in Just Retirement rose 1.66 per cent to 202p in early trading, while Partnership's shares jumped 8.9 per cent to 168p on the announcement [...]
Ignore the snobs: Why crowdfunding is bringing diversity back to business August 10, 2015 Venture investors on competitive deals are used to missing out to other funds. It’s part and parcel of the industry. But last month, tech-focused VCs missed out to the crowd, as the first successful exit of a crowdfunded company returned capital to investors in E-Car Club, which sold to Europcar. E-Car Club raised funding [...]
Pension reforms: Drawdown customers warned over scammers August 7, 2015 George Osborne's reforms to pensions, which mean people can withdraw their savings and buy, say, a Ferrari (or just shares in Lloyds Banking Group), was seen as a revolutionary move by most savers. But it seems scammers were also pretty pleased about it: now Citizens Advice has warned pensioners and pensioners-to-be to be on alert. [...]
What crowdfunding means for mini-bonds August 6, 2015 Harriet Green looks at the developing relationship between platforms and the increasingly popular debt instrument With attractive rates to be had, mini-bonds are proving increasingly popular with investors. Since maverick men’s toiletries firm King of Shaves issued the so-called Shaving Bond via an online platform in 2009, a growing number of SMEs have used [...]
Lloyds, GSK and Vodafone: The 10 shares pension drawdown investors are buying up August 5, 2015 Four months after pension savers were given freedoms allowing them to withdraw their savings and invest it into other areas, they have yet to spend their pension pots on those Ferraris everyone was worried about when the freedoms were first announced. Or that's according to financial adviser Hargreaves Lansdown, anyway, which has listed the top [...]
Standard Life share price falls on hit from Osborne’s pension shake-up August 4, 2015 The insurance giant's admission that it will be hit by the government's pension shake-up sent shares down three per cent to 440.7p in mid-morning trade today. The figures In results posted this morning, Standard Life said operating profit before tax rose six per cent to £290m in the six months ended 30 June, from £274m during the same period a year earlier. The [...]
Save money on your overseas transfers and payments August 2, 2015 If you use your high street bank to make payments overseas, then you may be paying more than you bargained for There are a number of reasons people need to send money overseas. Common examples include buying and selling international property, or sending money home if you are working overseas. An increasingly connected world means [...]