The alternative-finance sector is not a vanity project. Companies such as Lending Club grew out of the failure of mainstream finance to provide credit to small businesses in the wake of the credit crunch of 2008. The Fintech Times reports on the ongoing attempts by mainstream and alternative sectors alike to meet the needs of […]
Some major financial institutions (Coutts Bank, for example) have indicated they will not apply negative interest rates, should the Bank of England go that way, to deposit accounts. Others are not so clear What would the fallout be – especially for the alternative finance sector and its players? The Fintech Times looks at the potential […]
As the UK heads towards the European Union exit door, a number of government initiatives to facilitate trade appear. Without a high-level trade deal – the one that was supposed to be “oven-ready” would be just fine – one wonders how useful these initiatives will prove to be. The Fintech Times reports the latest: Department […]
On top of Covid issues, there are genuinely man-made threats to our financial environment – as investors in LCF bonds, as lenders who lost money in the collapse of the Lendy direct lending platform will doubtless agree. The FinTech Times looks at another major man-made problem, and the outlook for regulation in the wake of […]
The Fintech Times runs an opinion piece on the future of challenger banking. We run an excerpt from the piece below. Regular readers will know that our own view is that more and more “alternative” lenders and lending platforms will either acquire banking licences or be acquired by banks. This is one of the more […]
The surveillance society has well and truly arrived. Discounting the UK government’s embarrassing attempts to find traction for its track-and-trace app, the evidence is that our future is to be watched and identified by what we do, whether we like it or not. Witness this piece in the trade press: “Behavioural biometrics” – the way […]
Our friends at the Fintech Times report on the evolving reaction to some very hastily, albeit well-intentioned, attempts to throw money at Britain’s stricken business sector, with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in most need. Regular readers of this News section will know that our concern is that money, unlike mud, does not stick if […]
The FinTech Times comes up with what must be, even on a Monda, winner of the dodgy metaphor of the week award. It runs an article on challenger banks, seen by the writer as the eternal “mistresses” of finance. There’s useful information here, nevertheless. We run an excerpt below, with the full article available here. […]
The FinTech Times runs a piece comparing US and UK FinTech stimulus packages. The big question, in both cases, is execution – whether the sector can distribute the government credit. We run an excerpt from the piece below. The fintech industry on both sides of the Atlantic has been presented with a huge opportunity and […]