Time again for one of the technology highlights of the year – Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report. While Mary covers tons of technology trends in her report, I will summarize the fintech-relevant portions here.  She did make it easier on us this year, as the slide count has shrunk from 355 pages in 2017 to… Read More

GreenSky Files for Largest US Fintech IPO in 3+ Years Atlanta-based GreenSky, which likely became the most valuable fintech company earlier this year when it raised $200 million from PIMCO at a $4.5B valuation*, has filed for an IPO. GreenSky provides a point-of-sale lending platform for merchants in the home improvement, furniture, and elective medical… Read More

Over the past three weeks, I have talked about how the Senate may eliminate FICO’s monopoly on government-backed mortgages, as well as the some of the problems with the current credit scoring industry and methodology. All past issues are available here. The “legacy” model for determining financial responsibility/credit worthiness is very easy for consumers, though… Read More

In part 1, I talked about how the Senate Banking Bill will break up the FICO monopoly over the government mortgage market. Part 2 discussed the size of the credit scoring/financial monitoring market, and the perverse incentives of the credit scoring models. Today, I’ll start to lay out the broader landscape for financial data collection,… Read More

Last week I talked about how Section 310 of the Senate banking bill could introduce more competition into the credit rating industry by opening up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy loans underwritten with credit scores other than FICO. Currently, FICO has a monopoly on the two GSEs, but if this bill becomes law… Read More

The Senate Banking Bill may open up a new market for fintech startups providing financial credit worthiness data. By dismantling a regulatory monopoly that FICO holds, new and better models may be developed and used to serve customers better. Legislative History (or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Senate) But first, a… Read More

Given my ongoing coverage of Goldman Sachs’ foray into fintech, I had to include the below brilliant coverage of the seemingly-soon departure of CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Journalism at its finest… First National Bank of Amazon Amazon has been making headlines again, as speculation continues around Amazon’s interest in “becoming a bank.” The furor reached a… Read More

Last week I shared with you the challenges fintech companies have had in helping consumers change their behavior. Colorful graphs and charts in a budgeting app don’t do much to help consumers be proactive in managing their finances – they just report data after the fact. However, I did find one startup that is doing… Read More

They never saw it coming. While the banking industry was worried about LendingClub and OnDeck, a much bigger threat was waiting in the wings. This was not some well-funded start-up bent on destroying the banking industry. It was an established incumbent embarking on a new path – from serving the complex needs ultra-high net worth… Read More

Happy Last Friday of 2017! While many publications are spending time right now offering predictions for the coming year, I thought it would be interesting to revisit some predictions for 2017 and see how things turned out. After all, why listen to anything that the “experts” predict if they aren’t consistently correct on items even… Read More