Last week, Elon Musk unveiled the second part of his Master Plan for Tesla (part one here). He is often considered to be a visionary due to his ability to create and execute a long-term (10 years +) vision, whether it is PayPal, SpaceX, SolarCity, or Tesla. Part two of his plan (including pickup trucks,… Read More

Happy Friday! Europe continues to pull ahead of the US in terms of progressive banking regulations. In the past week, two new digital banks have been awarded banking licenses. Starling Bank received its UK banking license and will launch in January 2017. It has taken 18 months for the bank to complete the licensing process,… Read More

The full-scale “destruction of banking” narrative is getting weary. Disruption is happening, but the hype of 2015 has cooled. This is not an invalidation of the importance of fintech companies, but merely a resetting of expectations to more sustainable business models. Take SoFi, for example. SoFi has been one of the most aggressive fintech startups… Read More

a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen is well-known for his saying that software is eating the world. To illustrate his point that software and technology are changing industries rapidly, he provides common examples: Amazon > Borders, Netflix > Blockbuster, etc. The entire nature of the retail and media industries have changed over the last 15 years thanks… Read More

This week is a deep-dive into Citi’s fintech efforts. After losing the banking innovation headline war over the last few years, the big banks have been stepping up their game. Here is how one mega-bank is fighting back… Fortune recently published a feature with a great inside look into Citi FinTech, the team inside of Citi’s… Read More

Midland v Madden: Marketplace lenders continue to follow the Midland case, which questions “Whether the National Bank Act, which preempts state usury laws regulating the interest a national bank may charge on a loan, continues to have preemptive effect after the national bank has sold or otherwise assigned the loan to another entity”.   As a… Read More

Mary Meeker released her Internet Trends 2016 report this week. As always, it is packed with tons of data and insights. While there are many applications to financial services buried in the pages, my biggest takeaways are below. You can also watch Mary present her report at Code Conference 2016. No other news this week – at least for… Read More

LendingClub: An update on the continuing saga of LendingClub. While there have been multiple reports of investors pausing loan purchase and the tanking share price, a Singapore investment group stepped in and bought a nearly 12% stake in the company, with call options for another 6%. The share price has since been stable in the $4 range… Read More

As we approach summer, temperatures and controversy are heating up in the fintech world. This week has been exceptional in the amount of breaking news – starting with the resignation/termination of LendingClub’s CEO on Monday.   I won’t repeat in detail the many articles you have probably already read. The two main parts of the… Read More