UK challenger Picnic Bank to address 'fintech for good' - FinTech Futures

Picnic Bank, a UK start-up focused on ‘fintech for good’, is set to launch its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending platform in September, before rolling out its fully licensed banking service sometime next year.

Whilst Picnic Bank lends to SMEs, earning interest on the loans, and taking referral fees from partners, it intends to build its bank in the background. But upon launch in September, it will be offering payment cards alongside its lending service until the full bank comes into play.

Once the bank is built, the start-up will look to offer three account tiers. The first will be a gamified, ‘eco-concierge’ to inspire users to live greener lifestyles. The second will be a ‘fintech for good’ toolbox, with features such as overdraft alerts – West points out that UK consumers needlessly waste £2 billion a year on overdraft fees. The third account in Picnic Bank’s suite will be focused around debt rebuilding, specifically to help those loaded with student loan debt, or debt due to losing a job.

The toolbox will also offer a guarantor to bring account holders back into the clear if they go into a negative balance. As well as Picnic Bank’s own features, the toolbox will offer services from a series of partners such as Better.com, a fintech eliminating fees from the UK mortgage process, Omnipresent, a German fintech which builds impact funds, Pynk, a social investment platform, and Fundsurfer, a crowdfunding and investment platform.

A number of other fintechs are either starting up, or are adapting their offering to the ‘fintech for good’ space. UK challenger Kestrl is set to launch later this year with an ethical banking offering which would track carbon emissions through open banking and allow users to donate through an integrated charity donation platform.

Netherlands-based challenger bank bunq, which has been around since 2015, revamped its banking app at the beginning of this month to allow users to donate to charities in the app and create their own local charities which they can invite other members to.

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UK challenger Picnic Bank to address 'fintech for good' - FinTech Futures

Picnic Bank, a UK start-up focused on 'fintech for good', is set to launch its SME lending platform in September, before its fully licensed banking service.

The Ideal Neobank: We're still a long way from the perfect digital bank | Sifted

#fintech #startupstrategy #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks

Former Lloyds Bank director Alessandro Hatami explains what he thinks digital banks need to do next and feels that the so called neobanks are not doing the right thing.

He opined that there are three things banking customers fundamentally need — and are worth disrupting to look like in ‘The Ideal Neobank’:

1. A Payment Account: Imagine a bank that allows you to seamlessly pay anyone, anywhere: be it your babysitter, your favourite retailer or a holiday home abroad.

2. A Credit Line: Instead of an overdraft, personal loan, credit card, car finance or a mortgage you get a credit line. The bank knows you and will advance cash (with guarantees if required) as you need it. You make one payment a month — like a subscription — to pay for it.

3. A Savings/Protection Tool: You have some excess capital and the bank enables you to buy any product in the market that allows you to protect and grow it. And your bank would sell you any such product in the market that meets your needs — whether or not it’s their product or a third party’s.

Many banks and fintechs claim they already offer this, but he is not sure their customers agree. These neobanks still sell financial products rather than financial solutions.

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We're still a long way from the perfect digital bank | Sifted

Over the last decade, so-called "challenger" banks like Monzo, Starling and Revolut have served as beacons of opportunity, promising a new way of banking. This has prompted their predecessors - the incumbents - to undergo several phases of digital transformation; something I watched first-hand when I was a digital exec at Lloyds Bank.

Cloud Technology for FinTech - Banking on the cloud in the face of COVID-19 and beyond

#cloudtech #cloudtechnology #postcovidworld #techonlogy #ai #artficialintelligence #saas

This conversation about use of cloud is now more important than ever, as firms adjust to new realities, including more remote workforces and more digital interactions with customers.

One example of utilising cloud-based tools to accelerate digital transformation efforts is through processing vast amounts of data to reduce development and roll out of new and innovative financial products. For Atom bank, the UK’s first mobile-only bank, success depends on having agility and scalability to develop new solutions and experiences quickly in response to customer demand, while keeping costs low. By embracing the cloud, the challenger bank has been able to move on from on-premise hosted data centres, becoming more responsive to the needs of its customers through new app features or entirely new products and also building more software-as-a-service (#SaaS) and resilient architectures for future innovation.

Similarly, Revolut turned to the cloud to scale at speed without sacrificing stability. Tapping into cloud technology has allowed the organisation to automate updates and maintenance and redesign its slow and costly backup system, whilst maintaining resilience and control over security.

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Banking on the cloud in the face of COVID-19 and beyond - FinTech Futures

Banking on the cloud in the face of COVID-19 and beyond

Credit Sesame acquires Canadian challenger STACK for international expansion

Source: FinTech Futures

Credit and loans company, Credit Sesame, has announced its acquisition of Canadian challenger bank, STACK.

The two firms had been in partnership since the 2019 design of Sesame Cash, a no-fee digital banking service “to help consumers grow their cash and credit together” which launched in March.

The move is part of an attempted international expansion. Credit Sesame’s credit services will be integrated with STACK’s digital banking offering to bring cash and credit management to Canadian consumers.

The combined firm aims to roll out several new features and resources designed to help consumers manage and grow their cash and credit faster, which the company expects will “further accelerate customer demand.” These include a smart bill pay service, savings roundup of transactions to save or pay down debt, and additional rewards programs and credit-building features.

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Credit Sesame acquires Canadian challenger Stack for international expansion - FinTech Futures

Credit and loans company Credit Sesame has announced its acquisition of Canadian challenger bank Stack.

Australia's Judo Bank closes on $147 mn Series C round of funding for SME loans

Judo Bank, an Australian neobank that provides loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $147 million in a Series C round of funding.

The raise comes just 10 months after the Melbourne-based startup raised a $261.6 million Series B that was considered to be “the largest private investment” in a local startup, according to AVCJ. It also comes weeks after Judo Bank secured $500 million in government funding for its SMB loans.

With this latest financing, Judo Bank has raised a total of about $500 million in equity, according to Crunchbase data, in addition to a known $450 million in debt. The Series C made Judo Bank a #unicorn in Australian dollars with a valuation north of $1 billion in local currency, or $653.7 million in U.S. dollars. Existing backers participated in the round, including Bain Capital Credit and Ironbridge Capital.

Founded in 2017, Judo Bank got its license to take deposits last year. The bank now has more than $1.5 billion in deposits and has written more than $1.5 billion in loans, with around 10,000 customers across both loans and deposits, according to startupdaily.net.

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Australia's Judo Bank Closes On $147M Series C For SME Loans

Judo Bank, an Australian neobank that provides loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $147 million in a Series C round of funding. The raise comes just 10 months after the Melbourne-based startup raised a $261.6 million Series B that was considered to be "the largest private investment" in a local startup, according to AVCJ.

Credit focused fintech startup Upgrade raises $40 mn after reaching $100 mn run rate

Upgrade, Inc., a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation. The company is a fintech startup with a credit-focus today, though it intends to add more neobank-like tooling in Q3.

Key takeaways:-

1. Upgrade, Inc. has a different philosophy than some credit card providers, in the view of its founder and CEO, Renaud Laplanche. “Banks have an incentive to keep customers in debt as long as possible,” he said during an interview with TechCrunch. Upgrade, Inc., in contrast, offers lower rates — cards starting at 6.9%, under what the CEO described as a market-normal entry rate of 12% to 13% — and set repayment periods for debts so that customers don’t wind up in a credit cycle that never ends, sapping them of financial health.

2. One constant in the fintech world is the offering of more services to existing customers, helping drive up their lifetime value (LTV) and thus making their cost to acquire (CAC) more palatable.

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Credit-focused fintech startup Upgrade raises $40M after reaching $100M run rate

This morning Upgrade, a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation. The Upgrade round slots neatly into a few trends TechCrunch has noted in recent quarters, including fintech startups raising at ne...

RBC Backed startup Mydoh launches banking offering for kids

Launched more than two weeks ago in Canada, the initial offering of Mydoh lets parents sign up and invite their kids who get a virtual smart card which can be pushed to a digital wallet such as Apple Pay.

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RBC-backed start-up Mydoh launches banking offering for kids - FinTech Futures

Mydoh, a start-up wholly owned by Canada's largest bank RBC, has launched a banking offering for kids aged 8-18.

Monzo co-founder joins new challenger bank GBB as non-exec Chairman

GBB, one of the UK’s latest aspiring challenger banks, has landed Monzo Bank’s co-founder Paul Rippon as its non-executive chair, the Telegraph reports.

GBB has already raised more than £10 million from investors – most of which are from the North, as the start-up is based in Newcastle. The fintech aims to land its banking licence before the end of this year.

Key takeaway:-

Upon launch it says GBB will offer secured property development loans of between £1 million and £5 million, with 90% of lending supporting regional property developers, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and construction companies.

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Monzo co-founder joins new UK challenger bank GBB as non-exec chair - FinTech Futures

GBB, one of the UK's latest aspiring challenger banks, has landed Monzo's co-founder Paul Rippon as its non-executive chair.