MortgageGym receives £500K investment from Henry Ritchotte
MortgageGym, a UK-based regulated mortgage robo-adviser, received a personal investment of £500k from Henry Ritchotte. Ritchotte, former Chief Operating Officer and member of the management board of Deutsche Bank AG, was also appointed as an adviser. He has over 24 years’ experience in the investment banking and financial services industries. Since leaving Deutsche earlier this year, Ritchotte has been making early stage investments in financial services firms with a focus on disruptive regulatory- and technology-driven business models. He previously held the role of ‘Head of Digital Bank’ at Deutsche. Ritchotte previously worked as Deutsche’s Chief Digital Officer on projects to digitalise banking services. Other roles at Deutsche included Chief Operating […]
LandlordInvest raises seed funding from Alan Gabbay, Director of O&H Properties
LandlordInvest, one of the first fully FCA authorised peer-to-peer lending platforms for residential mortgages, raises seed funding from Alan Gabbay, Director of O&H Properties, a London based privately owned property investment firm with assets valued at approximately £1 billion. LandlordInvest was launched at end of 2016 by founders Filip Karadaghi, Nikolajs Smirnovs and Joe Vallender and became the first peer-to-peer lending platform to offer a residential property-backed Innovative Finance ISA (“IFISA”) to UK savers, targeting tax-free returns of up to 12% per annum. The company’s achievements were recently highlighted by the industry as LandlordInvest was shortlisted as the “Crowdfunding Platform of the Year” at the PropertyWire Awards, holding off competition […]
One of the world’s fastest growing fintech platforms started as a side project — now it’s coming to the UK
A German fintech business backed by Silicon Valley VC Peter Thiel is planning to launch its investment platform in the UK. Max von Bismarck, Chief Business Officer and Managing Director of Deposit Solutions, told Business Insider at the Money2020 conference in Copenhagen this week that the company plans to launch its Zinspilot platform in Britain later this year. The Hamburg-based startup, founded in 2011, currently has one person based in London and is looking to scale-up UK operations. Von Bismarck said Zinspilot will also likely be re-branded for the British market. Zinspilot is a platform that lets people invest in savings products from a variety of banks across Europe using […]
Investors are preparing to give fintech app Revolut £50 million even though it’s bleeding money
Fast-growing fintech app Revolut is close to sealing a £50 million funding round that will value the nascent company at £300 million, Sky News reports. London VC Index Ventures, already an investor in Revolut, is leading the round, Sky says. Silicon Valley investor Ribbit Capital is also said to be taking part in the round. CEO and founder Nikolay Storonsky told TechCrunch earlier this month that the company was close to “large equity round.” London-based Revolut offers a pre-paid international currency card, initially offering zero-fee, zero-commission foreign exchange. Cash is pre-loaded to the card through an app. The big round and chunky valuation are eye-catching for a number of reasons. […]
InvestCloud to launch London FinTech incubator
InvestCloud Inc., a global FinTech firm, is set to launch a financial technology incubator and accelerator at its European headquarters in Soho, London. InvestCloud Innovation Center London will offer both new startups and established financial firms the ability to quickly deliver digital wealth management solutions supported by the InvestCloud platform. Deputy Mayor of London for Business, Rajesh Agrawal, has praised the move by InvestCloud to establish its latest financial technology incubator in London. The Mayor’s business chief spoke at Innovate to the future – a view from London, an event jointly hosted by the British-American Business Council Los Angeles and InvestCloud on Friday, June 23 in InvestCloud’s Los Angeles Innovation […]
IRTA International RegTech Association officially launched
Incorporated in Switzerland on May 16, 2017, the non-profit International RegTech Association (IRTA) is a united community of individuals and organizations, with a shared vision to innovate, advance, and influence the future of Regulatory Technology (RegTech). Sponsored and funded by its Members, the IRTA exists to ease and accelerate the evolution of the global RegTech ecosystem, through integration, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. The IRTA brings together the people, tools, processes, and policies that are required to thrive in today’s rapidly evolving RegTech landscape. The IRTA is a unique, global organization of people, which believes in creating RegTech as a profession, and enabling Innovation-in Trust as a key benefactor for the future […]
Britain leading the way in fintech adoption, report shows
Britain is leading the way in fintech adoption in the developed market, according to a new report from professional services and Big Four firm EY. EY’s fintech adoption index showed that 42 per cent of consumers in the UK are now using fintech services. However, there has been growth worldwide when it comes to the adoption of financial technology, with usage rates being high in emerging markets such as South Africa, China, India, Brazil and Mexico. Highest Emerging markets topped the fintech adoption index, with China having the highest adoption rate at 69 per cent, followed by India at 52 per cent. The report, which was based on findings from […]
Bitcoin price crosses $3,000 milestone to set new all-time high
The price of bitcoin topped $3,000 for the first time in history today, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). After spending much of the last week seeking direction in the $2,700 to $2,900-range, the average price of bitcoin across major international exchanges edged up over this threshold finally at roughly 17:00 UTC. The new record comes at a time when alternative digital assets are seeing robust inflows, with ethereum’s ether token setting a new all-time high of more than $300 today as well. Indeed, analysts spoke to the ongoing broadening of the cryptocurrency market as a tide that is benefitting bitcoin. “The inflows into ‘alts’ are greater than […]
