Rojin Nair, Advisor
June 1st, 2021
At Incyub8 Inc, Rojin is focusing on nurturing and guiding various national and international start-[...]
Category Archives: Marketplace Lending/P2P, Online Lending
UK Revenue-based Lender, Outfund, raises £115m Series A
London Loves Business | Apr 27, 2022
Outfund are changing the way online businesses raise funds, today announces the close of a £115M Series A round of equity capital and debt amount. The funding round was led by Force Over Mass, PostFinance, 1818 Venture Capital and Tribe Capital, and will support Outfund’s rapid global growth as it provides a faster, fairer and more affordable way for SMEs to raise growth capital across the globe. With this new investment, Outfund is pledging to invest more than £500m of lending to over 5,000 businesses in the next 12 months, and will increase its lending limit to £10m per company.
See: Corl raises $20 Million USD to expand Revenue-Based Financing in North America
Outfund can deploy between £10,000 and £10million of funding, and is available to businesses that take online payments, have a minimum of £10,000 monthly turnover, and have been trading for at least six months. Only simple checks are required to access capital and there is no need for companies to provide business plans or go through prolonged risk assessments. Businesses simply connect their revenue accounts and, with access to this data, Outfund will build a funding offer and deploy the same day.
Unlike conventional business loans, Outfund ensures the time taken to repay is based on each businesses’s circumstances, with an agreed revenue share creating flexibility for founders. Outfund’s revenue-share percentages are set to ensure each business maintains a healthy cash flow in its day-to-day operations; the better the company does, the better Outfund does. For the first time, the funding balance between a company and a lender is equal.
See: Debt vs. Equity Financing: Pros And Cons For Entrepreneurs
Outfund’s technology takes the bias out of lending and improves financing terms, with analysis based solely on a business’ revenues and performance. 20% of Outfund’s portfolio are female founders, a testament to their commitment to advancing the democratisation of access to capital. Its advanced algorithm pulls information from multiple data sources to determine how a company performs, and is then able to de-risk the proposition. This allows more affordable funding, with longer payment terms and a flat fixed fee from 2%, making it the most competitive offering in the market.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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A Carbon-Negative Blockchain Making Money Beautiful
Not Boring | Packy McCormick | Apr 25, 2022
Source: Celo.org
Celo: The Regenerative Economy
Financialization is a dirty word, but the system is particularly dirty for those whose interests don’t have a price. Ledgard wants to fix that, and help reduce extreme poverty in the process. It’s just one example – albeit the most colorful – of a movement called Regenerative Finance (ReFi).
ReFi is a beautiful idea – a re-imagining of the financial system using the tools humanity now has at its disposal to better account for the needs of all stakeholders, current and future. It puts a price on externalities, charging those who create negative externalities and rewarding those who create positive externalities.
See: While Sustainability Software Booms, Investors Demand Climate Data Proof
Celo is a carbon-negative EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain (I’ll explain) designed to make it accessible and usable by anyone with a smartphone, anywhere in the world. It’s unique among blockchains in many ways, including the fact that it has its own native stablecoins in different denominations – cUSD, cEUR, and cREAL, with many more to come – and in that it plans to back those stablecoins with 40% natural capital backed assets – like forest NFTs and Ledgard’s L-Marks – in the Celo Reserve over the next four years. That’s a huge demand signal to the market: build things that are good for the planet, and we’ll buy the tokens.
That idea came from Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics:
If you back money with more of the things you want to see in the world, you’ll get more of those things.
Celo is based on a belief that programmable money will unlock new economic models, and that changing the features of money (which is possible because money’s just a technology) can lead to a more beautiful world. And it’s a bet that mission-aligned builders will care as much about a Layer 1’s community as they do its tech specs. When everything is open, liquidity has no loyalty, and each blockchain’s technology continues to improve, standing for something, and building a community around it, might be a key competitive advantage in a multi-chain world.
Money is a technology. Technology is a story with wings
Celo seems like the L1 that’s most excited to push the limits of this new primitive, not to generate eye-popping APYs or attract the most total value locked (TVL), but to build regenerative systems by changing the story of money.
See:
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Canada’s Low-Carbon Tech opportunity is now or risk another familiar story
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Decarbonizing Crypto: Getting to the facts of the decarbonisation discussion
Specifically, in his keynote, Sep said that Celo asked: What features of money might lead to a more beautiful world? He listed five things:
- Universal Basic Income (UBI) that’s tied into monetary policy
- Demurrage, a little tax on holding money, to increase its velocity
- Natural Capital Backed currencies, building on Charles Eisenstein’s idea that whatever backs money, people make more of
- Community Currencies, or a network of local currencies that do all sorts of things
- Creation of New Money Without New Debt by doing things like gifting money into existence, or earning it into existence by doing pro-social things
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Square Launches Small Business Lending Product in Canada
Square | Press Release | Apr 28, 2022
46% of Canadian SMEs are bootstrapping by relying on personal credit cards; 92% find the traditional loans process intimidating and 84% find it complicated
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Square announced the launch of Square Loans in Canada, giving small businesses quick and simple access to funds and eliminating another major pain point associated with running a business.
By using transaction data, Square Loans proactively surfaces customized offers to eligible sellers, providing them with a straightforward application process, where no paperwork is needed, and delivering funds as soon as the next business day. Businesses have one clear, upfront loan fee, which is automatically paid back as a set percentage of daily card sales with Square — so sellers pay back more when sales are strong and less during slower times. The loan fee never increases for the seller, so the amount they owe is always clear.
Luke Voiles, GM Business Banking at Square:
“It’s no secret that small and medium-sized businesses face tremendous barriers when it comes to accessing funds to help them transition and grow. As the pandemic eases and Canadian business owners look to the future, they need help moving forward now more than ever before."
See: Lending Loop Launches ‘Loop Card’ for Small Business Cross-border Transactions
92% of Canadian business owners who received traditional loans find the process intimidating
- A newly released survey commissioned by Square1 shows that roughly 7-in-10 Canadian small business owners have never accessed traditional funding, preferring to “bootstrap it alone.”
- According to the survey, 46% admitted they’ve been forced to rely on personal credit cards; while one-in-five have accessed loans from friends and family to keep their business going in the past.
- The survey revealed that 92% of business owners who had received traditional business funding found the process “intimidating” while 84% said traditional business loans were overly “complicated.”
- Overall, 72% reported they were not happy with the repayment process for traditional loans.
83% of small business owners say the pandemic has made access to business loans more critical
- One-third of Canada’s small business owners reported that running their business throughout the pandemic has been “a challenge” but they are “proud to have made it through so far.”
- More than eight-in-ten entrepreneurs (83%) surveyed said that the pandemic has made access to business loans more critical now than ever before while 51% said that the current business climate was a key concern when considering traditional loan repayments.
See: Square launches small business banking
Since the initial launch of Square Loans in the US and Australia, Square has provided more than USD$9 billion in financing to more than 460,000 businesses, with an average loan size of USD$6,7502.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Lending Loop Launches ‘Loop Card’ for Small Business Cross-border Transactions
Betakit | | Apr 21, 2022
Lending Loop has launched Loop to provide a wider range of financial services for e-commerce businesses. The company’s first product is a corporate card specifically for cross-border transactions. The card allows companies to purchase in multiple currencies without fees. It also provides an extended repayment grace period, and credit limits based on sales rather than personal assets, which is often the case when entrepreneurs look to access corporate cards through banks.
In pivoting from lending to a broader financial services play, Loop has entered an increasingly competitive market. In the United States, well-capitalized players like Brex, Ramp, and Jeeves have created corporate cards tailored to startups. And in Canada where the market is still fairly bare, up and comer Float has attracted more than 1,000 customers in the last year alone.
See: Fintech Card Space is Growing: Brim Financial, Float, Caary Capital, Jeeves, Neo Financial
However, Pastoll is adamant that Loop’s product is different from the others, specifically targeting Canadian-based e-commerce businesses that are doing business internationally.
“Our product is specifically built for this customer segment that is doing business cross border,” said Pastoll. “And we’re understanding the two key things: working capital and needing to move money seamlessly and cost-effectively around the world. Those are like core tenants that are important to e-commerce businesses.”
Businesses can spend and make payments in CAD, USD, GBP and EUR currencies without foreign exchange rate conversions and fees. The Loop Card also provides 55 days of interest-free spending, which the startup argues is the longest interest-free period in the industry.
See: Fintech Fridays EP46: Making Business Borderless: International Payments and Partnerships
“The reason we’re offering that value prop is because we listened to e-commerce founders and heard, ‘I need the ability to basically push my expenses down the road so I can grow my business,’” said Pastoll.
Continue to the full article --> here
View the Lending Loop press release --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada Not to be missed! Registration NOW OPEN! |
Why Apple Acquired An ‘Open Banking’ Fintech
Forbes | Ron Shevlin | Mar 27, 2022
The Apple-oids in Cupertino must eat this stuff up. Every time Apple makes an acquisition, the technology world—and increasingly now, the fintechaverse—goes into hyper speculation mode, trying to figure out why the company made the purchase and what it plans to do with the acquired firm.
See: Financial Consumer Agency of Canada publishes BNPL pilot study
What does Credit Kudos do?
via their Website: “Credit Kudos’ intelligent products enable businesses to leverage Open Banking to enhance affordability and risk assessments. Our predictive insights are built by combining transaction and loan outcome data. Our products help lenders streamline underwriting, improve accuracy in decision-making, and support customers after acquisition through our engagement tools.”
Why Apple Wants Credit Kudos
BNPL acquisitions have been occurring faster than Ben Affleck finds new girlfriends:
- Block, nee Square, acquired AfterPay for somewhere between $15 million and $29 million (the valuation was at the higher amount when the deal was announced, but Block’s stock price fell by ~50% by the time the deal closed).
See: UK Research: How consumers use savings apps
- PayPal purchased BNPL company Paidy in 2021 for $2.7 billion.
- Zip acquired New York-based Quadpay in 2020 for nearly $300 million, and is now looking to purchase Sezzle.
It would be a real coup for Apple to acquire a BNPL capability for just $150 million.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada Not to be missed! Registration NOW OPEN! |
What to Know About Borrowing Against Crypto
Guest Post | Mar 25, 2022
The world of crypto is at this point advancing toward being mainstream very quickly. Cryptocurrency is something more and more people are using for transactions and as a payment method. Crypto is also an investment opportunity.
Beyond those applications, crypto borrowing and lending are growing in popularity as well.
Crypto lending is a type of Decentralized Finance or DeFi. With DeFi, investors can lend their crypto to borrowers. The benefit for a lender is that you can get interest payments in exchange, which are known as crypto dividends. There are a number of platforms specializing in lending crypto.
While the benefits of acting as a lender may be apparent—you can earn on your holdings passively, what about the perspective of a borrower?
Below, we delve into some of the things to know about borrowing against crypto and the pros and cons of doing so.
An Overview of Crypto Lending
Crypto lending, as mentioned, lets people who hold crypto have the potential to earn interest on it.
If you’re someone with ten bitcoins as an example, and you want to earn a steady stream of passive income, you can deposit them into a crypto lending platform wallet. Then, every week or month, you receive interest.
Interest rates vary. On the low side, interest rates may be around 3%, and on the high side, as much as 17%.
Borrowers can stake their cryptocurrency as a guarantee that they’ll repay the loan or as security. Then, investors can sell their crypto assets in the event the borrower doesn’t pay off the loan, providing a route to cover losses.
Most platforms will ask a borrower to stake anywhere from 20% to 50% of the loan in crypto.
A third party is required to connect a borrower to a lender. A borrower can be an individual as well as a business requiring funding.
There are a few steps that occur in general in the process.
The borrower finds a platform they want to use. Once they identify the platform, they request a crypto loan.
A borrower stakes their crypto collateral when the loan request is accepted by the platform. Until the borrower can pay back the loan in its entirety, they won’t be able to get back the stakes.
The lender automatically funds the loan through the platform. The lender then receives regular interest payments. Once a borrower pays off the complete loan, they get back their collateral crypto.
Common Features of Crypto Loans
If you get a crypto-backed loan, it’s one requiring collateral, which is the stake. In many ways, a crypto loan has similarities to a car loan or a home loan because you have an asset securing your funds.
Cryptocurrency loan platforms tend to offer interest rates that may be comparatively low—often in the single digits. That’s going to nearly always be less than the interest rates on a credit card or an unsecured personal loan.
Crypto loans aren’t usually as cheap as a car or home loan, however, so you shouldn’t use this option to make a big purchase.
You will almost always face limits on how much you can borrow. A lot of platforms will let you borrow up to 50% of the value of your crypto, but some will go all the way up to 90%. You receive your loan funds as USD or a digital currency.
See: Rise of Regulatory Compliant DeFi Protocols
There’s almost never a credit check when you apply for a loan backed by crypto. If you don’t have perfect credit or you have a limited credit history, this can be one of the biggest pros that you might think about with this personal finance option.
The funding will usually be fast—often with funding coming through the same business day. For someone who needs fast cash, that holds a lot of appeal.
For lenders, the upsides of crypto loans include the fact that you’re probably going to get higher returns than using something like a savings account, and you don’t have to lock in your assets.
What To Keep In Mind Before You Borrow Cryptocurrency
If you’re considering borrowing crypto, you need to choose the right platform, making sure that it’s legitimate and secure. After you find a reliable platform, taking out a crypto loan tends to be a simpler, easier process than getting a traditional loan.
The loan amount is going to depend on how much collateral you can use. The loan-to-value ratio in this context is the amount of the loan compared to the value of the collateral.
Because of the inherent volatility of crypto markets, these loans usually have extremely low LTV ratios.
Other considerations include:
- You could be subject to what’s called a margin call. If you borrow against a big portion of your holdings and the price goes down, which often happens because of crypto’s volatility, you might need to deposit more collateral in the form of more crypto. Another option in this situation would be that the lending platform would sell some of your holdings, reducing the LTV ratio. You have to be very careful about how much leverage you can use as a result.
- If you use crypto to secure a loan, it’s locked in until you pay it off in full. If you faced an emergency where you needed to liquidate your holdings, you wouldn’t be able to. Also, if there’s a big drop in crypto prices, you can’t sell to limit the losses.
- The repayment terms can vary widely between one another, so be aware that many of these loans are very short-term.
Finally, you can’t use any coin to get a loan. Some platforms will only accept a limited number of options, while other platforms might accept dozens.
Getting a crypto-backed loan is a growing possibility for consumers, but also one with risks and considerations to keep in mind before jumping in. As with anything in personal finance, weigh the pros and cons before doing anything. Along with researching the loans in general, make sure you choose the best platform for your needs.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Can You Make A Cash Advance Online?
Guest Post | Mar 24, 2022
Do you ever wonder what it is like to get quick cash/ advance online? Do you have questions regarding the system of giving cash advances online? If you want to know more about how this online system operates, then continue on reading to find out all there is to know.
Workings of cash online
It does not matter whether you are someone who has to pay for medical bills, recently suffered from illness, or needs to pay pending payments; there are simple and quick ways that you could easily get funds from online. Now you might be wondering how reliable they are and on what basis do these online websites/corporations lend money to borrowers.
See: Solution to Consumer-Centric Payments Innovation in America
The reason why they are so popular is that these cash advances charge high fees just for you to borrow them. Although you can get a hold of money quickly, you do have to pay it back in a week or two, and if you fail to do so, you might get late fees charged.
Difference of cash advance and other loans
Many people have their doubts regarding the workings of cash advance online as they believe it or be a scam or fraud when this is not the case at all. One of the differences between cash advances and other forms of loans is the fixed rate that is applied. The rate in cash advance is much higher than the traditional loan system.
On average, you could get a loan of around 500 dollars which is paid back in a day or two, whilst in another loan system, the loan itself is high and can be paid back in years rather than days.
Getting cash advance with bad credit
When you are getting a cash advance online, you do not have to go through the traditional process of giving credit/ bank information or any personal finance data, but rather have to provide them with the eligibility of your employment and pay stubs. Now what this essentially means is that you could still get cash online even if you have overall bad credit. If for some reason, you are looking to get a cash advance online that comes with a lower interest fee, you could get it if you have an excellent credit score. If you want to know more, click on the cash advance app.
Pros of cash advance
When it comes to talking about the advantages, there are countless such as being extremely easy to qualify for. Unlike other loan methods, in cash advance, you do not have to go through multiple steps and gather documents, etc.
Although there will be some background checks made, the overall process is relatively quicker and more efficient.
Another benefit of cash advances online is that you could use them to solve your urgent problems such as pending taxes/ payments/ bills/ and much more.
Thirdly, the overall process of applying for a cash advance is easy, meaning that all you have to do is visit the webpage and apply online. After you are done, you just have to wait for a few hours before getting a reply back.
Conclusion
So now you know how cash advance online operates and what are the core elements to it. In recent times the use of cash advance online has become quite popular due to its efficiency and high reliability.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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