P2P-Banking wrote an article on Bondora’s latest and most simple way to invest; Go & Grow. If you haven’t heard anything about it yet, here are some of the best advantages:
- 6.75%* p.a., via a completely automated service
- Instant liquidity, meaning you can access your cash at any time
- Low risk, thanks to a diversified portfolio of investments supported by advanced and reliable technology
- Tax-efficient, as you only pay tax when you make a withdrawal over your invested capital amount
The best part? You do not need any prior experience in investing or P2P to use Go & Grow, so whether you’re a retiree living in the Estonian countryside or an 18-year-old student in Berlin who’s new to the world of investing, Go & Grow is for you.
Read more about Go & Grow here.
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Born2Invest covered an interesting topic of the rise of fintech in Wales, UK. They report:
“Today, it (fintech) is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Welsh economy, worth an estimated £8.2 billion and employing over 44,000 people in Wales (Secretary of State for Wales, 2018). Fintech is trail-blazing across Wales, which has led to Cardiff becoming an alternative fintech capital outside of London.”
In the UK, London has traditionally been associated as the financial powerhouse. However, the cost of living, quality of life and growth of tech talent across the UK has enabled the emergence of more than one fintech hub. We’re excited to see what the future holds for Wales.
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Forbes published an article on the Nigerian fintech start-up Piggybank.ng. The two-year old company has recently raised $1.1million of seed funding to obtain a license from the Central Bank of Nigeria and increase their workforce. When their co-founder was questioned on VC funding from within Nigeria, he had this to say:
“We are extremely proud to have had such incredible support from the local Nigerian investment community, and I hope that our engagement with local investors now opens up opportunities for other start-ups, who often assume they have to go abroad for investment. Many of our peers have to fly across the continent, or head to the US or to Europe to raise a similar Seed Round. Whilst we’ve naturally held a lot of conversations with a number of different stakeholders through this fundraise process, essentially, as a team, we’ve been able to stay in Lagos and spend time working on and refining our product, and most importantly, talking to customers.”
According to studies from EcoBank and McKinsey, the African fintech market is set to grow from $200M to $3bn by 2020 and there is further room for growth in meeting unmet banking needs in the continent.
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AltFi covered the recent introduction of GDPR through a Q&A session with Luke Scanlon, global head of fintech propositions at Pinset Masons. When asked what GDPR means for the fintech industry, he had this to say:
“GDPR means that all businesses, fintech firms included, will be under a lot more regulatory scrutiny as to what privacy processes and procedures they have in place. On the one hand it will matter whether they have the documents necessary, which they will be held accountable for – but also whether they are respecting the rights of individuals when it comes to their data. As we all know this will include issues such as consent, and the legal grounds upon which they are to be used, but also protecting data in terms of when a data breach occurs.”
The regulation came into force throughout the EU on the 25th May 2018.
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The Baltic Times discussed the ‘shining stars’ of the P2P landscape in Europe’s very own Silicon Valley, the Baltic nations. Expressing their views on regulation and how this can be improved, they support the development of cross-border investing:
“As the framework regulating matters in EU cross border crowdfunding is lagging behind in EU, we welcome the initiative commissioned by the EU to establish a taskforce in Lithunia bringing together SME advisors, startup, accountants and accelerators to be trained in alternative finance.”
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