Lend Academy reports on the intersection of banks and marketplace lending in their article; Zopa, the industry's first P2P lender, is leading the way again; it is now the first P2P platform to seek a bank license; SoFi also says it has plans to take deposits and has been leading the market in product expansion; at the same time digital banks are becoming more prevalent and fintech partnerships are occurring industry wide. Source
Community banks are beginning to view potential partnerships with fintech firms as a natural way to compete with some of the larger national banks; while there's not the internal resources available to even consider overhauling their own technology, they view these partnerships as lower cost ways to enhance customer experience or build out their customer base; for their part, fintech firms have been happy to consider any type of bank partnership as a way to help legitimize what they are doing; long term these banks view partnerships as more of a complimentary piece of their business, not a threat to their survival. Source
A survey of 70 traditional UK financial services firms by Mayer Brown has quantified the benefits of fintech partnerships in the financial services industry; 100% of survey participants said they would purchase a product or work directly with a fintech company over the next three years and 49% of respondents said they were currently working with a fintech firm in a joint venture partnership; other highlights from the survey report found that 87% of respondents could reduce costs after a fintech partnership, 83% of respondents were able to refresh their brand and 54% of respondents increased revenue. Source
Bank and non-bank mortgage lenders are currently having a debate seen across the financial landscape on whether to build, buy or partner with new technology; mortgage lending in particular is seen as archaic and overly reliant on paper applications; companies like Better Mortgage are trying to change this through innovative technology; other firms like Finance of America Holdings, a portfolio company of Blackstone Group, are still weighing their options as more fintech firms are beginning to disrupt the mortgage business. Source
Fidor Bank saw in 2016 that incumbent banks were beginning to buy up and partner with fintechs because they needed to stay competitive; other digital banks do not share this view as Starling Bank issued a report back in September saying that collaboration with main street type banks will help to erode what fintechs are attempting to disrupt; 2017 looks to be a pivotal year for partnerships as big banks, regional banks and community banks are all moving in the direction of utilizing different aspects of new innovation. Source
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