TransferWise and Funding Circle, the UK's 2 leading financial technology companies, recently accelerated the attack of payments and loans previously dominated by commercial banks, both of which have created new records for the financial technology industry. TransferWise, the Financial Services Agency, announced on November 2, 2017 that it had received 280 million pounds from investors to raise the fund-raising record for UK financial technology companies, the FT reported. The company plans to use the money to extend its cross-border payment operations to more countries. According to the latest statistics released by the Bank of England, personal lending to individual borrowers (peer-to-peer lending) Platform Funding Circle new loans to UK small and medium-sized Enterprises first surpassed traditional commercial banks. Headquartered in London, Funding Circle is Europe's largest SME peer-to-peer lending platform. The company's net new lending to small and medium sized British SMEs amounted to £ 114 million in 2017 7 to September, compared to just £ 95 million for similar lending by traditional British commercial banks during the same period. According to the London and partners, the UK financial technology industry has invested more than US $1 billion in 2017 1 ~ September, and the annual fund-raising rate is likely to refresh the industry's highest record in 2015. Funding Circle, co-founder and CEO of Samir Desai, said that if he were a bank operator, he would be deeply worried about the fact that the net amount of the new lending would be exceeded, because the SME lending business is a relatively easy market for traditional banks, Half of them now fall into the hands of the financial technology industry. Funding Circle in October 2017 to the British, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries small and medium-sized loans to the total, also hit a new high of $230 million. As for the TransferWise average of 2 million users per month in 42 countries, cross-border transfers amounted to £ 1 billion. Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder and chairman of the company, said £ 1 billion bn is only a small part of the Cross-border payment market, with many people still receiving high fees from traditional banks and foreign currency traders every day. TransferWise raised $280 million in the latest e-round fundraising plan, not only to make the company's cumulative financing amount of $397 million, but also to increase its valuation to about $1.6 billion. TransferWise said the new funds, in addition to expanding the Asian market, will also apply the company's multiple currency payment cards to the existing small business to expand to the general consumer. TransferWise has been founded by Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Citigroup's former CEO Vikram Pandit and US venture capital group Andreessen Horowitz and other gold Master's support. Hinrikus and Estonian (Estonia) Kristo Kaarmann felt that the cost of remittances from Britain was too high, and in 2011 co-founded TransferWise, the British asset management company Old Mutual Global Investors, U.S. venture capital IVP, Sapphire Ventures, Mitsui Property, Japan, U.S.-Japan joint Ventures group World Innovation Lab and other large institutions investment. IVP General partner Jules Maltz said the company rarely invests in European companies, but TransferWise is an excellent target for investment and is not to be missed. Old Mutual Global investors's old Mutual UK Mid Cap Fund fund manager Richard Watts says TransferWise has innovative products and customer-focused services, The provision of low-cost remittance pipelines for the population is growing fast in the remittance market.
