By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan
Technology company IOT Group announced this week that it has signed an Australian first energy and blockchain deal. In the agreement with Hunter Energy, IOT Blockchain will build a blockchain centre at the Redbank coal-fired power station in the Hunter Valley, two hours north of Sydney.
“Getting the Deal Through” is a publication that provides international expert analysis in key areas of law, practice and regulation for corporate counsel, cross-border legal practitioners, and company directors and officers.
The inaugural edition of Fintech serves as a resource to help fintech entrepreneurs and their advisers and investors around the world navigate the often complex key legal and regulatory issues on which we are most often asked to advise. Two of the chapters were authored by K&L Gates lawyers.
The Germany chapter is authored by Dr. Hilger von Livonius, Dr. Friederike Gräfin von Brühl and Dr. Thomas Nietsch.
The United States chapter is authored by Judith Rinearson, Robert Zinn, Anthony Nolan, C. Todd Gibson and Andrew Reibman.
To read this publication, click here.
Last Fall, in its 2015 Rulemaking Agenda, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) signaled its intent to “to develop rules to define larger participants in markets for consumer installment loans.”[1] Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB is authorized to issue “larger participant” rules to define entities in a particular market for consumer financial products or services. The issuance of such rules opens the door for supervisory and examination authority over such entities. Fast forward to Spring 2016, when the CFPB announced that it is accepting complaints from consumers regarding alleged problems with online marketplace loans, and it appears that the CFPB has marketplace lenders squarely in its sights.[2]
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released guidance for marketplace lenders navigating Australia’s existing dual licensing regimes for credit and financial products. While the guidance is helpful, it does not overcome the need for marketplace lenders, like other fintech innovators, to contort themselves into existing regulatory boxes.
ASIC’s Information Sheet 213 focuses on establishing a marketplace lending platform using Australia’s managed investment scheme regime, by far the most popular Australian structure where a trust is interposed between borrowers and lenders. This regime was designed for pooled collective investment vehicles, such as traditional managed funds, and is not well adapted to pure peer-to-peer lending. Individual regulatory relief is often needed to overcome these challenges – for example, to facilitate investor withdrawals – and the Information Sheet helpfully outlines the relief ASIC has previously given to industry players.
By Tony Nolan, Joseph Valenti, and Christopher Bell
The online marketplace lending industry has experienced substantial growth in the past few years. Its share of the global lending market is predicted to continue its increase. In the United States, regulators are starting to take notice.
The first major sign of interest came from the U.S. Treasury. On July 16, 2015, it issued a Request For Information to better understand the impact of online marketplace lending on small businesses, consumers, and the broader economy.
By Tony Nolan
On March 10, 2016 at 8:30am the London office of K&L Gates will host a Breakfast Roundtable on the US Regulatory Landscape for Marketplace Lending. The Roundtable will cover a range of topics that are relevant to entering into the US market, focusing particularly on ways to facilitate a broad distribution of investments.
New York partner Anthony Nolan and London partner Jacob Ghanty will lead a discussion of how US regulatory and compliance issues may affect UK lenders and investors that are considering entering the US online / P2P / marketplace lending market.
By Cameron Abbott and Meg Aitken
Chinese regulators launched a website on Saturday to aid authorities in their mission to investigate the gigantic Ezubao “Ponzi scheme” that allegedly stole money from more than 900,000 investors.
Ezubao, China’s largest peer-to-peer lender, was caught red handed fabricating the majority of its listed investment projects and using investor money to fund the extravagant lifestyle of the company’s executives earlier this month.
By Cameron Abbott and Meg Aitken
Tech start-ups are infiltrating the finance sector at a rapid rate, and customers love it. Changing consumer expectations and behaviours are forcing traditional banks to lower costs, be more efficient and provide better security in order to remain competitive.
By Jim Bulling and Daniel Knight
Like riding a bike through Sydney or getting to Melbourne airport, launching a peer to peer lending platform in Australia is possible but not as easy as it should be. The Financial System Inquiry recommended changes and the Government’s response seemed to agree, but we are yet to see what will be done to facilitate innovation in marketplace lending.
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