Finance

Millennial-Focused Digital Bank Empower Finance Raises $20M

San Francisco-based Empower Finance, a mobile banking app aimed at helping millennials save wealth, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Defy Ventures and Icon Ventures, according to a report. The Founder and CEO of Nubank David Velez also participated in the funding round. The company, which was founded in 2017, is run by a former Sequoia Capital ... Read More »

Leap Finance raises $5.5M to democratize financing for foreign-bound Indian students

Tens of thousands of Indians move to the United States to pursue higher education each year. But like many others who have arrived from a foreign land, they can’t secure education loans or personal loans from the banks at interest rates on par with those levied on local students. The reason why these students — or anyone else moving to ... Read More »

Education-focused lender Leap Finance raises $5.5 million led by Sequoia

MUMBAI : Leap Finance, a fintech startup for Indian students pursuing international higher education, on Tuesday, said it has raised $5.5 million led by venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital India Advisors. The round also saw participation from angel investors, including Bhupinder Singh, founder of consumer lending firm InCred and Kunal Shah, founder of credit card payment startup Cred. Founded in 2019 ... Read More »

Do high returns and cover make small finance bank FDs worth it?

Many small finance banks offer 8-9% on fixed deposits of one to three years compared with an average of 6-6.5% that large public and private sector banks give. The returns for seniors (typically, 50 basis points higher) in small finance bank FDs are even better than what the Senior Citizen Savings Scheme offers (8.6%). In Budget 2020, the finance minister increased the ... Read More »

Suryoday Small Finance Bank finalises merchant bankers, targets Diwali D-Street debut

Mumbai-headquartered Suryoday Small Finance Bank backed by the likes of International Finance Corporation (IFC) and HDFC has kicked off the process to raise around Rs 1,000 crore through an initial public offer (IPO) and has shortlisted four merchant bankers, sources with knowledge of the matter told Moneycontrol. IFC is the World Bank’s private-sector investment arm. “Axis Capital, ICICI Securities, SBI Capital ... Read More »

Supervision, not just regulations, key to financial system: Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal

In India, the share of non-bank financial intermediaries in total financial assets rose from roughly 10.5% in 2006 to over 14.5% in 2018. Rising banking regulations over the past decade have shifted market activity to less-regulated shadow lenders not just in India but across the globe, according to a concept paper by principal economic advisor in the finance ministry Sanjeev ... Read More »

Top 9 Millennial Personal Finance YouTube Channels (To Grow Your Money)

Millions of Millennials are struggling with a financial triple whammy – subpar income, high debt levels, and low- to nonexistent-savings. If this describes you, you don’t need to be wracking your brain trying to come up with your own money solutions. GETTY If you have any financial situation whatsoever, whether it has to do with budgeting, getting out of debt, making more money, ... Read More »

Credit Suisse downgrades LIC Housing Finance, cuts target; stock tanks 5%

Global brokerage house Credit Suisse turned bearish on LIC Housing Finance, which fell more than 5 percent intraday on February 18. The stock has corrected more than 22 percent in the last month. It was quoting at Rs 362.60, down Rs 17.25, or 4.54 percent, on the BSE at 1022 hours, while IDBI Bank was down over 2 percent. The research ... Read More »

Delays in debt recoveries irk Bombay HC; asks Finance Ministry to enhance Debt Recovery Tribunal

The Bench was irked noticing a near 20-year delay by DRT. Omkar Gokhale The Bombay High Court (HC) recently observed that it is useless to say the economy will grow when funds of banks and financial institutions are stuck due to delays in resolution of cases in forums due to lack of staff and infrastructure. Noting this, the HC directed ... Read More »

Ajeesh Achuthan: Making finance easy for startups

Ajeesh Achuthan | 28 Co-Founder and CTO, Open As a student at the University of Kerala, Ajeesh Achuthan had founded InLoc8, a location-based ad-tech startup that would help stores push offers and advertisements to consumers within a building or a shopping mall. “But that firm wasn’t scalable, and we eventually shut down,” he says.Soon after, he co-founded Zwitch, a payment ... Read More »