Financial

True Link taps $35M for financial services tailored for elderly, disabled and recovering consumers

By hafiz cakep 12 hours ago

A lot of tech is built on the premise of services that can target the widest or most lucrative pools of users (and they’re a blockbuster when they can do both). But that leaves out a number of consumers, who fall into the margins for all kinds of reasons, be they physical, age, financial or other circumstances. Today, a startup building financial services specifically aimed at three typically marginalised markets — elderly, disabled people and those who are recovering from addiction — is announcing some funding on the back of strong growth of its business, and plans to do more.

True Link Financial, which provides financial services — specifically, today in the form of prepaid Visa cards and investment management — aimed at the three demographics, is announcing that it has closed a Series B of $35 million, led by Khosla Ventures with strong participation from Centana Growth Partners, an

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Discover Financial Services: The Worst Is Yet to Come

By hafiz cakep 1 day ago

Credit card lender Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) reported its second-quarter results on Thursday, and they were ugly. Total revenue fell 7%, while net income swung from a $753 million profit a year ago to a $368 net loss. The company set aside a whopping $2 provision for loan loss, or a net $1.3 billion reserve build after accounting for $767 million in charge-offs last quarter.

Unfortunately, Discover increased its reserve even over the large build taken in the March quarter during the early days of the pandemic, admitting to a worsening outlook compared with three months ago. Management also forecast charge-offs increasing later this year and into 2021.

On the other hand, Discover’s balance sheet and customer base also seem in much better shape compared with the last financial crisis in 2008. And if the government comes through with another round of stimulus, things may not be turn out

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Banks join IBM’s financial services cloud as it doubles down on security, compliance

By hafiz cakep 5 days ago

Dive Brief:

  • More banks are signing up for IBM’s financial services cloud collaboration with Bank of America, including French international banking group BNP Paribas, IBM announced Wednesday. MUFG Bank, the largest bank in Japan, is also exploring the financial services cloud deployment, though it’s not publicly stating its timeline, Hillery Hunter, VP, CTO of IBM Cloud, told CIO Dive. 

  • IBM is forming a Financial Services Cloud Advisory Council to advance its cloud policy framework tailored to the highly regulated sector. It’s led by Howard Boville, SVP, IBM Cloud, the former Bank of America CTO who joined IBM in May. Tony Kerrison, CTO of Bank of America, will also serve on the council. 

  • To implement the financial services cloud, IBM now has more than 30 partners operating as Independent Software Vendors, adhering to the security and risk requirements for financial services.

Dive Insight:

IBM has “several” clients beyond publicly

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A Look At Hartford Financial Services Group’s (NYSE:HIG) CEO Remuneration

By hafiz cakep 6 days ago

Chris Swift has been the CEO of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:HIG) since 2014, and this article will examine the executive’s compensation with respect to the overall performance of the company. This analysis will also look to assess whether the CEO is appropriately paid, considering recent earnings growth and investor returns for Hartford Financial Services Group.

See our latest analysis for Hartford Financial Services Group

How Does Total Compensation For Chris Swift Compare With Other Companies In The Industry?

At the time of writing, our data shows that The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. has a market capitalization of US$15b, and reported total annual CEO compensation of US$15m for the year to December 2019. That’s a modest increase of 4.9% on the prior year. We think total compensation is more important but our data shows that the CEO salary is lower, at US$1.2m.

On comparing similar companies in

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About 7% of auto and personal loans are in financial hardship programs

By hafiz cakep 1 week ago

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the total amount of credit products currently in hardship programs. 

Just over 7% of auto and personal loans are in some type of financial hardship program as of June, while 6.79% of mortgages and 3.57% of credit card accounts are in some kind of payment relief. 

That’s according to TransUnion, which defines financial hardship plans as a deferred payment, forbearance program, frozen account or frozen past due payment. But despite the high numbers, the number of accounts going into these types of payment relief programs is starting to level off, says Matt Komos, vice president of research and consulting at TransUnion.

“This pandemic is really like nothing we’ve ever seen,” Komos says, especially in regard to the rate at which the economy changed and unemployment exploded. Because of the widespread uncertainty, some consumers may have signed up for hardship programs quickly, almost

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September 4th Options Now Available For Discover Financial Services

By hafiz cakep 1 week ago

Investors in Discover Financial Services (Symbol: DFS) saw new options begin trading today, for the September 4th expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula has looked up and down the DFS options chain for the new September 4th contracts and identified one put and one call contract of particular interest.

The put contract at the $49.00 strike price has a current bid of $1.65. If an investor was to sell-to-open that put contract, they are committing to purchase the stock at $49.00, but will also collect the premium, putting the cost basis of the shares at $47.35 (before broker commissions). To an investor already interested in purchasing shares of DFS, that could represent an attractive alternative to paying $51.13/share today.

Because the $49.00 strike represents an approximate 4% discount to the current trading price of the stock (in other words it is out-of-the-money by that percentage), there is also

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Discover Financial Services Declares Its Next Dividend Ahead of Earnings Release

By hafiz cakep 1 week ago

Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) stock was on the rise Wednesday in the brief period between its latest dividend declaration and the release of its second-quarter results. Discover’s board of directors has declared a quarterly payout of $0.44 per share of the company’s common stock, which yields just under 3.5% at the current share price. This is to be handed out on Sept. 3 to shareholders of record as of Aug. 20.

That amount matches each of the last four distributions. Since mid-2013, the dividend has risen steadily, from $0.20 per share to the present level.

Man putting a card reading DIVIDENDS into his suit breast pocket.

Image source: Getty Images.

Discover is unique among its peers. Although it has a large payment card operation and is therefore part of the group that includes mighty Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, it also has a sizable online bank. 

That isn’t necessarily a comfortable blend at the moment, since banks are

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The American College of Financial Services Annual National Conference of African American Financial Professionals Goes Virtual

By hafiz cakep 1 week ago

The nation’s premier conference for Black financial professionals will take place virtually in a one-day event

King of Prussia, July 24, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The American College of Financial Services, the nation’s largest accredited, non-profit educational institution devoted to financial services, will host the Annual Conference of African American Financial Professionals (CAAFP) on August 4, 2020 in a five-hour virtual event.

Now, more than ever, is a time for collaboration and discussion. If we can’t be together physically, we can gather as a community in this virtual space. Created as an educational and experimental experience, the CAAFP is now the largest gathering of its kind within financial services with a mission to advance and foster professional relationships and development among African Americans working in the profession. Even though African Americans make up about 13% of the U.S. population, they account for only 8% of financial advisors, according to studies

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Setting Financial Goals Using a Personal Finance Guide to Help

By hafiz cakep 3 months ago

 

 

Financial planning is all about goals. There are two islands: what you have and what you want. The bridge between the two is your personal finance budget. Getting to where you want to be requires vision, planning and discipline – the vision to know what you want, a plan to get there and the discipline to stick with your plan. Follow this guide to personal finance superstardom.

Setting goals and sticking to them is the key to personal finance success.

Get Software
The difference between achieving goals and just staggering along as you have been often comes down to the tools you use along the way. The best tool you have at your disposal is quality software, such as Mint.com. Easy, intuitive and free, Mint.com offers a clear, crisp interface that charts and graphs your progress toward any goal, no matter how lofty.

Be Realistic
“I want to be

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Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center

By hafiz cakep 4 months ago

FS-ISAC helps Mastercard keep payments and our network safe and secure. In addition to providing world-class cyber-intelligence and services, we gain access to a rich set of working groups along with the opportunity to collaborate with others in the cyber community.”

Ron Green – Executive Vice President, Chief Information Security Officer, Mastercard

Against the backdrop of increasingly complex and sophisticated cyber-attacks, it is even more important for countries to stay engaged, foster stronger relationships and exchange information and expertise freely. The Centre’s operations and the regional intelligence reports it produces will help Asia Pacific countries to deal better with cross-border cybercrimes.”

Sopnendu Mohanty – Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore

FS-ISAC is relevant because cyber has no borders. It’s not a US, UK, European or an Asia Pacific issue, it’s a global problem and we need to collaborate globally.”

Tracy Watts – Manager of Cyber Threat, Lloyds Banking Group

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