Join the Agentic Group Thursday, June 9th at Reed Smith Law Firm for an enlighting discussion of Fintech, Second Markets and Venture Finance Innovation in the US.  

Access to credit has always been crucial to achieve economic growth in the United States, a country where small businesses are responsible for two thirds of the new jobs created over the past twenty years. Today, advances in technology and availability of data allow online marketplace lenders to offer more efficient access to credit for small businesses and consumers, at historically low interest rates. 

The US Treasury issued an extensive analysis and commentary of the state of affairs in the most established sector within fintech, marketplace lending. This comes the same week as the founder and CEO is ousted amidst internal reports of misconduct within the pioneer and leader in the sector Lending Club. The week in the digital lending space has not been uneventful to say the least.

While more than a third of all US states have enacted laws allowing digital investing, California is still without an intrastate securities crowdfunding regulation. Investing in startups, family-businesses and more in general in SMEs, is not that easy yet. The good news is that things are likely to change shortly.
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On February 16, 2016, the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an Investor Bulletin to educate investors about the opportunities that will arise for investors through securities-based crowdfunding (also known as equity crowdfunding, and digital investing), when the new rules will be enacted on May 16, 2016. Starting from that date, registered platforms will be able to offer securities under Title III of the JOBS Act, and companies to use crowdfunding to offer and sell securities to the investing public.

The JOBS Act, signed on 5 April 2012, was intended to ease the regulatory burden on smaller companies and expand and simplify the means by which such companies could raise capital. On October 30, 2015, the SEC adopted the final rules and forms implementing the new Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), allowing issuers to sell securities to the public under certain circumstances without registering such securities with the SEC. The rules will be effective in late April 2016.