LendIt, in conjunction with Cadwalader and Lending Times, will host a forum on securitization this Wednesday, January 11th at 2:00 PM EST; the webinar will focus on key factors to consider in choosing the optimal risk retention structure, commercial considerations related to sponsors including brand and investor relationships, requirements necessary to establish a majority owned-affiliate including the amount of equity that must be retained by the sponsor versus an investor and other related topics; speakers include Philip Bartow of River North, Bruce Bloomingdale from Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, Rupert Chisholm from One William Street Capital, Abe Kahan of CommonBond, Dylan Schuler of CommonBond and Gregg Jubin from Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft; learn more by registering here today.
Jason talks about this year's LendIt USA event which will take place on March 6-7; while initially focusing just on online lending at its first event, LendIt USA has evolved to include a much broader agenda of fintech topics; IBM Watson will be giving a keynote on artificial intelligence this year and beyond just lending other featured topics will include blockchain, financial inclusion, wealth management and biometrics; PitchIt@LendIt has gained increased interest across the industry and this year had over 250 entries; attendees will also hear from asset allocators and learn about bank partnerships; LendIt has expanded networking within the LendIt mobile app to include 1-1 meeting functionality. Source
Orchard discusses the November 4 week's industry activities, highlighting banks' increasing interest in online lending and fintech in its weekly snapshot; the Orchard Index, which measures aggregate US P2P/MPL consumer loan performance, reported a monthly gain of 0.24%; Yirendai led gains in publicly traded companies with a monthly return of 11.29%; Ranger Direct Lending continued to lead gains in UK publicly traded funds with a monthly gain of 6.65%; the snapshot features Earnest's recently transacted securitization and reports the most recent securitization transacted by Lendmark Funding Trust. Source
Funding Circle led originations for August with loan issuance of EUR99.3 million ($118.18 million); Zopa followed closely behind Funding Circle with EUR87.4 million ($104.02 million) and RateSetter reported loan issuance of EUR38.2 million (45.44 million); the report does not include US marketplace lending platforms. Source
Ron Suber has invested in online commercial lending platform Money360 and will also join the firm as a strategic advisor; Money360 has been growing fast and estimates loan originations will exceed $500 million by 2017; the investment will add to Ron Suber's fintech portfolio which he is managing from a family office; his equity investment follows positive returns from loan investments on the platform. Source
The UK's oldest and biggest online lender will be cutting rates by 0.2% across all accounts for the third time in the last five months; Chief Product Officer Andrew Lawson told investors via email that since competitors have been cutting rates they also needed to continue their rate cuts and they could also see this trend continuing; left with a choice of cutting rates or lending to a risky borrower, Zopa opted to cut rates and keep their lending practices static. Source
SoFi is becoming one of the US's largest and most comprehensive marketplace lenders. Since launching in 2011 they have originated over $15 billion in loans. They market themselves as a new kind of finance company and recently acquired Zenbanx, expanding their products to deposit accounts. SoFi also offers student loan refinancing, mortgage loans, personal loans, wealth management and life insurance.
In Lend Academy's recent podcast with SoFi, CEO Mike Cagney provides some insight on how the company might be valued on a per customer basis. Mike Cagney says larger banks are valued at approximately $10,000 to $100,000 per customer. SoFi currently expects to have 500,000 customers by the end of 2017 and 2 million customers in the next two to three years; at a value of $50,000 per SoFi customer, this would imply a $100 billion valuation. Source
Scott Sanborn gave a recap of his LendIt USA 2017 keynote presentation and reiterated his excitement and positive outlook for the marketplace lending industry in a blog post; Sanborn identified three key areas of importance: evolving the customer experience, unleashing the platform potential and amplifying core innovations; with a focus on these three things Lending Club plans to see more borrowers and investors as well as a number of new and innovative partnerships fueling its future business growth. Source
Despite initial concerns over risks from Brexit, the UK's Funding Circle has been growing significantly; Funding Circle is one of four firms Bloomberg plans to follow throughout the Brexit process which will begin when Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50 of the EU Treaty; for Funding Circle, results following the Brexit vote in June have been overwhelmingly positive; in the second half of 2016, originations increased 50% from 2015 to 530 million British pounds ($685 million) and in the fourth quarter of 2016 the firm's UK division reported its first net profit; while some funding challenges and employee visa risks still remain, the firm's business seems likely to continue its positive trajectory; low rates on fixed income investments in the UK and slowed bank lending to small businesses appear to continue as leading factors for the firm's growth. Source
Zhengyuan Lu, OnDeck's Senior Vice President of Capital Markets, will soon move to investment firm, Victory Park Capital; his last day is Tuesday; Victory Park invests in and provides credit facilities to online lenders, including Avant Inc. and Square Inc.; the last year has been a challenge for OnDeck as investors have not been buying loans at the same pace and this has forced the lender to hold more loans on its balance sheet. Source