South East Asia SME marketplace lender First Circle has announced new funding that will help it further develop its business in South East Asia; the firm was the first to begin lending to SMEs in South East Asia offering its loans in the Philippines; it provides loans for underserved businesses through use of a proprietary underwriting system; the firm says it will use the new investment funding to further develop its technology platform and lending business in the Philippines. Source
Online lending platform Crowd Genie has obtained regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore; launched in mid-2016 the platform seeks to match accredited investors with SMEs for a fast and efficient alternative loan financing solution; the firm has been focusing on back office processing to meet regulatory guidelines and is now planning to increase its lending with the new regulatory approval. Source
Australian P2P commercial property marketplace lender LendEx has appointed two new board members to its board of directors; Brian Benger will join the board with experience from consulting firm Mercer; credit market executive Kim Jenkins will also join the board; Jenkins is currently the CEO of the Australian Retail Credit Association; Benger and Jenkins join Robert Hines, the firm's chairman, as the board's non-executive directors. Source
Household debt levels are now approaching pre-crisis levels; instead of housing debt, consumers have accumulated more student and auto debt; student debt totaled $1.3 trillion at the end of 2016, an increase of 170% over the last 10 years; contributing factors include more students taking out loans, increased loan amounts and slowing borrower repayments; Lend Academy discusses the mounting defaults in student loan debt and the platforms that are aiming to solve the problem through various products. Source
Understanding the products that work for you as a consumer is a key question all borrowers ask themselves; at LendIt USA 2017 the panel entitled Consumer Lending Leaders of Tomorrow discussed some of the up and coming platforms in the market today; LendingUSA focuses on point of sale financing to offer installment loans for expenses like a medical procedure, Uplift Financial uses 600 million pieces of data to tailor the best loan product to you from their network, MoneyLion provides financial wellness advice to help the consumer better understand the loan that fits their situation and BorrowersFirst uses their technology to offer a low cost product to their borrowers; these lenders have taken the time to understand consumers so they can provide the type of variety people are looking for in a market that continues to evolve. Source
Aspire Financial Technologies has announced a new asset-level disclosure data and analytics module; the module is targeted for securitization professionals; it provides free access to market participants seeking to analyze loan-level characteristics and performance data of US public securitizations; data is from SEC Edgar filings and is provided as a result of Reg AB II from the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which requires certain public securitization issuers to post monthly asset level disclosures on public securitization trusts. Source
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index decreased to 104.7 from 105.3 in March and fell below expectations of 104.8; small businesses were less optimistic about business growth as momentum from the Trump administration slowed; lower sales expectations and uncertainty were key factors for the March Small Business Optimism Index report which collected its data prior to the delayed Obamacare vote which many small business owners were watching closely. Source
Institutional investors and small banks increased their small business lending in March, according to the Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index report; institutional lending approvals increased to 63.6% and small bank approvals increased to 48.9%; the approval rate at big banks was unchanged at 24.1%; the approval rate at credit unions decreased to 40.7%; the approval rate at alternative lenders decreased to 58.2%. Source
Morningstar has assigned a MOR RV1 vendor ranking for First Associates; First Associates is an industry leading loan servicer for marketplace loans; Morningstar provides rankings of vendor service businesses based on a variety of business factors. Source
Singapore-based marketplace lender MoolahSense has added invoice financing; the service will provide another lending product for businesses; the firm's CEO says the product is intended to extend the business services it provides to underserved small businesses; the product will be available for short-term capital needs of up to $15,000 and is expected to target returns of 12% for investors. Source