Marketplace lender Growth Street has hired two new executives to support its expansion plans; April Nardulli will join the firm as general counsel bringing experience from RateSetter; Chris Weller will be joining as commercial director to support commercial loan business development; launched in November 2016 the firm has originated over GBP54 million ($67.44 million) from business borrowers; the new appointments follow the recent hiring of James Sherwin-Smith as the firm's new chief executive officer. Source
Approved has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding and announced its launch; Approved provides lenders with a solution for moving their lending operations online; the platform technology provides for increased transparency and faster processing times; the company will target established originators seeking to modernize their lending businesses. Source
The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has issued a new guidance document titled, "Guiding Opinions on Risk Prevention and Control in the Banking Sector"; the document targets banking institutions and their risk prevention efforts related to internet finance businesses; it focuses on ten types of high priority risks and emphasizes the requirement that P2P lenders partner with a custody bank; in addition to further details on broad market rectification it also includes emphasis on student lending and microloan businesses. Source
UK online lender Funding Circle has announced it will be slowing its property lending with plans to fully end the product by mid 2018; the firm is primarily focused on SME lending and says the refocused strategy will help it to increase SME lending and shift its resources for international expansion; property loans have previously only been available to UK borrowers and the product has accounted for approximately 5% of the company's revenue. Source
The P2P Global Investments Fund is reviewing its fund management arrangements with investment manager MW Eaglewood Europe LLP; MW Eaglewood has submitted plans for improving the performance of the fund which include fund management changes and a discount reduction plan; further discussions over the fund's management are expected to continue; the fund is also reporting some factors that could improve including better risk default characteristics from loans concentrated at durations of 7 to 21 months and increased utilization of credit facilities. Source
In 2016 the student loan securitization market increased compared to 2015 and in 2017 the market has already been off to a good start; the panelists discuss the reasons for this trend of increased issuance including knowledge, confidence and a default rate of just 3 bps; in the case of the refinance product, supply has created the demand; panel also comments on the current regulatory landscape and the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program which guarantees student loans; on the whole loan side, the panelists talk about the interest from investors, why they are deploying capital to the student loan market and the kind of returns they can expect; finally the panelists talk about risk retention and the importance of fintech in the origination of assets. Source
Bpifrance has invested in a co-financing fund managed by the Lendix platform; the investment from Bpifrance brings the fund's investments to EUR90 million; the fund invests in loans for French and European companies borrowing on the Lendix platform. Source
The SME Loan Fund has a new fund manager, SQN Capital Management, and is changing its name to the SQN Secured Income Fund; it is planning to issue up to 250 million new shares to increase assets under management and improve liquidity; it will continue to invest in loans from origination platforms and finance companies however its investment policy will divert from investing in GLI Finance affiliated platforms and will now focus its investments primarily on a range of secured wholesale loans. Source
Consumer online lender 4finance has announced it will be using FICO TONBELLER Cloud Solution to monitor for anti-money laundering; the new solution will help the firm comply with the 4th EU Anti Money Laundering directive; 4finance is a European online consumer lender operating in 17 countries with total loans of over EUR4 billion ($4.24 billion) since its founding in 2008. Source
Fleximize is a SME revenue-based finance provider; offers financing from GBP250,000 ($310,000) unsecured and GBP500,000 secured ($621,000); funds from the facility will be used to increase lending capacity; anticipates GBP100 million ($124 million) in funding by 2019; lending in 2016 was GBP40 million ($49 million), up 132% from 2015; company also plans to expand their product set and tech platform. Source