ISA statistics were released on Thursday by HMRC; last year two thousand Innovative Finance ISA accounts were subscribed with retail investors collectively investing GBP17 million (USD $22 million); this compares to GBP22.325 billion ($28.94 billion) into stocks and shares and GBP39.191 billion ($50.81 billion) into cash ISAs; about one third of money invested into IFISAs on P2P platforms last year was from transfers; while the accounts opened and amount invested were low it still shows appetite for such products. Source
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Marcus by Goldman Sachs was launched in 2016 and marked an important point in the consumer lending industry as they decided to build their own platform from scratch; Ainsley O'Connell from Fast Company interviews head of Marcus, Harit Talwar; Talwar shares what was attractive about getting into personal loans and details the Marcus product; stated that there were many consumer pain points and Goldman Sachs was confident they could help; Goldman also has several advantages to give them an edge; not only do they have their own balance sheet, but they essentially built a startup, leaning on 147 years of experience; they also had the advantage that there were no conflicts over any legacy consumer businesses within Goldman; the company worked closely with consumers to bring to market a product they want which Talwar discusses in the interview. Source