The Series A fundraising included both debt and equity capital; investment was led by K2 Venture Capital with participation from STI Financial Group and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper who made his first investment in an Indonesian startup; firm will use the funds to expand its lending and build its technology with plans for adding new research and development centers for machine learning and algorithm design; platform provides short term micro-loans of between US$75 and US$350 for a maximum of 30 days. Source
Infinity Eclipse provides a new loan management solution for lenders; it features a user friendly interface for both lenders and customer service representatives; it streamlines data for performance reporting, customer service and accounting; the platform is highly secure and customizable; it's also built for a range of technical integrations and includes digital technology for documentation. Source
Initiative Ireland is a new peer-to-peer lending platform; they are planning to raise 2 million euros for startup operations through Ireland's Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme; the firm hopes to provide returns of 5% to 7% per year to investors and total loan savings of 20% to 30% for borrowers versus traditional bank lenders. Source
Banks have been trying to understand what they will need to change to stay competitive as finance becomes more digital; the key question they try to answer is buy, build or partner; at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a keynote fireside chat that focused on how a global cooperative bank stays innovative; digitizing their lending process to become more like a platform, understanding that fintech is more of an evolution and not a revolution, better understanding the customer's needs and offering hybrid solutions is key to staying ahead of the innovation curve. Source
Peer-to-peer loan investing is growing as an investment category and capturing a greater share of the loan market from banks; as interest rates remain low across the globe and in the US, it continues to be a viable alternative to fixed income investing; Simon Moore discusses some of the current considerations for investing in P2P loans including availability, default risks, lending standards, interest rates, liquidity and tax efficiency. Source
CNBC reports on institutional developments in the marketplace lending industry with statistics on the growing securitization market for marketplace loans; in 2016 securitizations backed by marketplace loans totaled $7.62 billion, a 300% increase from introduction in 2013; securitizations are expected to continue at a strong pace with SoFi dominating the 2016 securitization market with 58% of issuance and leading in 2017 with a $564 million securitization portfolio; other institutional investors are also reporting interest including Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital, Zurich Insurance Group, and property and casualty insurer Chubb. Source
Aegon has announced it will allocate 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of its investment portfolio to Auxmoney P2P loans; the platform offers average returns of 5.5%; the investment represents one of the market's largest institutional endorsements in P2P loans; Aegon is also involved in a 15 million euro ($16.03 million) Series E funding round for Auxmoney. Source
P2P-banking.com has reported international P2P lending originations for February; Funding Circle led originations with 121.4 million euros ($127.67 million) in loans originated; Funding Circle also surpassed 2 billion British pounds ($2.46 billion) in cumulative loan originations during the month; Zopa and RateSetter followed Funding Circle with Zopa reporting 89.8 million euros and RateSetter reporting originations of 72.3 million euros; the list does not include P2P lenders in the US. Source
Intuit has partnered with BlueVine to make credit more easily available for its QuickBooks users; the partnership will allow small businesses using QuickBooks to obtain credit lines of up to $100,000; BlueVine will add a line of credit product offering to the borrowing options on QuickBooks which currently also include loans from Lending Club, OnDeck and Funding Circle. Source
Invesco Perpetual has sold GBP9.6 million ($12.45 million) worth of shares in the Ranger Direct Lending Fund, reducing its stake to 27.9%; the GBP243 million ($315 million) Fund has been struggling in 2017; it primarily invests across the private debt landscape with a focus on private direct lenders; however its losses have been related to its exposure to troubled lending platform Argon Credit which it had invested in indirectly through the Princeton Alternative Fund; in February 2017 it reported a significant impairment charge for the investment and its value has been decreasing. Source