In a letter to the board at OnDeck, Marathon Partners has outlined changes they want to see enacted; Marathon believes OnDeck has put a premium on growing their originations instead of getting costs under control and growing shareholder value; additionally they have been disappointed with OnDeck's corporate governance and executive compensation practices; the private equity firm recommends the lender cut costs to get them under control and seek the sale of the company to a stable partner. Source
Online lending platform Marcus by Goldman Sachs is now open to all borrowers; the bank launched its lending platform in October 2016 for borrowers receiving an email code; like other marketplace lending platforms it offers low borrower interest rates; one of its leading advantages is that it offers no fees; Goldman Sachs will announce its fourth quarter earnings in January with insight expected on the new platform's business. Source
Wangdaizhijia has released two market reports providing insight and projections on P2P lending and crowdfunding in China; report finds 2,235 P2P platforms with total loans of $385 billion, including $181 billion in loans originated in January through August of 2016; predicting originations of $300 billion for online lending in 2016; nonlending crowdfunding market is smaller with 380 platforms as of August and crowdfunded investments of $1.57 billion for January to August of 2016. Source
Crowdfund Insider provides a roundup of keynote speaker quotes from LendIt USA expressing sentiment from the event; a great deal of attention at LendIt USA 2017 was on the industry's rebound from challenges faced in 2016 including a disturbance of platform confidence following the release of Lending Club's CEO with economic uncertainty and increased defaults also factoring into the market landscape; Scott Sanborn began the conference with an opening keynote speech discussing the exponential market opportunity still ahead likening the market's growth to Amazon's initial market potential; Lending Club's appointment of Sanborn appears to be a critical success factor for the firm and the industry overall; generally market leaders were confident about the industry's current trajectory and government officials reported an increased presence as mainstream integration becomes even more prevalent. Source
MarketInvoice has appointed Shaun Alexander to head of risk; Alexander joins MarketInvoice from Santander and will be the firm's first head of risk directly overseeing the underwriting unit of the business; the new hire is another example of a fintech firm adding traditional banking risk oversight experience; MarketInvoice expects Alexander will help improve risk management for the firm by providing broader insight on sector risks and market risk factors. Source
MarketInvoice has reached a 1 billion British pound invoice funding milestone; in the past 14 months it has financed 500 million British pounds of invoices; just recently reaching the 1 billion British pounds funding milestone, it reported invoices funded of 958,029,836 British pounds as of October 31 with a total loan amount of 765,451,443 British pounds; the company has been in business since 2010 with a total of over 20,000 transactions; it currently offers loans of 10,000 British pounds to 3 million British pounds for company invoices. Sources
MarketInvoice has launched a new product for invoice discounting; MarketInvoice Pro provides an open funding line through new technology that will make invoice financing easier and faster for businesses with an ongoing need for funding; to support the new product growth, MarketInvoice recently received a 7.2 million British pound ($9.04 million) investment from MCI Capital and Northzone Partners; with the launch of MarketInvoice Pro the firm plans to double its lending for 2017 with targeted loan originations of 2 billion British pounds ($2.51 billion). Source
Anil Stocker and Aman Mehra from MarketInvoice talk with AltFi about how marketplace lenders are revolutionizing the credit underwriting process; specifically noting the speed of approvals from sophisticated credit underwriting models; also the seamless aggregation and decision process which Stocker says is faster and more efficient than banks; the success of the firm's underwriting has helped it to maintain a steady client base and also gain endorsement from the UK's British Business Bank. Source
Veritas is a specialist in commercial credit management services; through the partnership, MarketInvoice will be available to customers using the firm's VeritasVirtual platform; clients use this platform to monitor the status of outstanding payments and will now be able to obtain access to the MarketInvoice Pro credit line through the VeritasVirtual platform. Source
The UK's MarketInvoice, a working capital lender for businesses, has been gaining significant market traction and is reporting ambitious plans for future business growth; it is estimating total lending of 2 billion British pounds ($2.5 billion) by the end of the year and is planning to offer its service to incumbent banks; the firm has also appointed Zopa's Giles Andrews as its chairman and hired Shaun Alexander as head of risk to improve its risk reporting, integrate more artificial intelligence programming and facilitate greater deal communication with large traditional banks. Source