Latvian marketplace lender Mintos and Creamfinance have partnered to list loans originated in Denmark and the Czech Republic; Creamfinance Financial Planning Director, Georgijs Ustinovs, said, "High investor demand for Creamfinance loans was our main motivation for adding a new market to the Mintos platform."; Mintos noted that the annual return to investors should reach 11%. Source
P2P-Banking has released its monthly report on loan originations; Funding Circle led originations for the month at 106.1 million euros, also reporting a new monthly high; Zopa and Ratesetter also topped the list; Zopa reported monthly loan originations of 85.3 million euros and Ratesetter had loan originations of 63.9 million euros. Source
Morgan Stanley has upgraded Lending Club's stock to overweight; the stock closed at $4.81 on Tuesday, November 2; analyst, James Faucette, notes the company's new executive leadership and positive capital growth potential for 2017; says the stock could increase to $17; company reports earnings on Monday. Source
SoFi has partnered with Fannie Mae to help its customers pay down student loan debt using home equity; already focused on student loans, SoFi's new Student Loan Payoff ReFi will allow homeowners to refinance their home and simultaneously pay student loan debt; with home equity, borrowers can combine their mortgage and student loans to make one loan payment on their debt. Source
B2B FinPAL, Ethis Kapital, FundedByMe Malaysia, ManagePay Services, Modalku Ventures and Peoplender have now been registered with the Securities Commission of Malaysia and plan to begin business in 2017; Malaysia is the first of the ASEAN countries to register P2P lending companies. Source
FT Alphaville provides interesting insight on a recently released report from Altus Consulting; cites "meteoric rate of expansion" of P2P with annual originations growing 70% per year; while the report gives the impression that P2P growth may be short lived, further details reveal how the expansion of interest is likely to create more institutional and retail products for investment; also notes innovation in fintech investing platforms which will help to increase interest in P2P investments. Source
Faircent has released a market report on P2P lending in India; report says Faircent, India's largest P2P lender, had funding of over Rs 1 crore ($150,000) in August 2016 and has been growing originations at a 15% to 20% monthly rate; report also provides insight on the platform's borrowers; in India, P2P platforms continue to await guidelines from the government which are expected to help improve business efficiency. Source
RateSetter's Provision Fund is a capital reserve that helps ensure investors get paid principal and interest even if loans default; currently the fund is valued at £22 million; with the company projecting future losses via default of £18 million, the "Provision Fund coverage" ratio is roughly 120%; now, the firm has begun publishing a "capital coverage ratio" that combines the reserve funds with the expected interest payments on the loans, then divides by expected losses; with £30 million in interest payments expected, added to the £22 million reserves, the capital coverage ratio is nearly 3x; RateSetter said the newly published ratio is more fair when comparing RateSetter's assurances against other online lenders that don't hold a reserve fund but that still calculate coverage of potential losses. Source
Marketplace lender, Spotcap, is headquartered in Germany and first launched in Spain; it now has opened an office in London and has begun serving the UK lending market; uncertainties with Brexit crossed executives' minds but didn't deter the launch; UK Managing Director, Niels Turfboer, said, "a lot needs to happen in the world [for London] to lose its position, which is basically number one in the world after Silicon Valley [for fintech]"; in fact, he adds, "Historically a period of uncertainty will lead to more restricted activity from the more traditional finance companies like the High Street banks. That has its effect mostly on the SMEs as they're considered to be more risky. I definitely think it's going to be a turbulent and challenging time but alternative finance will have more influence in the coming years, in my opinion."; the company focuses on offering working capital lines of credit for small businesses. Source
On November 3rd, On Deck Capital, the largest online small business lender in the US, reported its third quarter earnings; Lend Academy provides details of the earnings report in their article; company reported a loss of $16.6 million; it had reported a profit for the same period in 2015; the adjusted loss came to -$0.18 per share, versus Wall Street expectations of -$0.15 per share; originations increased from $590 million in the second quarter to $613 million for the third quarter; company expects full-year revenue of $280 million to $290 million; shares closed at $4.52, down from $9.46 a year ago; last week, it was publicized that Zhengyuan Lu, an executive for investor loan sales, is leaving the firm to join Victory Park Capital. Source