A replay is now available for LendIt's Marketplace Lending 101 forum which was held on Wednesday, January 18; Peter Renton from LendIt and Andrew Dix from Crowdfund Insider answered questions from participants about the marketplace lending industry and discussed how to effectively invest in marketplace loans; many of the topics discussed will be covered further at LendIt USA in March.
Lend Academy provides details on how marketplace loans are performing at Lending Club and Prosper; delinquency rates have been increasing since the third quarter of 2014; less risky loan grades have continued to report the best performance; lower quality loans have suffered increased degradation specifically since the third quarter of 2014; Prosper has made fewer interest rate changes than Lending Club and it seems its higher risk loans are performing slightly better; Lending Club announced additional changes to the platform on January 18th. Source
SoFi is advertising job openings in Australia and appears to be planning international expansion of its mortgage lending business; firm has been expanding its mortgage lending in the US, now offering mortgage loans in 27 states; the expansion to Australia would be the first international effort for the P2P lender and one of the first marketplace loan offerings for mortgages in the country. Source
Funding Circle reported originations of 306 million British pounds ($375.12 million) in the fourth quarter of 2016; originations accounted for 36% of lending from the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association's (P2PFA) member firms; the platform's lending is close to surpassing Zopa, the market leader in the UK; at the end of 2016 Funding Circle had originated a total of 1.8 billion British pounds ($2.21 billion) while Zopa has originated 1.9 billion British pounds ($2.33 billion); loan volume growth is expected to continue for Funding Circle in 2017 after announcing in January a 40 million British pound ($49.04 million) investment commitment from the British Business Bank and a 100 million British pound ($122.59 million) equity investment; all of the data released by the P2PFA is available on their website. Source
A replay is now available for LendIt's Marketplace Lending 101 forum which was held on Wednesday, January 18; Peter Renton from LendIt and Andrew Dix from Crowdfund Insider took questions from participants about the marketplace lending industry and discussed how to effectively invest in marketplace loans. You can view the webinar replay here:
OnDeck has announced a new partnership with Wex that will provide credit financing options for Wex's customers; Wex currently provides payment solutions and credit services for corporations and small businesses; the partnership will offer OnDeck's loans of up to $500,000 and credit lines of up to $100,000 for Wex's customers. Source
Credible is one of the success stories in online lending today. The leading online exchange for student loans has just closed their $10 million Series B funding round that we have been told was "a significant up round." Australian fund manager Regal Funds Management led the round that also included Prosper President Ron Suber. Credible doesn't lend money itself. Instead, it has deep integrations with many of their lending partners (such as CommonBond and College Ave) allowing borrowers not only to compare interest rates but to only see those rates with a high likelihood of approval. Source
BorrowersFirst has secured $100 million in new debt funding from Waterfall Asset Management; firm will use the funding primarily to support lending volume growth for its online consumer loan business; firm funds its loans through on-balance sheet debt facilities and whole loan sales with originations by Cross River Bank. Source
As Lend Academy discussed in their November 14 blog post, banks are eager to partner with fintech companies; banking partnerships have taken three forms including: bank-fintech-bank (BFB), fintech-fintech-bank (FFB) and bank-fintech-fintech (BFF); choosing to co-brand or white label is also a significant factor to consider in banking partnership deals with white label services helping banks to cross sell their products; two major banks, Goldman Sachs and PingAn, have created their own online lending platforms; SunTrust has also been an industry leader with its acquisition of online lender LightStream in 2012. Source
Since launching in 2015, Sharestates, a real estate crowdfunding company, has crossed $275 million in originations across 323 loans; in December 2016 the company originated $42 million, nearly doubling total loan volume in just over three months; average net yield to investors has been 11%; Sharestates recently announced they were raising their Series A through SeedInvest; the company is currently profitable and was previously a finalist for PitchIt@LendIt. Source
