Lend Academy's Peter Renton provides insight on his marketplace lending investment strategies for Lending Club and Prosper loans; outlines the options available for investing and highlights best performing loan grades; reports details of loan filters he is using across his eight accounts. Source
Lending Club and Prosper allow for tax efficient investing on their platforms through an IRA; Lend Academy provides details on opening an IRA with Lending Club or Prosper and explains why investing in P2P lending is best done through an IRA. Source
Lend Academy reviews a session on applying blockchain to real estate after attending MIPIM, the world's largest conference dedicated to real estate; one company helping run a pilot is velox.RE; company is working with Chicago's Cook County on a program for transferring and tracking property titles as well as filing liens; the three perceived benefits are: a permanent, immutable public record that is immune to well-funded nation-state attacks, a path towards paperless land transfers and so-called "e-deeds" and reduced costs for offices across the country that want to upgrade electronic document processing systems; other applications for blockchain in real estate include tracking property ownership in emerging markets, real estate crowdfunding and tracking/transferring solar energy. Source
Yirendai released its Q4 2016 earnings after the closing bell on March 15; the Chinese online lender issued a US initial public offering of its stock in December 2015; Lend Academy provides an analysis of the company's Q4 2016 results in their article; the firm has been growing online loan originations by over 100% per year since 2013; mobile has been a significant factor for the company with 98.8% of online volume generated through Yirendai's mobile application and 85% of investors using the mobile application for investment; as a well-established firm, Yirendai is also benefiting from China's P2P regulatory focus and a higher quality portfolio of borrowers and lenders; the firm is expanding its product lines and also offering a new platform as a service product, the Yirendai Enabling Platform; it expects a similar pace of growth in 2017 with minimum projected loan originations of RMB 33 billion ($4.753 billion) compared to RMB 20.28 billion ($2.9 billion) in 2016 and minimum revenue of RMB 4.4 billion ($634 million) compared to RMB 3.2 billion ($466.4 million) in 2016. Source
Lend Academy provides more details on defaults triggering a breach in a SoFi securitization portfolio; the portfolio reporting the defaults was SoFi's first securitization of unsecured consumer loans, the SoFi Consumer Loan Program 2015-1 LLC; given the terms of the deal and the overall characteristics, the breach does not seem to have broad market indications; the deal arrangers set the trigger level at 3% which is a relatively low rate and the cumulative net loss is only reported to be marginally above the trigger; a chart from PeerIQ also provides more details on the cumulative net loss rates for SoFi. Source
Lending Club and Prosper were the first and for a long time the only online lending platforms available to retail investors; recently companies have leveraged Regulation A+ in order to open offerings across real estate and small business lending to retail investors; Lend Academy outlines additional companies open to retail investors including: Fundrise, RealtyMogul.com, Groundfloor and StreetShares. Source
Lend Academy talks with Andrea Jung of Grameen America in their podcast; Grameen America is a non-profit lender with a concept founded by Muhammad Yunus who has won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts; it provides small business loans to female entrepreneurs; Andrea talks about her career experience and the Grameen America business model, explaining how it has evolved from the original Grameen started by Muhammad Yunus; Grameen currently boasts a default rate of just 0.3% on $620 million of lending. Source
Lend Academy provides details on the tax documents you will receive as an investor in Lending Club or Prosper loans; most investors will receive a 1099-OID which details taxable interest income from investing; other forms may also include a 1099-MISC or a 1099-B; income earned from P2P loan investing is taxed as ordinary income; Lend Academy also outlines details on capital losses and capital loss carryovers which can vary by state. Source
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has published details on its fintech charter in a 16-page supplement to its existing OCC licensing manual; the fintech charter supplement addresses capital requirements, liquidity, financial inclusion plans, consumer protection and the application process; Lend Academy provides an analysis in their article; the release of the fintech charter will now be followed by an open comment period which ends on April 14; also noteworthy is that Thomas Curry's term as comptroller ends on April 9 however he can serve until a replacement is confirmed. Source
Lend Academy provides insight and highlights from the event's keynote speakers in their article; day one featured Scott Sanborn from Lending Club as the event's leading keynote speaker and also included three keynote presentations on regulation in the industry from Congressman Patrick McHenry, Comptroller Thomas Curry and CFPB Director Richard Cordray; day two began with Alex Tapscott discussing blockchain and followed with a variety of insights from leading industry innovators; Lend Academy also reports on PitchIt and the LendIt Industry Awards additionally including key takeaways from the event overall; videos from the event will all be published within the next few days and can be found on the LendIt USA 2017 video page. Source