After considerable outcry the Cleveland Fed has removed their study about online lending; “In light of the comments received, the authors are currently revising their paper to further clarify the data sample they used in the study,” Cleveland Fed spokesman Tim Dewald said in an email to American Banker; they plan to post a new version of the paper after completing significant revisions. Lend Academy also covered the removal of the report after posting about the release last week. Source.
According to data from TransUnion, financial technology groups originated $15 billion of personal loans in the first half of 2017; this represents nearly a third of the total US market for new personal loans; John Wirth, vice-president of fintech strategy at TransUnions stated, "fintech business model appears to be working nicely. Their use of the latest technology . . . has likely helped them become leaders."; Source
Once seen as a niche segment of finance online lenders are now originating billions in loans each year; the bigger they get the questions start to arise if they can handle an economic downturn and are their underwriting models good enough; American Banker digs into the overall industry by looking at securitization growth, whether or not traditional banking is dead and more. Source.
In his first public appearance in over a year Renaud Laplanche, the CEO of Upgrade, gave a presentation this past...
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Matt Burton, CEO and Co-Founder of Orchard.] The past nine months have...
The report will be released on a quarterly basis going forward and will look to cover credit performance trends; highlights of the report include continued credit re-normalization across all major lending groups and consumer installment lenders are not anticipating an increase in loss rates; they also cover the shift in the competitive landscape where more banks are investing heavily in tech and that the US consumer is quite healthy right now. Source.
Initial results from a congressional investigation shows that minority business owners are more likely to seek a loan from a fintech firm and potentially pay a higher fee; Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) wants to further explore whether or not these lenders are aggressively targeting these borrowers and offering higher rates; the investigation has focused on online lenders and their underwriting practices for emerging minority owned businesses. Source.
Every year Inc. pulls together a list of the top 5000 fastest growing private companies in the United States. This...
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Gordon Suber, the father of Ron Suber, soon to be President Emeritus...
According to the New York Times the long awaited online lending platform from Goldman Sachs now has a name: Marcus....