Clarity Services is a leading alternative credit data provider; the firm has published a new report titled, "2017 Subprime Lending Trends Insights into Consumers and the Industry" which analyzes alternative credit data from the firm's database of approximately 60 million unique consumer identities; provides details on consumer trends and the financial behavior of this market group. Source
Online real estate lending platform PeerStreet has partnered with Wealthfront; PeerStreet will integrate with Wealthfront's Path offering; the integration has been facilitated by Quovo and will allow PeerStreet customers to view their PeerStreet investments holistically within their entire Wealthfront investment portfolio. Source
The New York Department of Financial Services continues to thoroughly investigate the business practices of online lenders; a proposal is in process that would require increased regulation for online lenders; specifically new regulations would be instituted for all lenders making personal loans of $25,000 or less and business loans of $50,000 or less and would also apply to online lenders involved in soliciting loans and buying loans. Source
Offering products to retail investors is something a lot of online platforms have struggled with as they look for diverse funding sources; the panel at LendIt USA 2017 entitled: New Models of Raising Debt and Equity Funding: eREITs & More with Kendall Davis of Fundrise, Jilliene Helman of RealtyMogul.com and moderator Mesh Lakhani of Mark 2 Capital discussed one of these retail options; panelists focused on how they source deals, inbound versus outbound sales teams, and how you must learn to be selective when looking at dealflow; the eREIT is a good portfolio addition for investors, it is long term and lacks volatility; panelists also discussed their thoughts on the new Trump administration and future innovative ideas for their platforms. Source
Firm has been providing working capital financing for small and medium size businesses (SME) for three years; reported working capital funding of approximately $200 million in 2016 and estimates total funding through 2017 to reach $700 million; firm primarily lends to retail, IT services, business services, media and entertainment, engineering and construction through its flexible working capital financing and Flex Credit product which offers revolving business credit lines of up to $100,000. Source
Jon Stein first looks to the past of investing in stocks with significant milestones such as the introduction of index funds, trade automation and decreasing trading costs leading to the ability to be easily diversified; thus old models of charging people to trade or to be diversified don't work; looking at the current and future trends Jon discusses that investors are now more responsible than ever for their own retirement and need advice; Jon Stein shares how Betterment is providing financial advice to more people; the company manages over $8 billion in assets and has 240,000 customers. Source
Yirendai is being sued by shareholders for inadequate transparency, regulatory activity and risk management regarding Chinese government regulations; the company has requested the court toss the case; the case is focused on worst case revenue predictions that the company says were never realized. Source
Moven has agreed to extend its exclusivity rights with TD Bank in Canada for another five years and broaden the agreement to the US; the exclusivity rights in the US are likely to result in a US launch of the partnership's money management tool, the MySpend app, which allows users to track spending and receive notifications; expansion of the white label app from Brett King's Moven is expected to add significant value for the fintech firm. 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
The Trump administration has announced a White House innovation office that will focus on modernizing technology of federal government departments; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will oversee the innovation office; private sector technology executive advisors to the innovation office include Tim Cook from Apple and Bill Gates from Microsoft. Source