Marketplace Lending News Roundup – August 1, 2015

News

During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter as it happens. Then every Saturday I take the most interesting news items and blog posts from the past week and share them here.

Learnings from LendIt China 2015 from Orchard – Great write up by Jeremy Todd of Orchard on the LendIt China Tour earlier this month.

How safe is peer-to-peer lending? from The Telegraph – In the UK John Ficenec of The Telegraph asks if p2p lending is safe. Giles Andrews of Zopa helps explain the risks.

Does Goldman Sachs Have Another Billion-Dollar Business In The Works? from The Motley Fool – The Motley Fool weighs in on Goldman Sachs intention to start an online lending platform.

The Finanser Interviews: Giles Andrews, Co-Founder and CEO, Zopa from The Financial Services Club Blog – Excellent in depth interview of Giles Andrews by Chris Skinner of The Financial Services Club.

Treasury Department Starts the Regulatory Ball Rolling for Marketplace Lenders from Pepper Hamilton LLP – The attorneys at Pepper Hamilton provide their thoughts on the Treasury’s request for information on marketplace lending.

TRLPC: MOVES-Macquarie’s Edwards joins CommonBond as CFO from Reuters – Another banker jumps ship to marketplace lending. CommonBond hires a former top manager at Macquarie.

Congress Funds The SBA So It Can Resume Lending from Gaebler – And they are back…The SBA loan guarantee program has been funded by congress and the limit increased.

Funding Circle to float fund to invest in small business loans from Financial Times – Funding Circle is becoming the first UK p2p lending platform to launch their own fund.

Online Lender SoFi Gets First AAAs on Its Student-Loan Bonds from Bloomberg Business – This is huge. SoFi will get a AAA rating from DBRS on their latest $400M offering.

Will marketplace lending be ready for increased regulatory scrutiny? from PwC – PwC have released a short white paper in response to the Treasury’s RFI.

Prosper Increases Allocation to Fractional Pool from the Prosper Blog – Good news for Prosper retail investors – there are more loans coming into the fractional pool.

China Rapid Finance raises $35M series C to take on China’s white-hot P2P lending market from Tech In Asia – China Rapid Finance is a fascinating company with a unique niche. They just raised $35M.

What I Learned at FinFair 2015 from P2P Lending Expert – Stu Lustman reviews this week’s FinFair 2015 conference in New York.

As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enters fifth year, Cordray eyes new targets from U.S. News – Head of the CFPB on marketplace lending: “So far it has been a pretty consumer friendly industry.” Good to know.

Lenders Pitch Refinanced Loans to Former Students (Some of Them) from the Wall Street Journal – Fascinating look at the student loan refinancing industry featuring CommonBond and SoFi.

From the Lend Academy Forum

The Lend Academy forum is where investors go to discuss p2p lending. Below are some topics that were being discussed this week.

Investing in loans over $25K – Forum members discuss whether loan size is an important factor in default rates.

History + Future – Discussion around Lending Club loan allocation to retail investors.

Is “expected monthly payments” shown on My Portfolio Page up to date? – A new investor on Lending Club asks about expected monthly payments.

  • Peter Renton

    Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of Fintech Nexus, the world’s largest digital media company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series.