The Americas Alternative Finance Report Released

There have now been a total of three studies completed by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. We first covered the UK report and the Asia-Pacific report, but they have now released the U.S. study titled Breaking New Ground. The full report was launched at LendIt USA 2016 today and was completed in conjunction with 257 online alternative finance platforms – it can be downloaded here.

The report highlights the growth of the industry, which has grown 9x in two years from $4.5 billion in 2013 to $36.5 billion in 2015. This is a threefold increase from an estimated $11.68 billion in 2014. The Americas market is dominated by the United States, accounting for 99% of alternative finance activity according to the report, but the report also discusses upcoming markets such as Latin America and Caribbean. Of those markets, Chile and Brazil make up $47.57 million and $24.15 million respectively of the $110.46 million total for 2015.

Other interesting data points from the report include:

• Consumer lending accounts for 71% of total volume in the region.
• Balance sheet consumer lending totaled $3.9 billion compared to marketplace/p2p consumer lending of $25.74 billion.
• Business lending reached $2.62 billion and equity-based crowdfunding totaled $598 million.
• Real estate crowdfunding is beginning to gain traction, hitting a total $1.26 billion in 2015.
• Institutional investors contributed 72% of total business loans and 53% of consumer loans.

These are just a few of the highlights outlined in the report. The entire report is a must read for those looking to understand what exactly is going on in the US market. It was nice to see such widespread representation from so many familiar names on the list of contributing companies.