Most people would agree that the two leading media publications today are the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
This morning, as I do every morning, I fired up the Wall Street Journal app on my iPad to read the latest news. And there on the front page was this article titled: “Consumers Find Investors Eager to Make ‘Peer’ Loans“. I knew this piece was coming because I had spoken with this journalist several times and I had been answering emails from her for over a month. But I had no idea they would put the article on the front page and I didn’t know it coming today. It was a very well researched piece that covered p2p lending from several perspectives including some details on a borrower who defaulted, something I had never read before. If you don’t have a WSJ subscription you can read the article on Yahoo Finance.
Then I see that the NY Times, in their DealBook section, has posted an article titled Not Banks, but Still Lending and Drawing Investors. This was a slightly different article focused on the investor side of the business both from a venture capital and loan investing perspective, also well researched.
So, today marks the first time in history that both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have published major articles on p2p lending at the same time. And these were not simply puff pieces, I learned something new by reading each article.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events 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. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.