Lending Club Sends Investor Letter on Interest Rate Increases

Lending Club’s CIO, Siddhartha Jajodia, sent a letter to investors on October 14 alerting them of an increase in interest rates; Lending Club says it will increase loan rates by a weighted average of 26 bps with rate changes mostly concentrated in the lower credit quality loan grades; the rate increase follows a previous weighted average interest rate increase of 135 basis points from November 2015 to June 2016; the rate increase is consistent with a lower credit quality trend observed from the platform’s borrowers as well as a higher trending rate environment in the US; additionally the firm also reported changes to credit policy standards and improvements to its collections efforts.