Marketplace Lending News Roundup – August 29, 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.

Banks should be afraid, the disruption of financial services has only just begun from The Telegraph – Great piece by Simon Champ of Eaglewood on the future of p2p lending and banking.

LendingRobot and NSRInvest, “les fiancées” of LendingClub from Daily Fintech – More on the partnerships between Lending Club, LendingRobot and NSRInvest.

Know your ThinCats from your RateSetter: a guide to peer-to-peer lending from BRW – A guide for investors to the Australian p2p lending market.

Zopa Crosses the 1 Billion Pound Mark from Orchard – Digging into the Zopa loan book, the UK’s first £1 billion platform.

Dianrong Receives $207 Million Cash Infusion from Investors to Boost Operations from Yibada – Dianrong, one of China’s leading p2p lending platforms, just closed a $207 million funding round.

Behind Zopa’s first billion from Zopa – Fascinating infographic from Zopa detailing their first £1 Billion lent.

Fintech Spotlight: An Unsecured Debt Bubble? Or Is This Time Different? from Finance Magnates – While there is strong investor interest I don’t see a bubble in unsecured credit.

When unicorn companies want more than cash from Fortune – Renaud Laplanche calls the Google funding in 2013 “the most value-added investment we ever had.”

How the UK Leads the World in Marketplace Lending from Orchard – My guest post on Orchard on the UK p2p lending industry.

Survey shows commercial lenders under threat from non-bank players from Finextra – Money quote: “68% of banks believe partnering with a non-bank lender will be the best way to revive their commercial lending business”.

Wall Street Said to Limit Support for Online Lenders from Bloomberg Business – Some large investors are becoming more cautious now in funding marketplace lending loans.

Top Financial Services Companies on the 2015 Inc. 5000 from Inc. – Congrats to Kabbage and Prosper, both are in the top 100 fastest growing private companies in the U.S.

Funding Circle is doing so well it hasn’t touched the £97 million it raised in April from Business Insider – According to CEO Samir Desai FundingCircle UK and Funding Circle US combined are doing $100M per month now.

More investors turn to P2P lenders for high yield from CNBC – Good primer about p2p lending as an alternative investment.

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.

Desired Grade Distribution – An investor asks others how they manage what loan grades they purchase.

What Percentage of Your Investments Should be in P2P Lending? – Revisited – Investors discuss how much you should invest in p2p lending.

Sell Strategy – Forum members discuss their note selling strategies.

What does your “Understanding Your Returns” page look like? Here’s mine – Members of the forum continue to share their Lending Club results.

  • 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.