Marketplace Lending News Roundup – February 11

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.

SoFi Plays It Safe With Super Bowl Ad – And Kind of Wants to Be Your Bank from deBanked – A look at SoFi’s Superbowl ad and how different it was to what they did last year.

Global fintech investment up 10.9% to $17bn, UK down a third from AltFi – The latest sign that Brexit is impacting UK fintech – investment down 33% but up 11% globally.

Four Advertisers Bet on Super Bowl Overtime and Won Big from The Wall Street Journal – More on the SoFi Superbowl ad. It would only run if there was overtime. Turned out well for them.

Dead End for AssetAvenue? from Crowdfund Insider – The first major real estate platform failure? Crowdfund Insider is reporting AssetAvenue is no longer making loans.

Fintech is stimulating Chinese consumption and capital flow from TechCrunch – There is serious fintech innovation happening in China today.

Innovative app-only banks are doing something old fashioned — lending money from Business Insider – Berlin based digital bank N26 has added lending to its product offerings.

Proposed OCC National Fintech Charter Comments & Feedback from Crowdfund Insider – On Crowdfund Insider a best of compilation of responses to the OCC Charter.

First major peer-to-peer Isa becomes available, offering up to 4.7pc tax-free from The Telegraph – In the UK Lending Works has become the first major p2p lending platform to offer an IFISA.

P2P losses hit Victory Park Capital’s fourth-quarter returns from Peer2Peer Finance – Q4 was another bad quarter for Victory Park Capital with negative returns.

An end to the nascent P2P wholesale lending market from Financial Times – In the UK RateSetter is winding down its wholesale lending business after receiving clarity from the FCA.

As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened from MIT Technology Review – Fascinating piece on tech at Goldman, “Marcus is entirely run by software with no human intervention”.

SoFi to sell student loans to small banks through Promontory from American Banker – Community banks will now be able to invest in student loans originated by SoFi.

What Trump’s Rollback of Dodd-Frank Means for Marketplace Lending from Forbes – Nav Athwal, CEO of RealtyShares gives his perspective on what a rollback of Dodd-Frank would mean for marketplace lending.

House reintroduces bill to end “FICO monopoly” at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from HousingWire – Now, this is interesting. Congress is debating the use of alternative credit scoring models.

US Fintecher Float Live, Fresh from $3M Angel Round from Crowdfund Insider – New mobile-centric consumer lending platform Float has launched in California and Utah.

Why Lending Startups Like Float Want To Ditch The FICO Score from Fast Company – The FICO score is one data point. It is still relevant today but many companies want at a more complete picture.

Does this sound familiar? Peer lenders are packaging loans and selling them to Wall Street from CNBC – Securitization is one of the growth areas for marketplace lending and I think that is a good thing.

Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance Publishes Africa & Middle East Alternative Finance Report from Crowdfund Insider – The first ever study of alternative finance in Africa and the Midde East has been released.

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.

Tax Implications of heavy buying and selling on Folio…will this cause a.. – Forum members revive an old thread on tax implications of purchasing notes on FOLIOfn.

Prosper Results 2016 – Investors share returns on Prosper for 2016.

What loan purpose to avoid? – Investors discuss performance of loans based on stated purpose.

Worst Month Yet – Investors share January loan performance.