During the week I share the latest marketplace lending and fintech 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.
Silicon Valley Explores a New Investment: Your Home from The Wall Street Journal – A new kind of investment is gaining some traction, investing in the equity of individual homes. Good roundup of this new trend.
Funding Circle set to hire Morgan Stanley to lead London flotation from Peer2Peer Finance News – Looks like Funding Circle is moving one more step closer to their reported 2018 IPO. They are set to hire Morgan Stanley as their lead banker.
Lending Works chooses Credit Kudos to power new Open Banking initiative from Finextra – More open banking moves in the UK. Lending Works and Credit Kudos are teaming up to help automate credit and income verification.
ING Diba Buys Lendico from P2P-Banking – The German division of Dutch banking giant ING has bought struggling p2p lending platform Lendico.
Weekly Industry Update: Rebounding Equity Markets, The Case for Bank M&A from PeerIQ – The PeerIQ newsletter this week takes a fascinating look at the potential of bank M&A in the online lending space.
Crypto lending platform nears launch from AltFi – New cryptocurrency lending platform getting set to launch in the UK.
The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies 2018 from Fast Company – Congrats to CommonBond who join an esteemed list of companies including Apple, Netflix, Square and Amazon as one of the 50 most innovative companies on the planet.
As challenger banks seek to enter the US, the business model still faces hurdles from Tearsheet – There are several European digital banks looking to launch in the US this year. The fintech space is about to get more interesting.
Groundfloor launches online public offering from Bankless Times – Real estate platform Groundfloor is conducting an online IPO allowing non-accredited investors to buy equity in their company.
The balancing act in digital bank lending from AltFi – Interesting take by Ryan Weeks on the new credit card announced by Tandem in the UK.
Anyfin bags €4.8M Series A to let you refinance your existing loans by taking a photo from TechCrunch – This is such a simple premise I am surprised that no US platform has positioned themselves this way. From Sweden: take a photo of your credit card statement and apply for refinancing.
Here’s another way Amazon and banks are collaborating from American Banker – Here is an interesting collaboration between Amazon and banks. The venture arms of SunTrust, Ally and Amazon have joined forces to invest in Greenlight, a new debit card for kids.
Q4 2017: An update from our CIO from LendingClub – The LendingClub Chief Investment Officer shares his quarterly update on portfolio performance, economic updates, and platform enhancements.
LendingPoint Co-founder Weighs in on Lending Club’s Earnings Report from deBanked – More coverage of the LendingClub earnings report, this time from LendingPoint co-founder Juan Tavares.
NY Fed finds fintech mortgages quicker, less risky than bank loans from The Hill – The Federal Reserve continues its interest in fintech, this time studying its impact on the mortgage market.
FinTech in Focus from Milken Institute – I always enjoy the Milken Institute fintech newsletters put out by Jackson Mueller. Even some bonus Olympics coverage in there this week.
Eastern Bank readies reboot of successful tech lab from American Banker – This 200 year old bank is also one of the most modern in its approach to innovation and fintech. Just goes to show age is not necessarily an indicator of willingness to change and adapt.
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.
LC Fourth Quarter 2017 Earnings Release and Conference Call Tuesday 2/20 – Forum discuss LendingClub’s latest quarter.
IRA preferred custodian change – LendingClub recently changed their preferred custodian for IRA accounts.
Opinion on Wunder Solar Funds – Some investors are looking into investment opportunities in solar.
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.