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.
The Evolving Nature Of P2P Lending Marketplaces from TechCrunch – Interesting commentary on how the nature of marketplace lending is moving to tech-enabled lending.
Lending Club paves way for rivals from Financial Times – Everyone is beating up Lending Club because of their stock price but I agree with Laplanche that sentiment will turn.
Everything you need to know about Real Estate Crowdfunding from Crowdsourcing – Good primer on real estate crowdfunding.
Chinese Online Lender Lufax to List in Hong Kong or Shanghai from The Wall Street Journal – Lufax,the world’s most valuable online lender, is set to IPO this year in Hong Kong or Shanghai.
Investly Launches Invoice Finance for UK SMEs; Raised 600K from Speedinvest from P2P-Banking – Another platform launches in the UK.
Bondora Surpasses €50 Million in P2P Loans from Crowdfund Insider – Estonian p2p lending platform Bondora has passed the €50 million milestone.
Moven Partners with Loan Refinancers Payoff and CommonBond from Bank Innovation – One of the more innovative fintech startups is Moven. Now they are partnering with CommonBond and Payoff.
Peer-to-peer power? Finance tech comes to solar energy from GreenBiz – Today marketplace lending is reaching all kinds of niches including solar energy.
Biggest Global Banks at Davos: We’re All Fintech Innovators Now from Bloomberg Business – Interesting that fintech was one of the major themes coming out of Davos this year.
Faircent.com, Lendbox.in and other peer-to-peer lending platforms gain popularity, draw RBI gaze from The Economic Times – Good overview of the nascent p2p lending market in India.
Fintech Fireside: “Rays of Sunshine” in Marketplace Lending, With Peter Renton [Video] from Credibly – The latest video in my fireside chat series with Credibly CEO Glenn Goldman talking about “rays of sunshine” in marketplace lending.
EQUITY ALERT: Rosen Law Firm Announces Investigation of Securities Claims Against LendingClub Corporation – LC (press release) from Business Wire – This is not good news for Lending Club – a possible class action lawsuit is being prepared.
Proposed Innovative Finance ISA must adapt or perish from AltFi – Everyone in the UK is talking about the new ISA. Here is a good article from the founder of Goji.
Prosper, which bought Israeli BillGuard, sees riches in startup struggles from Geektime – Fascinating article about the history of Prosper, their acquisition of BillGuard with comments from CEO Aaron Vermut.
Update on Madden v. Midland: Cert. Decision Expected Soon from Pepper Hamilton LLP – According to Pepper Hamilton the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear the Madden case by the end of March.
Santander Said Close to Selling $1 Billion of LendingClub Loans from Bloomberg Business – Santander used to be a large Lending Club investor, now they have almost completed the sale of their $1B loan portfolio.
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.
How to fund Fundrise account? – Fundrise’s eREIT has started to make several investments since launching in early December, 2015.
Santander exiting Personal Lending Business – The forum discusses the news of Santander getting closer to selling their $1 billion of Lending Club loans.
Using Automated Investing – Advice, Please – An investor asks whether they should increase the amount they invest in per loan.
These class action lawsuits are not news. They have been on Bloomberg for most of last year and hundreds of companies face them all the time with no material impact to the business.
There are dozens of trolling law firms hoping to land as lead plaintiffs in a class action case. These law firms put out these press releases and hope that someone contacts them because they’re unhappy with the share price performance. The attorney that signs up the person with the largest complaint gets to take the lead in the class-action suit and collect the largest fees. That is if there is even a case that a judge will hear.