Marketplace Lending News Roundup – July 30, 2016

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.

Prosper Said to Pitch Fund That Would Buy Its Online Loans from Bloomberg – It looks like Prosper is going to launch their own fund similar to what Lending Club did.

Interested in Fintech Stocks? This New Index Can Help You Choose Wisely from TheStreet – There is a new fintech index tracking the stocks of Lending Club, Square and PayPal.

Why Marketplace Lending Fund Returns Look Terrible from MonJa – Great explanation as to why marketplace lending fund returns look bad despite no increase in defaults.

Weekly Industry Update: July 24, 2016 from PeerIQ – The latest PeerIQ newsletter analyzes the recent SoFi and Marlette Funding securitizations.

Lending: A Geographical Analysis from Orchard – Interesting breakdown of consumer loan originations by state.

IPO on horizon, subprime lending startup Elevate adds $545M in credit from Victory Park Capital from TechCrunch – Huge new credit facility from Victory Park Capital for subprime lender Elevate.

The mortgage industry (finally) moves online from Tradestreaming – The biggest sector in online lending will eventually be real estate. It is slowly moving online.

Robo advisers’ next offering: Loans from Financial Planning – I see this as inevitable. Hedgeable say they will offer a P2P lending product soon. Others will follow.

A startup backed by the hero of ‘The Big Short’ is attempting to bring Wall Street to Main Street from Business Insider – Good profile of PeerStreet, the real estate crowdfunding platform for accredited investors.

THE UK P2P LENDING REPORT: Market forecasts, top growth drivers, and why the UK market is protected against the troubles facing the US from Business Insider – There is a new UK report out from BI Intelligence on p2p lending, predicting it will be a £15.9B industry by 2020.

With Goldman Sachs’ Entry Into Online Lending Looming, Peer-to-Peer Lending is Deader Than Dead from deBanked – I disagree with many points made by Sean Murray here but marketplace lending is certainly evolving.

Google Prohibits Payday Lending Ads, Buys Payday Lender from Business.com – Thoughts on the Google ban on ads from payday lenders that become effective this month.

Lending Club and the Marketplace Model from Lending Club – In a recent blog post Lending Club has reaffirmed their commitment to the marketplace lending business model.

Big Banks Turn Silicon Valley Competition Into Profit from Bloomberg – Big banks are taking on all aspects of fintech often by seeking partnerships.

Fraud caused 12% of losses in P2P online lending in 2014 from Lending Times – Fraud will always be an issue for online lending and will only become more important as we grow.

New platform offers repayment “guarantee” from AltFi – A new p2p lending platform in the UK is called Orchard Lending Club. Interesting name…

Is the dream of peer-to-peer lending beginning to fade? from RSA – I believe the dream of p2p lending is still alive but the author does make some valid points.

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.

What are late notes worth? – An investor asks the forum how to value late notes.

Question about Individual 401K (+question on bots) – One investor is looking into whether a solo 401k is an option with Lending Club.

Ready to Begin: but no C-E notes – A new investor asks about the availability of lower grade loans.

  • 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.