Marketplace Lending News Roundup – June 2

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.

For richer or poorer: why bank M&A is back after 10 quiet years from Financial Times – The return of bank M&A could have an interesting side effect for fintech platforms. I expect we will see more bank->fintech acquisitions as well.

A return to bank-payday lender partnerships? Not on Otting’s watch from American Banker – The OCC wants banks to make short term loans but not as a partnership with a payday lender.

Rising Rates, Reg Reform Bill Passes – VantageScore win, TransUnion Summit 2018 from PeerIQ – The latest PeerIQ newsletter has the latest fintech news and a look at the impact of prepayments and their impact on lender profitability.

Online Lenders Tighten Rules After a Wave of Defaults from Bloomberg – This is not news for Lend Academy readers. Yes, defaults have been on the rise for some time. But there is an interesting graph showing the recent increase in average credit scores at Prosper and SoFi.

Better Get Your AI Game On from Prime Meridian Capital Management – AI and machine learning are transforming many industries. Fund managers in the online lending space are applying it to the vast amounts of data available in an attempt to increase returns.

Why Fintech Should Be Welcomed, Not Feared from LinkedIn – The emergence of fintech in Asia has the potential to impact billions of people by expanding access to financial services like never before.

Former Amex chief backs immigrant credit score provider from Financial Times – Impressive Series A for Nova Credit, $16M from the firm of the former CEO of Amex. Congrats to Misha Esipov and the team on the funding round.

Starling Bank raising another £80M, ends partnership with TransferWise from TechCrunch – The money keeps flowing in for UK digital banks. Starling Bank has just closed on £80M in funding.

Why Foreign Investors Love U.S. Commercial Real Estate, And Why More Will Follow from Forbes – The CEO of Money360 discusses why commercial real estate is a popular place for foreign investors in the US.

Goldman Sachs leads $250m Tradeshift funding round from Finextra – The latest fintech unicorn is supply chain finance leader Tradeshift raising $250M this week at a $1.1B valuation from Goldman Sachs and others.

Mortgage investors want to make it easier for gig-economy workers to get loans from The Washington Post – Good to see the venerable Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are working on ways to help gig economy workers obtain mortgages. Lots of work needs to be done here.

How credit card issuers are prepping for the next downturn from American Banker – The CEO of American Express and others  are tightening credit standard as the thing about the next downturn.

Too broke to own a home? These startups will fund your American Dream from Fast Company – There are a number 0f startups taking creative approaches to help people buy a home today.

When Tandem met Harrods: we had ‘sir’, but we didn’t have ‘dame’ from AltFi – A fascinating look inside the deal between a digital bank and an old and established traditional bank.

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.

Now, feel a little less bad about paltry returns – Forum members discuss a recent WSJ article about ROA at credit card companies.

Account Liquidation- How did you get the last of your notes to sell? – Investors provide updates on divesting their IRA accounts.

Investing with Bondora – Forum members discuss the wide variety of loans available on Bondora’s platform.