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.
Zopa aims for enough growth to stop explaining its name from The Telegraph – Good profile of Zopa and the UK p2p lending market in The Telegraph.
Europe ABS Bankers Eye Loan Markets Designed to Sidestep Banks from Bloomberg – The securitization market for p2p lending will get going in the UK this year.
SoFi Said to be Exploring Launch of REIT as Range of Services Expand from Crowdfund Insider – SoFi keeps breaking new ground, now they are looking to start a REIT.
Profiting from Peer-to-Peer Lending from AARP – The AARP has a story out this week on p2p lending – I think it is a great option for retirees.
Marketplace Lending Vintage Performance from Orchard – Orchard analyzes charge-off rates by FICO scores for LendingClub and Prosper.
Online Lender SoFi Launches Hedge Fund to Buy Its Own Loans from The Wall Street Journal – More SoFi news – this time in The Wall Street Journal. They are launching a hedge fund.
Growth of Financial Tech Industry Requires Unified Regulation from The New York Times – More on fintech regulation and what might be coming.
Online Finance Draws on Geographical Data, Raising Questions from The Wall Street Journal – Many investors, myself included, have used state as a filter when investing in marketplace lending loans.
The Short History And Long Future Of The Online Lending Industry from Forbes – Great opinion piece by marketplace lending skeptic Matt Harris in Forbes. Don’t agree with everything but it is a must read.
Why FinTech is the WORST. from Medium – A sobering reminder that we are in a very challenging industry by Savneet Singh.
Lending Club CEO: Not Seeing Broad Credit Deterioration (Video) from Bloomberg – Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, talks about their stock price, regulation and the economy.
Impressions from the P2P Investing Day in Prague from P2P-Banking – Investors and p2p lending platforms from Central and Eastern Europe gathered in Prague this week.
Bondora Has Now Processed Over € 1 Billion in Loans from Crowdfund Insider – European p2p lending platform Bondora has reached the milestone of €1B in loans processed.
This student-loan startup says it has the killer feature to beat big lenders from Yahoo Finance – The competition in student loans is heating up with Earnest emerging as one of the new leaders.
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.
Are there enough loans or are the big banks taking control? – Investors discuss time to fund for loans on Lending Club.
Credit Card / Debt Consolidation – An investor asks about the difference between borrowers who select a loan status of debt consolidation versus credit card.
Where are the 36’s? – Lending Club investors discuss recent loan availability on the platform.
LC just increased loan limit from 35k to 40k – The forum discusses Lending Club’s recent move which increased the max loan size to $40,000.
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.