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.
Funding Circle Picks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley for IPO from Bloomberg – The long awaited Funding Circle IPO keeps moving forward. According to Bloomberg they have chosen the bankers to lead the IPO and the timing will be Q2 or Q3.
Making the Business Case for Financial Health from CFSI – New report out today from CFSI on financial health and why focusing on this is good for both customers and shareholders.
HSBC hopes to launch ‘open banking’ app within months from Financial Times – Looks like HSBC will be the first major UK bank to launch an app that takes advantage of the new Open Banking rules.
OnDeck Announces Chief Financial Officer Transition from OnDeck – After many years as CFO of OnDeck Howard Katzenberg is moving on. New CFO is Ken Brause formerly of CIT.
Fintech-on-fintech M&A: Tandem acquires money management app Pariti from AltFi – A new fintech M&A deal in the UK as challenger bank Tandem has acquired personal financial management app Pariti.
Ant Financial Consumer Lending Reaches $95 Billion from Bloomberg – In China Ant Financial has become one of the largest consumer lenders on the planet with a reported loan book of $95B.
10 key findings: Sexual harassment in the professional workplace from American Banker – Important new study on sexual harassment by SourceMedia who owns American Banker and other finance publications.
WeChat: the real Beast from the East from The Finanser – WeChat, the ubiquitous messaging app owned by Tencent, is close to a billion users and is a dominant force in China today.
Preliminary 2017 Small Business Financing Leaderboard from deBanked – Which small business lending platforms loaned the most in 2017? deBanked has the answer with their annual leaderboard. Although if they shared their numbers PayPal and Amazon would also no doubt be on this list.
Include short-term loan repayment in credit scores from American Banker – Great piece by Sasha Orloff on how we can improve the credit scores of the subprime population. It is simply not good enough that short term loan payments are not included in credit scores today.
New SoFi CEO Anthony Noto on the 3 things his fintech company must do to outpace competition from CNBC – The new CEO of SoFi talked with Jim Cramer yesterday on the three things his company needs to focus on to be successful.
Chinese Fintech Yirendai Unveils Fourth Quarter & Full Year 2017 Financial Results from Crowdfund Insider – Another solid quarter from Chinese online lender Yirendai showing growth in both originations and profits.
LendInvest unveils second retail bond from Peer2Peer Finance News – Leading UK property lender LendInvest has announced their second publicly traded bond issue following up from their successful issuance last August.
Huge UK tech exit as Experian acquires 2-year-old credit checking startup ClearScore for £275 million from Business Insider – In the UK Experian have made a sizable fintech acquisition of credit scoring platform ClearScore.
New Business Models and Emerging Technologies are Enabling Fintech Companies to Improve Financial Inclusion from The Financial – Important new report out this week from the IFC on Financial Inclusion in the Digital Age.
Fundbox Positions Its Credit Closer To B2B Payments from PYMNTS.com – Really interesting move by Fundbox this week looking to revolutionize the archaic system of B2B payments.
The Third Age of Credit from Techcrunch – Fascinating piece by Nik Milanovic (formerly of Funding Circle, now with Petal) on the past, present and future of credit.
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.
Automatic Interest Distributions – A new marketplace lending investor asks if there is a way to withdraw interest payments from notes instead of reinvesting.
Account Liquidation- How did you get the last of your notes to sell? – An investor asks how others have been able to sell their last remaining notes.
Prosper 1099 Tax forms for tax year 2017 – Forum members discuss the tax forms provided by Prosper.
