available states Archives

Van Eck Overland Launching a Closed-End Fund Investing in Online Loans

The first U.S. listed closed end fund for marketplace lending, a collaboration between UBS, Van Eck and Overland, files with the SEC.

July 28, 2015 By Peter Renton 11 Comments

Last week a new player emerged on the marketplace lending scene. A Form N-2 registration was filed with the SEC by Van Eck Overland Online Finance Trust to form a new, publicly traded closed-end fund. UBS, the world’s largest wealth management firm, was named as lead manager.

I have known Alex Dunev from UBS for quite some time. Alex leads UBS’ coverage of marketplace lending, so when I discovered this filing we, along with Steve Pierson, UBS’ Global Head of Financial Technology, had a phone conversation to discuss the offering.

The First Publicly Traded Closed-End Fund

The Van Eck Overland (“VEO”) closed-end fund will be the first listed closed-end fund that invests primarily in loans originated by online lenders. Van Eck is an investment management firm that has a long history with mutual funds and ETFs. Overland Advisors will be the sub-advisor of this fund with Peter Sterling as the portfolio manager. Sterling has been investing in marketplace lending for some time as the President of the Overland Direct Yield Fund. Alex Dunev commented: [Read more…]

Lending Club now open to Investors in Arizona and Texas

These two new states make a total of 30 states now available to investors on the Lending Club platform.

June 29, 2015 By Ryan Lichtenwald Leave a Comment

Investors from both Texas and Arizona will be happy to hear that as of today, they can now invest in Lending Club. Previously, investors from Texas and Arizona could only invest in notes through the secondary market FOLIOfn, but now they will be able to participate in the primary market. Although secondary market access is better than no investing at all, investing in the secondary market can be a labor intensive process and might have often resulted in investors paying a premium markup for newly originated loans.

We reached out to Lending Club for comment today and spoke with CEO Renaud Laplanche this evening. He indicated that these new states were added as part of a continuing strategy to open up Lending Club to more investors. They became available to Massachusetts investors in December and now have added two more states to bring the total to 30 states. When we asked Laplanche about more states he said that they are hoping to add additional states before the end of the year. But it is a labor intensive process involving extensive dealings with state regulators one by one, so it is not a quick process.

There are still several states that still remain as shown in the below image from Lending Club. [Read more…]

Map of Available States for Lending Club and Prosper Investors

June 12, 2014 By Peter Renton 26 Comments

Unfortunately, not all states allow investors to participate in p2p lending. I have written about this situation before but the bottom line is that every state has its own securities laws and some are more strict than others.

New potential investors want to know this: Is my state approved for investing with Lending Club and/or Prosper? To answer that question definitively I decided to create an easy to read map that will show everyone their different options.

The Definitive Map for Investors in Lending Club and Prosper

We have scoured through the most up to date information at Lending Club and Prosper to create this map below. We have color coded the map to make it easy for you to see where your state stands. And you can zoom in and out easily as well as drag the map to see where the different states stand. You can also click on each state for a quick summary of what is approved. And if you want see a slightly larger map just click here.

State approvals by color

Lending Club & Prosper
Lending Club only
Prosper only
LC Foliofn only
Not approved

Explanation of the P2P Lending State Availability Map

[Read more…]