Marketplace Lending News Roundup – January 23, 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.

Chinese P2P lender Lufax valued at $19bn in latest funding round from Financial Times – Chinese p2p lending platform Lufax just raised a staggering $1.2B valuing the company at $18.5B. Wow!

P2P Loans: A Future Disaster? from The Motley Fool – Plenty I disagree with in this article. It fails to mention returns to investors have been solid.

Interview with co-founder Peter Renton, LendIt (Video) from V.QQ.com – I was in China earlier this month and recorded this interview with one of our partners there. (It is in English)

As More Pay by Smartphone, Banks Scramble to Keep Up from The New York Times – The fact that millennials are about to dominate the economy is good news for marketplace lending.

AltFi Australasia Summit 2016 from AltFi – I go down under in a few weeks to the AltFi Australasian Summit. Hope to see the Aussie p2p lending platforms there.

Former Goldman Sachs Employees Launch Neyber Consumer Lending Platform from Crowdfund Insider – In the UK Neyber has launched a different kind of consumer lending platform.

Fintech Fireside: Missed Opportunities, And the Challenge of Drawing the Right Conclusions [Video] from Credibly – The latest video in my fireside chat series with Glenn Goldman of Credibly.

S.F.-based LendUp says it may use $150M funding to double staff this year from San Francisco Business Times – Congrats to Sasha Orloff and the LendUp team on their $150M Series B funding round.

Industry Profile – Erich Bonnet from Orchard – The latest Orchard industry profile: Erich Bonnet of Smart Lenders Asset Management.

Davos 2016: Why London fintech can transform the 21st century from City A.M. – Lawrence Wintermeyer of Innovate Finance at Davos talking about fintech and the impact it will have on the world.

Online Lending Platform WeLab Gets $160M Series B To Expand In China from TechCrunch – Hong Kong based WeLab closes an impressive $160M funding round for its p2p lending platform.

The Next Great Investment Idea? Somebody Else’s Lawsuit from Forbes – Don’t think it is ready for the masses but here is an interesting idea – investing in lawsuit loans.

VCs have pumped up the value of the “unicorn” startups. Now tech IPOs are in trouble. Good luck getting out. from Fortune – Is the party over for Silicon Valley backed tech startups? asks William Cohan in Fortune.

First Associates’ Headcount to Balloon from Asset-Backed Alert – At First Associates their marketplace lending loan servicing business is booming. Nice write up in Asset-Backed Alert.

A new flavor of fixed income (video) from CNBC – Brendan Ross talks about his fund, risk, banks & small business lending in this CNBC segment.

Regulations Galore Part II: Peer to Peer Lending in China from Crowdfund Insider – Interesting commentary by Spencer Li on the proposed p2p lending regulations in China.

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.

LC declining stock price: a signal? – Some investors are taking a closer look at Lending Club’s stock price given the recent decline.

“Charged Off” as a percentage of Interest – One investor asks about charge offs as a percentage of interest received.

My Lending Club Returns: 6.5% – This thread touches on many aspects of calculating p2p lending returns accurately.

  • 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.