Marketplace Lending News Roundup – May 27

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.

Bond Buyers Forgive and Forget, Flock Back to Online Lenders’ Debt from The Wall Street Journal – Institutional investors are back with high demand across marketplace lending.

A ‘paradigm shift’ is taking place in financial technology from Business Insider – VCs are pulling back from fintech investments but incumbent firms are picking up the slack.

Weekly Industry Update: Prosper Marketplace Issuance Trust (PMIT 2017-1) from PeerIQ – Great analysis of the newest Prosper securitization.

If banks wait for APIs to be mandated, it will be too late from American Banker – Europe is leading the way with open banking but the same could happen in the US.

Yirendai Reports First Quarter 2017 Financial Results from PR Newswire – Listed Chinese platform Yirendai (YRD) reports Q1 results beating on earnings and revenue.

TransferWise launches ‘Borderless’ account for businesses, sole traders and freelancers from TechCrunch – The latest innovation from TransferWise is an online “borderless” bank account.

Something is happening in credit markets that has only happened around recessions in the last 50 years from Business Insider – Commercial & industrial loan volume has shown no growth for 30 straight weeks. Does this mean a recession is coming?

Funding Circle gains FCA approval from Peer2Peer Finance News – In the UK Funding Circle becomes the second of the big three p2p lending platforms to get FCA approval.

M&A hits Alternative Credit: MW Eaglewood to merge with Pollen Street Capital from AltFi – The leading fund manager in the UK, MW Eaglewood is merging its fund with Pollen Street Capital.

Irish peer-to-peer lending platform receives UK authorization from Independent.ie – The Irish p2p lending platform LinkedFinance has received FCA authorization in the UK.

Futuristic Fintech, With a Female Focus from The Wall Street Journal – Online lending platform Payoff has a personal finance coaching app for women called Joy.

Zopa to revamp peer-to-peer lending model from Financial Times – In the UK Zopa is getting rid of their Safeguard fund as they prepare to launch their ISA product.

Prosper Closes $495 Million Securitization Transaction from Prosper – Yesterday Prosper announced they have closed a $495 million rated securitization.

SoFi co-founder Dan Macklin is leaving the company from TechCrunch – Dan Macklin was the first person I ever spoke with at SoFi back in 2012. Now he is leaving.

RateSetter matches investors with borrowers for clean energy from The Sydney Morning Herald – Interesting idea out of Australia. RateSetter is launching a clean energy loan marketplace.

Prosper Performance Update: April 2017 from Prosper – The monthly portfolio performance letter from Prosper is out with expected 2017 returns higher than ’14-’16.

RateSetter boss confirms IPO hopes and plans to increase asset-based finance from Peer2Peer Finance News – The CEO of RateSetter mentions an IPO is in their future with sources saying it may come in 2019.

LendingClub, ex-CEO must face U.S. shareholder litigation -ruling from Reuters – A federal judge in San Francisco rejected efforts by Lending Club and Renaud Laplanche to dismiss shareholder litigation.

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.

Why would someone borrow $9,500 to payoff credit card debt of $4,000 – Investors discuss why loan amount doesn’t always match revolving credit balance on debt consolidation loans.

Is Folio dead? – Forum members give their take on the current state of the secondary market.

2015 & recent loan quality – An interesting look at Lending Club loan performance across vintages.

  • 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.