UK online lender WiseAlpha has added corporate bonds to its investment offerings on the platform; previously the firm primarily focused on offering corporate loan investments; the corporate bonds will expand the platform's institutional debt offerings and the firm will also allow for trading on its secondary market. Source
Zopa, who specializes in unsecured consumer loans may be looking to expand into secured loans, specifically the auto segment; the company sees a healthy level of demand but a generally poor consumer experience; Zopa's Chief Marketing Officer Amy Miller stated, "People are getting poor deals in that area and end up paying significantly higher annual percentage rates than they would if they arranged their financing before going into a dealership."; the company is also reportedly considering other loan terms, such as 18 month loans as well as a balloon payment loan. Source
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. The EU announced last week that it would suspend the Growth and Stability Pact....
The Ranger Direct Lending Fund has reported plans for share issuance totaling 200 million British pounds through 2017; the Fund currently has a 40 million British pound issuance planned for December; it also raised 30 million British pounds in July and 23.2 million British pounds in November of 2016; according to a statement from Ranger Direct Lending, "The company believes that debt instruments originated or issued by direct lending platforms are an attractive and growing asset class that have the potential to provide higher returns for investors than other, more widely available, fixed income products."; growth from the asset class and potential returns are factors driving the new issuances. Source
RateSetter has announced new terms for its lenders which will go into effect on March 1; the new terms provide increased transparency for lending activities; they also give greater flexibility to the Provision Fund through a new stabilization period; changes made to the lender terms since October 2015 can be found here. Source
The construction sector accounts for approximately 16% of invoices financed on the MarketInvoice platform and issues from construction company Elimco UK have uncovered some new potential risks for the sector; Elimco UK has stopped making payments to the platform; in most cases MarketInvoice as the lender would receive preferred rights to the company's payments however in the construction sector set off rights give the customer preference of payment which has caused the construction company to default with MarketInvoice; the total amount of losses reported for MarketInvoice has not been disclosed; the company says its overall loss rate is 2.4% after recoveries; the firm also says it does not have plans for data filtering by industry category since it would lead to cherry picking loans. Source
Government-owned British Business Bank has added challenger bank OakNorth to its Help to Grow program; allows the company to receive loan funding of up to 2 million British pounds ($2.43 million); OakNorth is the first challenger bank to join the Help to Grow program; the funding follows a recent announcement of three new executive hires for OakNorth to support anticipated lending of 500 million British pounds ($608.39 million) in 2017. Source
Giles Andrews launched Zopa, the industry's first peer-to-peer lending platform, in 2005; he has now taken on a new role as the chairman of MarketInvoice; MarketInvoice provides P2P financing for small business invoices giving them an alternative source for working capital; Giles Andrews will help the firm scale its business and reach its 2017 goal of 2 billion British pounds ($2.48 billion) in lending. Source
Sibstar supports carers in managing day-to-day money safely, giving them peace of mind as they continue to enjoy everyday activities.
The long awaited new rules for P2P lending in the UK are now here; the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced...