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.
What’s Ailing Marketplace Lending Stocks? from Finance Magnates – It has been a great year for marketplace lending platforms but not for their share prices.
Orchard’s Most Interesting Charts of 2015 from Orchard – At Orchard they regularly produce interesting charts. Here are the best from this year.
New Year’s Resolution: Financial Apathy is a Challenge for the Alternative Finance Industry & Must Be Addressed from Crowdfund Insider – Interesting question on the challenges facing the UK (and possibly the US) p2p lending industry.
Want to See Technology Taking Over Finance? Look at China from The Wall Street Journal – There is so much innovation happening in financial services in China today. We can learn a lot from them.
Bankers, Bulls, Activists: The People of Finance to Watch in 2016 from The Wall Street Journal – A deserving Mike Cagney CEO of SoFi makes The Wall Street Journal list of The People of Finance to Watch in 2016.
Why income investors should consider peer-to-peer lending from MarketWatch – This is not really news to us but good to see this coverage of p2p lending for income investors.
The Year Nothing Worked: Stocks, Bonds, Cash Go Nowhere from Bloomberg – Not mentioned here but one of the best performing asset classes of 2015 was marketplace lending.
P2P Industry Leaders Honoured from AltFi News – Big congrats to Samir Desai of Funding Circle and Giles Andrews of Zopa for their New Year awards.
Fintech and banks shaking hands from Banking Exchange – Banking partnerships was one of the major themes of 2015 especially among the top platforms.
Financial startups are getting an edge by growing up from Fusion – Companies like Lending Club, SoFi and Affirm are maturing and “have become vastly more sophisticated”.
Year End Review of My Bondora Portfolio from P2P-Banking – Claus from P2P-Banking shares his (excellent) return details on Bondora.
Fintech Moved Mainstream: Reflections on 2015 from Crowdfund Insider – The highlights of 2015 in the broader fintech industry.
Inside J.P. Morgan’s Deal With On Deck Capital from The Wall Street Journal – More thoughts on this landmark deal.
China’s online P2P lending almost quadrupled in 2015: report from Xinhua – The p2p lending market in China is booming. Report says 2,595 platforms issued US$151B in loans in 2015.
Amazon starts offering loans to customers with pay monthly option from The Guardian – In the UK Amazon has started offering installment loans on orders over £400.
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.
Are there enough loans or are the big banks taking control? – A new investor asks if there is still room for retail investors with all of the institutional interest in p2p lending.
“DIRECT_PAY” / Updates to Lending Club API data – Lending Club recently announced a new segment of borrowers where the loan amount must go towards paying off existing debt.
Does FICO trend / historical FICO scores influence your opinion of a loan? – A forum member asks other investors if they take into account FICO trends when purchasing loans.
