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.
Fifth Third Bank teams with QED Investors for fintech innovation from Banking Technology – A new type of bank partnership: the leading fintech VC firm QED Investors is partnering with Fifth Third Bank.
Chinese Peer-to-peer lender Ppdai.com plans US IPO, likely raising up to US$200m, report says from South China Morning Post – Another leading Chinese online lending platform is looking to IPO in the US in the first half of 2017.
Ford Takes Step Toward Online Car Shopping With Fintech Investment from The Wall Street Journal – 2016 PitchIt Lendit winner AutoFi has secured a major deal with Ford Credit to help car buyers secure a loan.
‘Chinese Dragons’ Overtake U.S. in Financial Tech Investment from Fortune – China has overtaken the US as the world leader in fintech investment according to Fortune.
Argon Credit enters Chapter 7 Bankruptcy from Lending Times – Looks like the end of the road for Argon Credit as they enter Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Weekly Industry Update: January 22, 2017 from PeerIQ – In the latest PeerIQ newsletter they tackle trigger breaches in recent marketplace lending securitizations.
Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana on Partnerships, Banking Services & P2P Lending Trends from Crowdfund Insider – In this interview the CEO of Zopa says point of sale and auto finance are areas of focus in 2017.
Why Funding Circle Exited Spain from deBanked – Sean Murray has the scoop on why Funding Circle decided to leave Spain.
Money360 Expands: Appoints David Christensen & Kenneth Wood As New Directors from Crowdfund Insider – Two real estate veterans moving to the future of real estate as Money360 hires new directors.
Peer-to-peer savers still denied Isa tax-breaks – nine months after they were promised them from The Telegraph – In the UK only 17 companies are approved for Innovate Finance ISAs, none of the big 3 p2p lending platforms are yet.
Doubts Arise as Investors Flock to Crowdfunded Start-Ups from The New York Times – The CEO of SeedInvest sees potentially a hard road ahead for many equity crowdfunding investors.
loanDepot at $100 Billion in Loans: A Top 5 Mortgage Lender from Crowdfund Insider – The numbers are staggering. loanDepot has funded $100B in total loans with $38B coming in 2016.
Fintech doesn’t need D.C.’s help from American Banker – Great thought piece by Ryan Gilbert on why we should not wait for fintech reform in Washington.
Aegon to Invest 1.5 Billion EUR in Auxmoney Loans; Leads 15M Series E from P2P-Banking – Wow. Aegon will invest €1.5B in German platform auxmoney in Europe’s largest ever funding commitment.
With MoneyGram, China’s Ant Financial Gets an American Base from The New York Times – I think Ant Financial is going to become the largest financial services company in the world. Here is their first foray into the US.
PayPal Is Shifting from a Balance Sheet to a Hybrid Model from LendIt News – Looks like PayPal is opening up their platform to outside investors adopting a hybrid model.
Making Loan Data Actionable: Transforming, translating, and assuring data quality and consistency across originators from Orchard – The online lending industry needs data standards, Orchard is at the forefront of this movement.
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.
The Good Old Days – Investors share performance of portfolios that included loans selected by P2P-Picks’ models which are no longer available.
What loan purpose to avoid? – Investors discuss loan purpose and which stated loan purposes tend to lead to higher returns.
Does LC Suffer Fools Gladly? – The forum discusses recent loan performance, loan allocations at Lending Club and risk.
