Funding Circle recently announced it would be shifting away from manual lending to auto bidding; with the change Funding Circle follows its two closest competitors Zopa and RateSetter who only offer auto-bid options; with auto-bid investors gain access to more diversified investments; P2P Finance News outlines the UK P2P industry auto-bid platforms versus manual bid platforms. Source
Zopa has promised its investors it will speed up the time for selling loans on the platform after investors complained of loan sale times taking weeks; the platform has identified this as an issue, reporting in a blog post, "Recently, some of our processes have been running slower than normal, resulting in it taking longer for you to sell loans and access your money early."; Senior Developer Joe Hutchinson says the platform has been working to upgrade its technology with steady progress and it has more enhancements planned which will provide more capacity on the server improving performance significantly over the next few weeks. Source
Habito has raised its Series B funding round, led by Atomico; existing investors Ribbit Capital, Mosaic Ventures and Revolutionary (Ad)Ventures also participated; total funding is now EUR27 million ($35.14 million) for the London based company; the company brings the mortgage process online, describing itself as a digital mortgage broker; one of their biggest competitors is Trussle; funds will be used to integrate with major retail banks and high street lenders; Habito also plans to expand offerings to other parts of the mortgage process including home and life insurance. Source
Source reports on increased passive investment in UK P2P lending; notes Funding Circle's removal of manual loan investing and a greater number of platforms offering "black box" investing; IFISAs are supporting this trend as well as UK platforms offering the accounts with diversified loan investments. Source
Funding Circle led originations for August with loan issuance of EUR99.3 million ($118.18 million); Zopa followed closely behind Funding Circle with EUR87.4 million ($104.02 million) and RateSetter reported loan issuance of EUR38.2 million (45.44 million); the report does not include US marketplace lending platforms. Source
Assetz Capital is a large P2P lender in the UK and now has authorization from the FCA; the company has lent more than GBP316 million ($410 million) to businesses and is now working on the final stages of its Innovative Finance ISA which it expects will be available in Q4 2017; Stuart Law, CEO of Assetz Capital, stated: "Our cautious approach of employing a world-class credit underwriting team and taking realisable security on loans is essential for our investors' peace of mind. Our focus remains to ensure the growth and security of our lenders' investments, as well as the success of our borrowers' businesses. Our team has done fantastically well to deliver such success to all of our stakeholders over the last few years and yet there is also so much more to achieve ahead of this milestone and we are all excited about the continuing journey." Source
New research from Equifax Touchstone shows that automated investment has become a wider trend in P2P and wealth management; 82% of 141 surveyed investment advisors said they have a consistent approach to allocation and monitoring for clients; P2P platforms like Funding Circle recently removed self selection and instituted an autobid process for investors; John Driscoll, director at Equifax Touchstone, tells AltFi, "This approach helps strike the right balance between risk and return, particularly important in a world of increased market volatility."; according to Driscoll the FCA has been a main driver of this trend to ensure risk is maintained correctly for investors. Source
MiFID II legislation is likely to come into play on January 3, 2018; the legislation will regulate trading activities and further investor protections; article highlights the impact across financial services with robo advisory and high-frequency trading directly influenced. Source
ISA statistics were released on Thursday by HMRC; last year two thousand Innovative Finance ISA accounts were subscribed with retail investors collectively investing GBP17 million (USD $22 million); this compares to GBP22.325 billion ($28.94 billion) into stocks and shares and GBP39.191 billion ($50.81 billion) into cash ISAs; about one third of money invested into IFISAs on P2P platforms last year was from transfers; while the accounts opened and amount invested were low it still shows appetite for such products. Source
The marketing initiative coincides with the firm's recent rebranding announcement and is part of the company's "Made to Do More" campaign; it is spending GBP12 million ($15.51 million) across media and specialist channels with a focus on business borrower and capital investor awareness; the firm has been a market leader in investment deals in 2017 recently announcing a partnership with Aegon and reporting a $100 million fundraising in January. Source