South African bank Capitec could be acquiring up to 49% of European online lender Creamfinance; the bank has structured an investment deal with three tranches totaling 21 million euros ($22.81 million) and an additional financing round which could include an additional 5.4 million euros ($5.9 million) if shareholders choose to sell an additional 9% stake in the company; Creamfinance provides online consumer loans in six global markets: Poland, Latvia, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Denmark; Capitec says it has been analyzing international investments and sees Creamfinance as a good fit because of its business model and specifically its technology-driven approach. Source
HSBC has shared insight from the development of its HSBC SmartSave app which it developed within the Financial Conduct Authority's Regulatory Sandbox initiative in partnership with Pariti; the app provides personal finance management services using algorithms and four customer plans; overall the app has proved successful, saving customers 63.17 British pounds ($78.80) per month; of the four service plans HSBC reported "Rounding Up" to be the most popular, allowing customers to round up purchases to save spare change on transactions. Source
P2P commercial real estate lender Relendex has received authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority; the platform provides secured commercial property loans through its P2P marketplace lending platform and now plans to seek the offering of innovative finance individual savings accounts for its investors; in comments regarding the authorization, Michael Lynn, the firm's founder and chief executive officer said, "FCA full authorization marks a fantastic start to 2017 for the Relendex team and platform which will further encourage and facilitate investment in commercial property from both our UK and foreign investors." Source
ID Finance has partnered with Latvian marketplace lender Mintos to list its MoneyMan loans on the platform's marketplace; current loans will be issued to Spain ranging from EUR 300 ($326) to EUR 1,200 ($1,304) with a repayment period of 30 days to 4 months; ID Finance is the first network originator to offer Spanish listed loans on the Mintos platform providing for enhanced cross-border diversification. Source
Nucleus Commercial Finance has lent over 500 million British pounds ($624 million) to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and is planning to ramp up lending in 2017; firm's lending products include asset finance, construction finance, invoice finance and cash flow finance and they are planning to add new products as well as hire three new people for its asset-based lending team; the platform's lending has increased 100% since April 2016 and it is targeting 1 billion British pounds ($1.25 billion) in loans to SMEs in the next 12 months. Source
German-based marketplace lender Bitbond has partnered with African payments provider BitPesa to improve the lending experience for small and medium enterprise (SME) borrowers; Bitbond will enhance the blockchain lending services of its platform by incorporating cross-border payments through BitPesa; the BitPesa payments platform can make payments in 20 minutes and is now live in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania. Source
Saving Stream and Lendy have merged and will now combine operations under the Lendy platform; the platform will focus on property development lending and plans to triple its loan issuance in 2017; Paul Riddell, head of marketing and communications at Lendy had the following comments regarding the merger, "Unifying our lender and borrower brands together under one banner – and on a single online platform – is a step that allows us to streamline our process and make our offering simpler for the entire market." Source
RateSetter is ending its wholesale loan program after discussions with the Financial Conduct Authority; the Financial Conduct Authority has requested P2P lenders not undertake wholesale lending which provides loan capital to other businesses and financial institutions specifically for the purpose of lending; in 2016, RateSetter reported 114,347,646 British pounds ($142,591,515) in wholesale lending. Source
The P2P Global Investments Trust has reported February performance; NAV return of 0.38% was helped by the firm's current buyback program and is the 33rd consecutive month of positive NAV returns since inception; 12 month return is 3.92% and inception to date return is 14.20%; investment manager is actively diversifying to reduce exposure to US consumer loans and shift to European real estate and bonds. Source
Europe's Baltics region has seen significant growth in fintech and specifically P2P lending in recent years; growing P2P lenders in the region include: Viainvest, Twino, Savy, Mintos, Investly and Bondora; in Continental Europe Twino is the third largest P2P consumer lending platform and Bondora recently obtained full authorization from the UK Financial Conduct Authority. Source