During the week I share the latest marketplace lending and fintech 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.
Levchin: Why The Affirm-Walmart Partnership Is More Than POS Credit from PYMNTS.com – The Affirm/Walmart deal announced last week is one of the most important partnerships we have seen in fintech. Karen Webster talks with CEO Max Levchin to get the story behind the deal.
Police launch fraud investigation into Revolut from Financial Times – Times are not getting any better for Revolut. We now learn that UK authorities have launched a fraud investigation into the company.
AI Helps Auto-Loan Company Handle Industry’s Trickiest Turn from The Wall Street Journal – The AI space continues to heat up for financial services firms and one of the leading players is ZestFinance. Great piece in the WSJ about how they are working with some big names in finance helping them assess creditworthiness in new ways.
US mobile bank Chime raises $200 million, valuing its business at $1.5 billion from TechCrunch – The mobile banking space is arguably the hottest niche in all of fintech today. Chime has just raised $200 million at a $1.5 billion valuation to become the latest fintech unicorn.
Square Capital head: We are leveraging data to extend credit to small businesses that lack access to traditional loans from CNBC – The head of Square Capital, Jackie Reses, was on Mad Money on CNBC yesterday talking small business lending and expanding capital access with the help of their proprietary dataset.
PayPal smashes £1 billion barrier for UK small business lending from Finextra – In the UK PayPal is quietly becoming a force in small business lending, having just crossed £1b in total loans issued.
Acquisition Costs Compared for GreenSky, Square, PayPal, OnDeck, Lending Club, and Prosper from deBanked – Interesting comparison of sales and marketing expenses at some of the top fintech lenders.
P2PFA members lent out £9.5bn with unexplained absence of MarketInvoice from Peer2Peer Finance News – The latest numbers from the P2PFA in the UK show that even without two of the largest players included cumulative lending is approaching £10 billion.
GreenSky, Amex to roll out partnership in five cities from American Banker – Yesterday GreenSky reported their 2018 results and for a change the market reacted positively to a leading fintech company earnings.
Funding Circle posts 55pc rise in revenues as it eyes Canada expansion from Peer2Peer Finance News – In the UK Funding Circle has reported 2018 results that also included the announcement that their next country for expansion will be Canada, coming in the second half of 2019.
Here’s what you need to know about the future of branch-less banking from CNBC – The CEO of Radius Bank talks about why they went branchless in 2012 and how their partnerships with fintech platforms gives them a competitive advantage.
California bank is working with fintech firm to help business clients from American Banker – Small business fintech lender P2Binvestor is partnering with community bank Pacific Mercantile Bank to help California businesses get more access to capital.
Tech start-ups go up against big banks on point-of-sale lending from Financial Times – Point of sale lending is hot right now with the entry of JPMorgan Chase into the fray. But fintech leader Affim is not intimidated by the largest US bank entering the space.
Can Citi and Chase beat fintechs at their own game? from American Banker – Big banks are starting to get more creative with their personal loan offerings marketing new products to their credit card customers.
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.
Loan Status – It’s always interesting to hear from an actual borrower who has received a loan.
Liquid P2P and Interest Radar joining forces to improve Lending Club liquidity – The owner of InterestRadar, one of the retail investing tools in marketplace lending clarifies the recent partnership with Liquid P2P.
Worst Month Yet – Some investors believe LendingClub is getting more aggressive with collections as they see more recoveries in their accounts.
