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.
SocietyOne shuffles senior ranks as volumes accelerate from Australian Financial Review – Australia’s leading p2p lending platform SocietyOne has had a reshuffle at the top.
P2P Lending Platform BLender Starts Global Expansion with New EU Offices from Finance Magnates – Israeli p2p lending platform BLender is expanding to Italy and Lithuania.
Prosper Performance Update: August 2016 from Prosper – The monthly performance update from Prosper shows returns remain strong and Q3 FICO score is 713.
ABS East: Steve Eisman Brings Down the House (Again) from Asset Securitization Report – Yesterday Steve Eisman of The Big Short fame addressed a securitization conference for the first time since 2007.
Small Biz Loan Approval Rates Rebound at Big Banks, Institutional Lenders in August 2016, According to Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index from Biz2Credit – Interesting chart from Biz2Credit on trends in approval rates for different kinds of SME lenders.
P2P lending rediscovers balance sheet magic from Financial Times – In the UK RateSetter has decided to help a troubled business borrower with a £2M loan from its balance sheet.
SoFi launches employee benefit programme to reduce student debt from Finextra – I think this could be a big new trend. SoFi announces SoFi at Work, a new employee benefit program.
25% of global banks would buy a fintech company from Business Insider – Six out of ten banks worldwide would consider partnering with a fintech company.
Zopa readies £138m debut securitisation, receives Aa3 rating from AltFi – The second UK securitization is in the works, a £138M deal from Zopa.
McKinsey says digital finance adoption could add trillions to high growth economies from TechCrunch – Finance is going digital and it is going to add trillions to global GDP (new report by McKinsey).
U.S. House Bill Aims to Set Up ‘Sandbox’ for Fintech Innovation from The Wall Street Journal – Congressman McHenry has introduced a bill that would create a regulatory sandbox for fintech.
What happened to transparency for investors? from Business Insider – I agree with Perry Rahbar of dv01, more transparency is needed for online lending to thrive.
China’s largest P2P lender Lufax taps four banks for Hong Kong IPO: sources from Reuters – Lufax will be the largest IPO in the history of p2p lending when they launch in Hong Kong soon.
Bank referral scheme to go live early next quarter from AltFi – The long awaited bank referral scheme in the UK is set to go live shortly.
Marshall Wace unit launches private equity version of loans fund from Reuters – The company running the largest P2P lending public fund in the world is going to launch a private equity version.
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.
Folio Liquidity Anecdotes – A finance professor asks the forum for anecdotes of liquidity on the secondary market.
first-velocity-association? – An investor asks why all new notes originate from a user called “first-velocity-association”. It is the code name of Prosper Funding LLC, Prosper’s bankruptcy remote vehicle.
Current notes vs. late notes. insight? – A new investor shares their loan performance.
