Lending Times has reported numerous improprieties at Argon Credit causing further investigation; the firm filed for bankruptcy on December 16; an article from Lending Times says Argon Credit used proceeds from lending capital for personal interests; also says investments were not accurately disclosed and directed; firm is involved in bankruptcy proceeding with investor; former founder also had a criminal record. Source
News Roundup
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Low wage workers have always had a difficult set of expensive options when they try to cash their paychecks; bank accounts are costly because they cannot maintain certain balances and check cashing shops are not exactly cheap; WiseWage, a North Carolina based non profit is looking to offer another option; the company has struck partnerships with Regions Bank and Varo Money, among others, to offer a lower cost direct deposit; the prepaid cards have set fees which can be waived if enough is loaded each month; the program is meant as a test to see if they can enlist those who have dropped out of the financial system because of a lack of options. Source.
51 Credit Card, in cooperation with Harvest Investment, has launched an investment fund with RMB1 billion ($150 million); 51 Credit Card in particular favors companies with good online lending users, big data and traffic acquisition capacity. Source (Chinese)
During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter as it...
PeerIQ covered earnings season for the banking sector, the reported deal of JPMorgan's student loan portfolio to Navient and the plans of China Rapid Finance to go public on the NYSE; they also dug deep into credit card receivable securitization deals; they compared delinquency and loss levels of credit card deals to that of installment loan deals; comparing MPL ABS and credit card ABS is not exact, credit card deals are revolving that re-invest principal and interest over time; delinquencies for credit cards reached all time lows in 2016 while the unsecured installment loans have had a pattern of higher losses; peak delinquencies in a stress period for credit cards is around 8% while the installment loans are around 12%; now that PeerIQ has partnered with TransUnion look for more comparable data trends in future updates. Source
In this guest post Alexander Prokhorov from FinSight Ventures shares what trends his firm is focused on in 2018. Source
The Marketplace Lending Association has announced the addition of 11 new members bringing its total membership to 14; the organization launched in April 2016 with three founding members: Lending Club, Prosper and Funding Circle; LendIt has joined the consortium as an associate member along with dv01; all together the expanded membership broadens the scope of representation within the industry and also helps to give the association a more powerful voice in Washington as marketplace lending regulations evolve in 2017. Source
PNC Financial Services Group is looking to launch a national consumer lending product through their mobile app and new branches; they plan to launch into new markets with branches in Minneapolis, Dallas, Kansan City and more; “We're going there to be there with our full-service capabilities, patiently banking the clients that we ultimately want to bank,” Chairman and CEO William Demchak said this week; the new plans will take place in 2018. Source.
Banks of all sizes and core provider FIS have begun testing Amazon’s Alexa service to complete voice commands in banking; instead of customers logging into their banking app they would simply ask Alexa for a balance or to transfer funds; skills, as they are referred to, are constantly being refined as confusion over pronunciation still occur with the technology only being widely used in recent years; it is still early days for this type of technology to be used in a sophisticated way but the industry is showing that they are willing to test innovative ideas. Source.
People’s Bank of China Is Reportedly Inching Closer to Issuing a Digital...