The Times provides more detail on issues of transparency at RateSetter; reports that RateSetter made loans in partnership with Wellesley and Archover; according to The Times, RateSetter lent via these platforms, utilizing them as a source of borrowers; around GBP10 million ($13.05 million) in property development loans were lent in conjunction with Wellesley which were repaid in full in April 2016; GBP1 million ($1.31 million) in loans are still outstanding with Archover; a RateSetter spokesman reported that no new loans with these competitors are being issued. Source
News Roundup
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The "Facebook Initiative" has helped increase lending at Irish credit unions and now 15% to 20% of loan inquiries come through the social networking site; the program initially started out as a pilot project and has moved into a key source of new leads; half of consumers that used this program never borrowed from a credit union before; the process involves a 30 second inquiry online, then lending officers call the borrowers to ensure they understand what they are borrowing; this is part of a broader move by the Credit Union Development Association (CUDA) in Ireland to spur innovation in finance. Source
The Fund is increasing its dividend for the first time in eighteen months; dividend will increase to 1.7 pence per share after five consecutive quarters at 1.5 pence per share; the Fund currently has GBP343 million ($447.12 million) in assets and has been increasing its allocation to balance sheet investments. Source
Abundance sold 72% of all Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) products in the last year; this represented 62% of investment into the new product overall; while the P2P lender is happy with their success they realize their market lead will diminish as they were one of a few platforms approved in the last year; a host of other platforms, including top lender Zopa, have been approved recently and the numbers are sure to be more widely spread out among a larger group of platforms; Bruce Davis, co-founder and joint managing director of Abundance, tells AltFi, "Abundance's success is very much the good news part of the Innovative Finance ISA story to date." Source
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
A new wave of IPOs by mainland Chinese fintech companies is taking shape; P2P companies in particular are hungry for fresh capital to reinforce their business growth; two mainland-based P2P operators – Yirendai and China Rapid Finance – are currently traded in New York; Sorghum Investment last month announced a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed China Commercial Credit which would make it the third. Source
Hong Kong financial regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), has announced that tokens issued via initial coin offerings (ICOs) may be classified as securities; the classification may extend beyond ICOs into digital asset exchanges dealing in the tokens. Source
PayPal will hold its PayPal Incubator in Chennai; the five startups selected for the PayPal Incubator include Finbox, Neoeyed, Paymatrix, Scalend and Tybo; the incubation program is in its fifth year and PayPal will be taking an undisclosed stake in each company; the program also offers technology counsel and mentorship, infrastructure support, and networking opportunities with investors and customers. Source
The Raiden project has deployed a test network making it one step closer to implementation; the solution plans to allow for faster payments and lower fees by moving transactions off of the ethereum blockchain creating an alternate network channel; if successful the project could enable over a million transactions per second. Source