Boris Batin and Alexander Dunaev have grown a successful lending startup after partnering together and launching ID Finance in 2012; the company is an online balance sheet lender that has been expanding throughout Russia, Europe and South America; the partners claim a digital lending business model that can launch and obtain profitability in nine months; part of their success is attributed to identifying challenging markets with growth potential that traditional banks have not entered. Source
Prospect Capital is a publicly traded business development company investing in marketplace loans; Lend Academy talks with Chris Johnson who runs marketplace lending investments at Prospect Capital Management; Chris talks about the firm's investing strategy and its allocation to marketplace loans which includes Prosper, Avant, Lending Club and OnDeck; Chris also talks about Prospect Capital's involvement with securitization, their investment approach for 2016 and 2017, their new closed-end fund and his perspective on a marketplace lending secondary market. Source
Gregory Keough has been instrumental in providing an industry solution for emergency financing relief through his platform Finova Financial; the firm was founded to provide a consumer friendly emergency consumer loan product with the goal of being a gamechanger for the high risk payday lending industry; in addition to the recognition of the firm's CEO, Finova has also recently received several other industry accolades including: the US Firm of the Year award for Lending Innovation by the 2017 Fintech Awards, nomination to the Fintech 100 list of the world's leading financial technology innovators and the Consumer Affairs partner accreditation. Source
According to Bloomberg, defaults have triggered a breach in a 2015 SoFi bond deal; Bloomberg provides some details on the breach, reporting that the SoFi loans backing the bonds averaged more than $35,000, were unsecured and were from prime credit borrowers with annual salaries averaging around $130,000; the SoFi breach adds to worries about rising defaults overall which have been a factor for bond deals and troubled lenders in the marketplace lending industry. Source
In Orchard's Weekly Online Lending Snapshot, the company introduces a new section on US marketplace lending funds and highlights the growing business also noting RiverNorth's November 17 webcast, "Incorporating Marketplace Lending into an Institutional Portfolio"; notable data points from the snapshot include monthly gains in publicly traded companies for Lending Club, Yirendai and Square; in UK listed funds, the Ranger Direct Lending Fund continues to lead returns with a monthly gain of 2.27%; the RiverNorth Marketplace Lending Fund also has a monthly gain, with a return of 0.84%; in securitization the snapshot has Lendmark Funding Trust as the most recent securitization with a pricing date of October 26. Source
Yirendai has announced it will release its Q3 unaudited earnings on November 15, 2016, after the US markets close; analyst Peter Engelwood is reporting that in the last quarter, institutional investors have increased their percentage holding of Yirendai's equity by 1.53%, to a total of 6.20%; the stock has risen from approximately $20 to $29 in the past month. Source
Online mortgage broker Trussle is currently in the early stages of talks with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to potentially overhaul the mortgage application process; the plan that Trussle is pitching to the FCA is to help standardize documents needed in a format that they are needed in; Mr. Mahli told FTAdviser: "There's an unnecessary inefficiency in the way mortgage applications are packaged and submitted, which varies wildly from lender to lender. Uncertainty is the last thing a buyer wants when making what's often the biggest financial decision of their life."; currently the FCA will not comment on talks that are in such a nascent stage. Source
Online real estate investing marketplace RealtyMogul has announced it will now allow self-directed IRA investment through its MogulREIT I; provides the benefit of passive investment income through a retirement account; MogulREIT I will also now allow for automated dividend reinvestment which can help add to compounding returns for IRA accounts; the product has also announced the inclusion of two new property investments located in San Antonio, Texas and West Chester, Pennsylvania. Source
Bpifrance has invested in a co-financing fund managed by the Lendix platform; the investment from Bpifrance brings the fund's investments to EUR90 million; the fund invests in loans for French and European companies borrowing on the Lendix platform. Source
Deutsche Bank has reported increased defaults in commercial mortgage backed bonds tied to malls and retail stores that they underwrote in 2012 and 2013; the bank is suggesting investors short the BBB- rated portion of the 2012 Markit CMBX price index, known as the series 6, which they say is tied to these investments; their analysis sees these bonds with pre-crisis attributes which successful investors shorted to avoid losses. Source