The primary focus in the online real estate market has been on consumer and residential products however a significant opportunity appears to exist in commercial real estate with the size of the market valued at approximately $3.5 trillion; HousingWire provides a recap of LendIt's commercial real estate panel featuring the three primary companies active in the space including: Cadre, Money360 and Plum Lending; panelists discussed the success of the their businesses and the main challenges for new entrants including the complexities of data sets and the lack of technology solutions for commercial market services. Source
This week's PeerIQ industry update mentions SoFi's securitization deal, solar lender Mosaic's signal to the market of their first ABS deal and a detailed explanation about trigger breaches; SoFi has announced plans to issue a $477 million unsecured consumer loan securitization; the market was very happy to hear news from Mosaic as this is the first solar deal since early 2016, though the size of the deal has yet to be determined; the trigger breaches seen in MPL ABS deals have hurt the securitization market and caused the cost of capital to rise among lenders; PeerIQ breaks down the current deals that have breached and what it means for the overall MPL ABS market. Source
The focus of the weekly update centered around how the Trump administration will try to ease the regulatory environment for banks and an explanation of the risk retention rule that recently went into effect; banks welcomed the executive orders signed by Trump, the regulatory burden has been high and cost of capital has continued to rise to meet the demands of Dodd-Frank; as of December 24, 2016 all asset types are required to adhere to a 5% risk retention requirement or skin in the game; this is meant to align investor interests with sponsor interests and make the securitization deal safer; PeerIQ goes into a detailed explanation and helps to provide answers to some of the questions surrounding the rule's implementation. Source
The US marketplace lending industry has matured with a number of self-regulating industry associations however the evolution of the industry and its integration into mainstream financial services has brought about increased regulatory attention which was one prominent topic for discussion at LendIt USA; HousingWire details the keynote speeches from Thomas Curry and Patrick McHenry also discussing insight from Amias Gerety; Richard Cordray from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was also a featured keynote speaker discussing government regulatory efforts pertaining to the industry. Source
Student loan trader Nate Huebscher reports on the simplicity and benefits of marketplace loans versus the traditional lending sources: Sallie Mae, Discover, and the US Government; interviews Jason Jones of LendIt and Karan Mehta of Marlette Funding; Huebscher discusses the wide variation in marketplace lending models; also reports on some of the market challenges ahead that could dramatically affect the next cycle of platform results. Source
The American Bankers Association (ABA) has endorsed Akouba as its marketplace lending partner; Akouba offers cloud-based white label technology for online business lending; the firm was chosen by evaluation from Aditya Khurjekar, CEO of Let's Talk Payments, and oversight from the ABA's Endorsed Solutions Banker Advisory Council. Source
According to Reuters, the American Bankers Association (ABA) is soliciting a marketplace lending partner; the Association acts as a consultant for small banks with less than $250 million in assets and the partnership would help the ABA in its vendor consulting efforts for these small banks; small banks are one subset of the market that has expressed significant interest in online lending and online lending partnerships. Source
Multi-lending platform Alternative Business Funding (ABF) will become the fourth alternative finance business to be involved in the UK's bank referral scheme; the bank referral scheme began in November 2016 and has been reporting success with over 8,000 SMEs being referred to alternative funding sources; the other three businesses in the referral scheme network include Funding Options, Funding Xchange and Bizfitech. Source
Ablrate was recently authorized by the FCA and is now launching their custom Innovative Finance ISA; Ablrate offers a self-select marketplace where investors hand pick the loans they look to invest in; this is one of many products the company will launch in this arena; Ablrate facilitates asset-backed loans with specialization in aircraft and capital equipment; they currently will take cash deposits for their IFISA but no transfers as David Bradley-Ward, CEO of Ablrate, tells AltFi, "We want to be able to get everyone going with their IFISA first and then allow transfers in from other providers after the first week of our launch." Source
The UK online lender was launched with a focus on secured aviation lending and has expanded to other types of transactions including secured capital equipment and property lending; it says the authorization will help it to expand and further concentrate efforts on its technological development; the firm has reported an 850% increase in loan volume in the last year; the firm has plans to launch in Australia and also expand to other regions. Source