Approved has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding and announced its launch; Approved provides lenders with a solution for moving their lending operations online; the platform technology provides for increased transparency and faster processing times; the company will target established originators seeking to modernize their lending businesses. Source
Able Lending has one of the industry's most unique business models, allowing small business lenders to source loans from their personal network to lower lending costs; Lend Academy interviews Will Davis of Able Lending for more insight on the platform's business; at Able Lending, personal network backers take a subordinated position, allowing the lead lender to get paid back first while offering a lower cost of borrowing overall; the firm has been successful with this lending model, reporting over 80% of loans utilizing backers; it has also seen steady origination growth, with volume growing from $3 million in the first year to $30 million in the second year and an expected $100 million in its third year. Source
In partnership with Quovo, SoFi has integrated an API for wealth management customer authentication and data aggregation into its platform infrastructure; with the API integration, customers can now link with over 200 financial institutions; the new API allows customers to pull in data from existing accounts for various purposes on the platform. Source
In Orchard's Weekly Online Lending Snapshot they provide some insight on the Marketplace Lending and Alternative Financing Summit, noting industry performance and data transparency as key themes; data points show gains from publicly traded companies in the industry led by LendingTree with a monthly gain of 19.93% and Square with a monthly gain of 16.17%; in the UK listed marketplace lending funds Ranger Direct Lending led monthly returns with a gain of 24%; the US listed River North Marketplace Lending Fund reported a monthly gain of 0.59%; the LendingClub Issuance Trust LCIT-2016-NP2 was listed as the most recent securitization issuance with a pricing date of December 1. Source
Prosper has announced a funding deal which has been in development since August; the firm has received an investment commitment for $5 billion over the next two years from a consortium of investors including affiliates of New Residential Investment Corp., Jefferies Group LLC, Third Point LLC and an entity of which Soros Fund Management LLC is the principal investment manager; the consortium is also being offered an equity stake which could account for as much as 35% ownership in the company and is expected to help promote a long term business relationship; the committed investment will represent a substantial increase for the firm which is likely to report approximately $2.2 billion in loan originations for 2016. Source
The Fed made one increase to the federal funds rate in December 2016 and economic market activity appears to be improving with the election of President-Elect Donald Trump; Rohit Arora of Biz2Credit says the outlook is optimistic for small business owners in 2017; with only one rate increase, borrowing rates are still low for small business owners and lenders are approving a higher percentage of loans; Donald Trump's plans to alleviate some of the burdens from Dodd-Frank on banks is also likely to help approval rates for small business owners. Source
MarketInvoice has launched a new product for invoice discounting; MarketInvoice Pro provides an open funding line through new technology that will make invoice financing easier and faster for businesses with an ongoing need for funding; to support the new product growth, MarketInvoice recently received a 7.2 million British pound ($9.04 million) investment from MCI Capital and Northzone Partners; with the launch of MarketInvoice Pro the firm plans to double its lending for 2017 with targeted loan originations of 2 billion British pounds ($2.51 billion). Source
Kabbage has reported it will open a new office in Ireland; the geographic expansion follows a 50 million euro ($54 million) investment from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund which is managed by the country's National Treasury Management Agency; the Kabbage lending platform is focused on lending to small businesses and the firm expects to help support the Irish small business sector while also creating many high-quality financial services jobs in Ireland. Source
OnDeck has partnered with institutional data consultant, Orchard, to provide data reporting for institutional investors on its platform; OnDeck is a small business lender with significant investment from institutional investors; through the partnership Orchard will manage the loan reporting for OnDeck's institutional investors and provide investors with access to investor dashboards, portfolio benchmarking, automated daily holdings reports and a variety of customized reporting options held within the Orchard for Originators data system. Source
Hexindai sees credit market opportunity in China worth 10 trillion RMB ($1.46 trillion); provides insight on the market in their featured blog post; with high net worth clients primarily served by traditional channels the firm is targeting the country's underserved population; says new and evolving technologies will be a factor helping emerging service platforms like P2P online lending gain market share. Sponsored Blog Post