Afterpay and Touchcorp are merging to form NewCo which will provide an advanced solution for merchant network installment payments; Afterpay has steadily grown its merchant network which pays a 4% fee for the installment service; Touchcorp will help provide advancements in payments technology for Afterpay and the integrated services will allow for broader expansion. Source
Finbee currently offers consumer loans and has announced expansion into business loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); the expansion follows a new law enacted by the government to support online lending and a license obtained by Finbee for the service; the SME loans will be sourced from a separate website; Finbee will offer SME loans for up to 15,000 euros ($15,911) with a 12 month duration; different from the consumer loans, Finbee will not be covering defaults from SME loans with its compensation fund. Source
UK bank lending and mortgage approvals increased in January as rates remained low for borrowers; according to data from the British Bankers Association, consumer borrowing doubled from December to an increase of 538 million British pounds ($673 million) with loan growth in personal loans and overdrafts reporting an eight month high of 422 million British pounds ($527.9 million); bank lending to businesses also reported its highest increase since January 2015 at 3.4 billion British pounds ($4.25 billion); mortgage approvals were also significantly higher at 44,657 with total mortgage borrowing at 13.8 billion British pounds ($17.26 billion) and refinancing approvals up 15.7% from January 2016. Source
The LendIt Forum replay for Investor Opportunities in Non-Prime Lending is now available; the webinar discussed the non-prime investment space including details on the profile of non-prime investors and the returns investors can expect from this category; speakers included James Zhang from NerdWallet, Aaron Peck from Monroe Capital and Tim Ranney from Clarity Services. Source
Lend Academy provides details on the emergence of online auto lending and the market opportunity for both lenders and technology providers in their article; Lending Club is the largest marketplace lender to begin offering auto loans; Finova Financial has launched a new title loan product; AutoFi and AutoGravity are two companies offering innovative online services for the car buying process; in the used car market, Blinker has also been successful in developing a marketplace for car buyers and sellers; LendIt USA 2017 will be featuring a panel on the future of buying and selling vehicles including insight from many of these companies. Source
PeerIQ's Weekly Industry Update notes this week's SFIG Vegas 2017 conference on structured finance; PeerIQ's Ram Ahluwalia will be moderating a panel titled, "The Outlook for Securitization and Marketplace Lending"; on February 26, PeerIQ also released an industry white paper titled, "Data Standards and Best Practices" which details industry standardization of data and discusses the importance of data transparency; at the SFIG 2017 event on Monday the firm announced a new data partnership with 1010data. Source
Sunlight Financial has gained a $130 million investment from Route 66 Ventures for expansion of its residential solar systems lending business; the firm plans to develop new financing products, expand its Charlotte business center and partner with more solar installers; the firm is currently a trusted provider for a network of solar installation companies and offers its credit products through an easy to use online platform. Source
At the SFIG 2017 conference on Monday, PeerIQ announced a new data partnership with 1010data; according to the press release the partnership will now offer the industry's only integrated cloud platform with self-service data management and analytics; users will now have access to even broader capabilities for loan data analysis through 1010data's Insights Platform which includes an analytical function library, pre-defined reports and queries through 1010data QuickApps and the ability to overlay consumer credit and econometric data with marketplace loan data analysis. Source
Lend Academy talks with Jeff Stewart of Lenddo in their podcast; Lenddo provides software used for analyzing credit of underserved borrowers in 20 countries around the world; Jeff explains how he came up with the idea to start Lenddo, the early days of proving out the model and much more. Source
P2P Finance News provides details on how six of the industry's top funds have performed over the past year; their analysis includes performance for P2P Global Investments, SME Loan Fund, Ranger Direct Lending, Funding Circle SME Income Fund, VPC Specialty Lending and Honeycomb Investment Trust; performance from Ranger Direct Lending leads the group of funds with an NAV total return over the past year of 19.9%. Source