The Association of Alternative Business Finance (AABF) has added three new alternative lenders to its membership; new members include Invoice Cycle, Merchant Money and Reward Finance Group; launched in February 2017 the AABF seeks to support UK alternative lending for small businesses. Source
Even Financial is a successful online loan comparison service in the marketplace lending industry; firm uses advanced technology and real time data analytics to provide borrowers with a comparison tool for credit options; Lend Academy provides insight on Even Financial's lead generation business in their article; reports that organic leads are more timely in their loan payments and mobile advertising is reaching more borrowers at a lower cost; Brian Brauntuch, vice president of partnerships and operations at Even Financial provides the top five trends in lead generation for 2017 with time to fund being one of the most important factors for borrowers. Source
LendIt will be hosting a forum today on risk retention in securitization at 2:00 PM EST; the forum will be held in conjunction with Cadwalader and Lending Times; speakers will provide insight on key factors to consider in choosing the optimal risk retention structure, commercial considerations related to sponsors including brand and investor relationships, requirements necessary to establish a majority owned-affiliate including the amount of equity that must be retained by the sponsor versus an investor and other related topics; register here and join the webinar today.
AutoGravity was founded in 2015 and recently launched in 46 states; its mobile app provides users with four personalized auto financing offers on their smartphone; their statistics report over a quarter million users have downloaded the app and notes that its financing network includes 1,400 franchise dealers; the firm's report also includes demographics of users and types of cars purchased, among other statistics. Source
The platform currently works with approximately 1,000 brokers; source reports it is focusing its efforts on brokers using the platform regularly with a new master broker system for inactive intermediaries; Funding Circle is requiring brokers to make at least one introduction to the platform per quarter. Source
LendIt, in conjunction with Cadwalader and Lending Times, will host a forum on securitization this Wednesday, January 11th at 2:00 PM EST; the webinar will focus on key factors to consider in choosing the optimal risk retention structure, commercial considerations related to sponsors including brand and investor relationships, requirements necessary to establish a majority owned-affiliate including the amount of equity that must be retained by the sponsor versus an investor and other related topics; speakers include Philip Bartow of River North, Bruce Bloomingdale from Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, Rupert Chisholm from One William Street Capital, Abe Kahan of CommonBond, Dylan Schuler of CommonBond and Gregg Jubin from Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft; learn more by registering here today.
Lending Club's stock increased $0.76 for a 15% gain on Monday after reporting third quarter earnings that beat analysts' expectations; company also announced a new partnership with Credigy who will be investing up to $1.3 billion in Lending Club's loans; Lend Academy provides details on the company's earnings report in their article; highlights from the earnings report include revenue of $112.61 million, up from $102.4 million in the second quarter; earnings per share of -$0.04, up from -$0.09 in the second quarter; loan originations also increased with total third quarter volume of $1.97 billion, up from $1.96 billion in the second quarter however still significantly down from their high of $2.75 billion in the first quarter of 2016. Source
The UK's MarketInvoice, a working capital lender for businesses, has been gaining significant market traction and is reporting ambitious plans for future business growth; it is estimating total lending of 2 billion British pounds ($2.5 billion) by the end of the year and is planning to offer its service to incumbent banks; the firm has also appointed Zopa's Giles Andrews as its chairman and hired Shaun Alexander as head of risk to improve its risk reporting, integrate more artificial intelligence programming and facilitate greater deal communication with large traditional banks. 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
P2P property lending has been providing steady returns in the UK, according to a report from rating agency, 4thWay; since 2013, UK P2P property lenders have lent £1.6 billion with returns ranging from 2.25% to 12.7%; lenders in the category have achieved success through thorough underwriting processes with maximum loan to value ratios of 70% to 80% and most loans secured by the property. Source