Chase has announced it will launch a digital mortgage lending platform in 2017; Chase will collaborate with technology provider Roostify for the new digital lending offering; the digital mortgage lending platform will allow customers to complete their loan completely through online communication with features allowing for comprehensive loan comparison, processing, connectivity and approval. Source
Marqeta has released an e-book titled, "Navigating the Paradigm Shift in Alternative Lending"; discusses how technology and innovation are changing the financial services industry; provides insight on how companies can build competitive advantages. Sponsored Blog Post
One of the more controversial items of the past year around the world has been the Brexit vote in the UK, and at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a panel of leading platforms to discuss what the vote has meant for their companies thus far; consensus opinion throughout the panel was that the campaign leading up to Brexit had a worse effect than the actually vote; most investors these platforms work with wanted Brexit, so the vote of leaving the EU was not a surprise to many platforms; origination volumes have rebounded since the vote and both small business and consumer markets are currently strong in the UK; during the campaign for Brexit a lot of uncertainty was in the market but that uncertainty and bad news was short lived; markets rebounded, the bad news cycles slowed and UK MPL platforms continue to show strength in the post Brexit world. Source
Lending Club's CIO, Siddhartha Jajodia, sent a letter to investors on October 14 alerting them of an increase in interest rates; Lending Club says it will increase loan rates by a weighted average of 26 bps with rate changes mostly concentrated in the lower credit quality loan grades; the rate increase follows a previous weighted average interest rate increase of 135 basis points from November 2015 to June 2016; the rate increase is consistent with a lower credit quality trend observed from the platform’s borrowers as well as a higher trending rate environment in the US; additionally the firm also reported changes to credit policy standards and improvements to its collections efforts.
Credy was founded in 2016 and has been gaining some ground in India's P2P lending market; the firm is emerging from the Y Combinator Winter 2017 program and seeks to capitalize on two factors supporting the growth of P2P in India: 1) the use of the Aadhaar ID system and 2) the country's demonetization which eliminated 85% of the country's currency and shifted the economy towards a focus on digital transactions; using digital IDs and a technology platform for underwriting and instant approvals will allow the firm to capitalize on a $50 billion personal lending market; the firm's average loan size varies from $500 to $1,000 with repayment terms up to nine months; led by former Goldman Sachs bankers, the P2P platform has already processed approximately $3 million in loans. Source
The service from Whitepages Pro can add another layer to identity verification for online lenders; it provides lenders with analysis of a potential borrower's associated phone number, email, mailing address and business name; Whitepages CEO Rob Eleveld says the service gives lenders a broad profile of the borrower which in most cases is difficult to fraudulently create; it can also be accessed through APIs which makes connecting to the service easy for lenders. Source
RateSetter has added additional detail to its annual performance statistics to provide greater transparency; the additional details provide data on loan originations by lending type with a breakdown of consumer and commercial loans; for commercial lending the firm will now also disclose loans to property developers, small and medium size enterprises, and wholesale lenders; the changes were prompted by a request from the Financial Conduct Authority for greater disclosure on wholesale lending across the industry; the update from RateSetter also included a report on a defaulted loan that RateSetter has taken onto its balance sheet to protect investors. Source
Landbay will add Positive Lending to its distribution network; Landbay has a comprehensive suite of services for its intermediaries and is also supporting them in advance of the UK's September PRA portfolio landlord changes; Landbay is a UK specialist buy to let mortgage lender authorized by the FCA and involved with the P2PFA as one of its members. Source
Online real estate lending platform PeerStreet has partnered with Wealthfront; PeerStreet will integrate with Wealthfront's Path offering; the integration has been facilitated by Quovo and will allow PeerStreet customers to view their PeerStreet investments holistically within their entire Wealthfront investment portfolio. Source
Alternative data could be critical to financial inclusion, but industry experts say it isn't all plain sailing. Find out why.