CNBC talks with Eyal Lifshitz of Bluevine who says fallouts from public companies have affected valuation discussions noting that investors are more skeptical now after struggles from Lending Club and OnDeck; Lifshitz expects companies will drop out of the market and Schwark Satyavolu, general partner at Trinity Ventures, says the industry is likely to see more acquisitions and consolidation. Source
Summit will be held in Washington D.C.; the Online Lending Policy Institute (OLPI) is one of the leading industry groups to promote regulatory discussions in Washington; the event will be held on September 25 at the Renaissance Hotel; industry participants will share insights, propose standards and have a dialogue with regulators and policymakers; the OLPI was founded by Cross River, the Boston University Center for Finance, Law & Policy (CFLP) and RocketLoans. Source
Synthetic fraud is when fraudsters use a collection of information to create a fake identity for fraudulent loan applications; data verification regulations are also making synthetic fraud more challenging to detect; Auriemma Consulting Group provides three strategic suggestions for online lenders: 1) strengthen front end detection and prevention 2) use data analytics to learn from synthetic accounts and 3) enrich reporting and information sharing. Source
Firm offers online mortgage loan comparisons and facilitates mortgage loan services through its platform; firm has been in business for nine months with mortgage loans of 50 million British pounds ($62.17 million); the new funding was provided by Ribbit Capital and Mosaic Ventures; firm says it will use the funds to expand its products and engineering team. Source
The Wall Street Journal reports on publicly listed funds that will purchase marketplace lending loans; the new funds are setup as interval funds and will open access to investors who might not otherwise consider investing in loans made by marketplace lenders; article highlights fees and minimums of offerings by RiverNorth and Stone Ridge. Source
OpenTap has begun to offer marketplace loans in India targeting low to middle income consumers; company seeks to meet the market demand for borrowers who are creditworthy yet don't qualify for traditional loans; estimates the target market for low to middle income consumers at 12,000; loans will be available for up to Rs 50,000 ($730); average loan size has been approximately Rs 25,000 ($365). Source
Opus Fund Services has released OpusNotes™, a loan accounting services platform for marketplace lending vehicles; in comments regarding the release, Mike Canni, chief operations officer for Opus, said, "This product is the culmination of five years of development, working with the requirements of the world's largest marketplace lending hedge funds and their institutional investors. Delivered through our online dashboard, this is a significant release of the most comprehensive platform available for the provision of administration services for marketplace lending strategies." Source
Citing increasing demand Orca has launched a new standardized investment platform that will be focused to financial advisers and broader P2P investors; Iain Niblock, CEO of Orca, stated, "Although P2P investments offer stable, predictable risk-adjusted returns and great diversification for investors, there has been virtually no uptake since financial advisers were permitted to suggest their clients consider P2P products last year."; the platform will focus on interest rates, default rates, subprime rates and a proprietary Orca scoring methodology. Source
Orchard provides insight on monthly trends in P2P lending originations; uses Lending Club's publicly available standard program data for the analysis; finds October has historically been the peak month for P2P loan originations; identifies loan purpose trends for 2015 with debt consolidation notably highest in January; categories with peak lending originations in December in 2015 included major purchase, other and small business. Source
Orchard has announced a new data services partnership with investment bank, Sandler O'Neill; Sandler O'Neill provides investment banking advisory services for clients in the financial services industry; the partnership will provide access to Orchard's full suite of marketplace lending data analytics services for Sandler O'Neill and its clients making Sandler O'Neill a leading investment advisory service for financial institutions considering bank partnerships. Source