Emmanuel Marot writes about the hybrid robo advice model in a blog post for Lend Academy; says he is not in favor of the hybrid model since machine learning can take care of the needs of investors noting that complexity nor human whims have proven to bring any value. Source
Yirendai is an online lending business unit of CreditEase with stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: YRD); the firm is one of the most successful online lenders in China's online lending market; Lend Academy talks with the firm's CEO Yihan Fang in their podcast; Yihan Fang provides details on Yirendai's platform and gives her insight on China's online lending market. Source
Household debt levels are now approaching pre-crisis levels; instead of housing debt, consumers have accumulated more student and auto debt; student debt totaled $1.3 trillion at the end of 2016, an increase of 170% over the last 10 years; contributing factors include more students taking out loans, increased loan amounts and slowing borrower repayments; Lend Academy discusses the mounting defaults in student loan debt and the platforms that are aiming to solve the problem through various products. Source
Zopa was the industry's first peer-to-peer lending platform, launching in the UK in 2005; Lend Academy talks with Jaidev Janardana from Zopa about his role as CEO over the past 18 months and how the business is changing with the firm's new banking initiative; Zopa will be taking advantage of some unique market opportunities with its banking services; the firm will not be offering current accounts but plans to integrate open banking to provide its clients more offerings beyond borrowing and lending. Source
Lend Academy provides highlights from PeerIQ's Q1 2017 securitization market report in their article; total marketplace lending securitization issuance for the first quarter was $2.9 billion and all of the quarter's securitization deals were rated by a rating agency; SoFi leads the market in securitizations with nearly $9 billion representing 51% of the market's deal value. Source
Renaud Laplanche launched his new online lending firm at the beginning of April; Upgrade raised $60 million for its launch and is reportedly valued at $168 million; the company will compete directly with many unsecured consumer lenders offering loans from $2,000 to $50,000; a key part of the offering will be a mobile app to help borrowers manage their finances which has yet to be released. Source
The app is available only for the platform's investors; Lend Academy provides screenshots from the app and more details in their article; investors can now invest through the mobile app and also open a new account; the app provides much of the same functionality available through the desktop application allowing investors to monitor their account and make investments from any iOS mobile device. Source
Lend Academy provides insight on achieving success from this year's Fintech Woman of the Year finalists; highlights include visualizing success, setting goals and learning from experiences; the article also includes a link to a recent Exchanges at Goldman Sachs podcast where Goldman Sachs' global co-head of the Industrials Group in Investment Banking shares her career advice. Source
Upgrade has launched for consumer lending; Lend Academy provides details on the platform's fundraising, lending criteria and lending structure; Renaud Laplanche has raised $60 million for the new company; its loans will focus on high credit quality borrowers with low debt-to-income and minimum monthly free cash flow of $1,000; loans range from $2,000 to $50,000; the platform will be partnering with WebBank for loan originations and will then acquire the loans and sell them to institutional investors with some portion of the loans retained on the firm's balance sheet. Source
Building on the success of the LendingRobot Series Fund announced in January 2017, LendingRobot has launched LendingRobot Professional; the product has new advisor-focused features and functionality and can be optimized by advisors for multiple clients; it has an advisor minimum of $250,000. Source