Funding Circle has revised its credit underwriting model for its secured property loans offered to SMEs; the new credit underwriting model has been adjusted based on three years of secured property loan data from the platform; the new secured property loan underwriting model will increase rates for certain secured property loans and also expand the firm's secured property loan risk bands beyond A+ and A. Source
Raisin allows customers to compare accounts at banks across Europe; Thrive Capital led the latest round with participation from previous investors Ribbit Capital and Index Ventures; funding now totals $64 million; the company has tripled the amount of funds transacted on the platform last year; it now has 27 bank partners and expanded from Germany and Austria to a total of 31 countries. Source
Financial trading startup Alpaca has raised $1.75 million from private market venture capitalists; company is using artificial intelligence and database technology to develop software as a service for investment market traders; current products include AlpacaAlgo with over 25,000 user built trading algorithms; platform has executed over $100 million in transactions. Source
LandlordInvest has launched the UK's first secured property P2P lending innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA); the firm offers 5% to 12% returns on its loans and investors can now invest tax free with the IFISA; platform investments include bridge loans and term loans for buy-to-rent landlords; most of the firm's loans are for amounts ranging from 30,000 British pounds ($37,895) to 750,000 British pounds ($947,363) with a payoff term of five years; process for offering the IFISA took less than two months with approval obtained by HM Revenue and Customs shortly after the firm's Financial Conduct Authority approval in December. Source
Upon their acquisition of Zencap, Funding Circle took up operations in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, though now you can remove Spain from that list; according to Ryan Weeks of AltFi, this was due in large part to a low quality pool of borrowers and limited understanding in Spain of P2P lending; in terms of their loan book this was only a fraction of global originations for Funding Circle; they will now be able to allocate more resources to Germany and the Netherlands where they are looking to increase their market share. Source
Fundrise has announced a Regulation A investment offering of Rise Companies Corp. which is the parent company of the investment platform Fundrise, LLC; the campaign is currently in a solicitation phase which its website says has generated interest of over $58 million from more than 4,350 users; the investment offering circular was initially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 29, 2016; some details from the most recent amended offering circular include the following: offering of one million shares of Class B non-voting common stock, offer and sale of the shares is limited to investors who have purchased investments on the Fundrise platform. Source
In March of 2016 Matt Harris of Bain Capital Ventures wrote on the future of alternative lending; many of his insights continue to hold in today's market despite challenges experienced in the final quarters of 2016; interestingly, Harris notes a wave of alternative lenders grouped in three categories with alternative lending 1.0 led by Lending Club, SoFi and OnDeck; cites alternative lending 2.0 as including high risk capital chasing market entrants and alternative lending 3.0 as emerging entrants with high potential and efficient business outlooks. Source
California-based Kountable is an invoice and trade financing platform currently offering financing for businesses in Rwanda; firm has secured a $150 million credit line from a private credit asset manager; funding will help the company to expand in the global trade finance market. Source
loanDepot has originated $100 billion in loans since launching seven years ago; firm provides home, personal and home equity loans online and through local branch offices; the company has serviced over 15 million consumers nationwide and its platform is acquiring approximately 500,000 potential borrowers per month; in 2016 it opened three new campuses to expand its direct, retail and wholesale businesses and it also has plans to open a new 65,000 square foot business campus in Irvine, California that will help to increase its employee base to over 6,000. Source
In a positive announcement for consumer data sharing, JPMorgan has agreed to allow Intuit customers to access bank data without sharing their passwords; the agreement will provide added convenience for JPMorgan customers using Intuit's Mint.com, TurboTax Online and QuickBooks Online; the elimination of passwords is expected to improve security and real-time access of account data. Source