Phill Rosen spoke with Crowdfund Insider following the news last week of the company surpassing $1.5 billion in loan requests; according to Rosen, besides debt consolidation, weddings, auto and home improvement are the most popular categories for loans; average loan size is $10,551; Avant is the most popular platform by take rate followed by both Lending Club and Ascend who have high take rates according to Rosen; EVEN has seen a significant increase in demand since September which may be regular seasonal demand; for 2017, Rosen sees more consolidation for the space, followed by more growth. Source
Lending Club's chief technology officer, John MacIlwaine, has resigned and will pursue another opportunity; the firm will conduct a search for a new chief technology officer and has appointed the senior vice president for technology to oversee the business; MacIlwaine had been with Lending Club since 2012 and has extensive experience in executive management roles overseeing financial technology platforms. Source
Business Insider Intelligence has released a report covering all aspects of the fintech market; says annual financing globally for fintech reached $15 billion in August which is likely to surpass the total of $19 billion financed in 2015; Chinese fintech investments and insurtech have been catalysts for growth in 2016; robo advisors and blockchain are also two of the market's rapidly growing, emerging technologies. Source
Leading UK consumer organization, Which?, has published new research showing in the last two years 1,045 branches have closed; HSBC has closed 27% of branches, Lloyds has closed 14% and Co-operative Bank has closed 53% of branches; the banks have said the rise of digital banking has moved their customers away from in person branches; while the move to digital banking is continuing, research by Bain also shows that 40% of global customers would consider a new bank if their branch was closed. Source
Australian marketplace lender, SocietyOne, has been growing rapidly in 2016; the firm has now originated $200 million (USD $147 million) in loans since its inception in August of 2012 after reporting a record month of originations in November with lending volume of $15.3 million (USD $11.25 million); in 2016, the firm has originated $126 million (USD $92.66 million), which accounts for the majority of its originations; the firm has hired a new chief marketing officer and has plans for continued growth with a focus on obtaining 2% to 3% of the consumer finance market by 2021. Source
After a break in new investor inflows, Zopa has reopened to investors; the firm closed its platform to new investments at the beginning of December; cited an imbalance in borrower versus investor demand; firm is now accepting new investments with a 4.2 million British pound ($5.24 million) platform capacity. Source
Chicago-based Westbon has launched an auto and consumer loan platform for international students in the US with limited or no credit history; Hao Liu, co-founder of the company, says, "Our mission is not only to provide them with convenient financing options at affordable rate, but also to help them build credit history at an early stage."; the company says it looks beyond a traditional credit score, they look at the borrower's financial and academic status as well; the auto product will be available in 23 states and the consumer products in eight states. Source
The Hong Kong-listed company is, according to one banker at HSBC, the answer to Facebook, WhatsApp, Spotify, Kindle and ApplePay, but all under one roof; based in Shenzhen, considered the Silicon Valley of China, they employ 3,000 people where over half are focused on research and development; they also have a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio; they are one of the top three companies in China and have successfully expanded worldwide with apps like WeChat. Source
Consumer and small business credit scoring platform, Nav, will now offer its small and medium-sized enterprise customers loans and financing services by Bank of America; Nav uses its MatchFactor algorithm to help show borrowers their chances of approval and have thus far helped to facilitate funding to over 160,000 companies; Nav CEO and Co-Founder Levi King said, "We are proud to partner with Bank of America, giving business owners even more ways to access the financing they need." Source
K-Bank has gained authorization to open South Korea's first online bank; firm is an affiliate of Alibaba-owned Ant Financial; Kakao Bank is also involved in the final approval process to open the country's second online bank. Source