The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a financial government agency overseen by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, held a fintech forum discussing the industry; industry speakers included Ram Ahluwalia from PeerIQ and Matt Burton from Orchard; SEC speakers included Mary Jo White and Michael Piwowar; Mary Jo White focused on fintech responsibility suggesting thorough testing of various aspects of the business before introduction; Michael Piwowar focused on fintech sandbox testing and suggested that the SEC should be the lead agency regulating fintech; in an announcement on Monday, Mary Jo White also said she would be leaving her role in January. Source
The Ranger Direct Lending closed-end fund is seeking to raise £40 million through the sale of new shares; fund is currently at £236 million; company will offer new C shares in December; the fund's last two share offerings have been for Z shares with trading symbol ZDP; the Ranger Direct Lending Fund has been steadily leading returns for UK marketplace lending funds in 2016. Source
The company has raised $26.5 million to expand its digital transactions management business and bolster the staff to increase product development; the round was led by LLR Partners, a Philadelphia-based private equity firm; CEO Stephen Bisbee said, "We are seeing more opportunity in front of us than we're able to execute with our current staff." Source
New government fintech initiatives are trending across the globe and the European Commission (EC) is one of the most recent regulatory agencies to add a fintech group; the EC is the governing regulator for the European Union; it has announced a Financial Technology Task Force (FTTF) to be co-chaired by DG FISMA and DG CONNECT; the FTTF will facilitate regulatory communication in the areas of financial regulation, digital business, competition and consumer protection. Source
According to a report by Bloomberg, four bonds comprised of online consumer lending loans have reached or are approaching trigger levels; the four bonds include three securitizations by Avant and one by CircleBack Lending; according to one source, two of Avant's securities breached triggers this month for the first time; the four offerings total over $500 million in size. Source
Prospect Marketplace Lending Corp. has filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a fund investing in marketplace loans; the firm has filed an N-8A and an N-2 indicating its investment company status and plans for managing a closed-end fund; the closed-end fund will invest 80% of its assets in marketplace lending investments. Source
LendIt's Jason Jones writes about the marketplace lending opportunity for bank partnerships in a Lend Academy article; in 2016, many marketplace lenders reported partnerships with banks, exemplifying this new opportunity; three main types of partnerships have been prevalent including bank-fintech-bank (BFB), fintech-fintech-bank (FFB) and bank-fintech-fintech (BFF); co-branding or white labeling has also been a factor in the partnerships; some traditional banks have chosen to take the full cost of developing their own online lending platform including, Goldman Sachs and PingAn, however many banks are finding partnerships more cost efficient; LendIt's bank partnerships webinar on Wednesday will highlight this trend. Source
Scott Morrison, Australia's treasurer, spoke about regtech at the Fintech Australia Summit; the treasurer discussed a regtech collision occurring in fintech where both crowdfunding firms and traditional banks are benefiting from increased technological innovation around regulation; likely that the marketplace lending ecosystem could see expansion in regulatory technology innovation. Source
Accion Venture Lab, a seed stage investment vehicle for financial inclusion firm Accion, has sold its stake in Varthana; Varthana provides specialized loans and services so people in India can afford to attend private schools; Accion Venture Lab's first investment into Varthana was in 2013; Varthana recently raised $14 million in the spring of 2016. Source