Marketplace lending platform Flender has reached its investment goal on Seedrs; firm has received investment of 500,000 British pounds ($608,680); the firm's crowdfunding campaign will close on January 17 and it plans to launch in the first quarter of 2017; the platform will provide innovative business credit services that facilitate lending through a borrower's social network. Source
Funding Circle has announced a new equity investment of $100 million; the funding round was led by Accel and included existing investors Baillie Gifford, DST Global, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Rocket Internet, Sands Capital Ventures, Temasek and Union Square Ventures; the funding brings the firm's total capital raised to $373 million and makes it the largest and best capitalized SME lending platform in the world. Source
CompareEuropeGroup is a London fintech company using artificial intelligence to develop digital and automated services for financial companies; it has obtained 20 million euros ($21.32 million) in new capital from a Series A funding round; investors included ACE & Company, Pacific Century Group, Nova Founders Capital, SBI Holdings, Mark Pincus and Peter Thiel; the company will use the funds to develop its technology and machine learning services. Source
Scalable has reached 100 million British pounds ($121.72 million) in assets under management for its robo advisory services; the firm has been averaging new business of 5 million British pounds ($6.09 million) per week and has over 2,500 customers; it offers low fees and daily investment monitoring with risk focused algorithms. Source
UK challenger bank OakNorth has hired three new senior executives in anticipation of higher lending demand post-Brexit; Georgy Naydenov and Stuart Blair will join OakNorth as debt finance directors and David Webley was hired as a credit director; the bank's loan book has grown by 300% since the June referendum vote with loans of 300 million British pounds ($368.85 million); for 2017 it anticipates lending over 500 million British pounds ($614.75 million). Source
ClearBank has received its license for digital banking services in the UK; firm is run by Nick Ogden who also has payment services experience with WorldPay and CashFlows; the UK currently leads the challenger bank market with approximately 42 digital only banks. Source
The Association of Alternative Business Finance is rumored to be the alternative lending sector's next representative association; the consortium has reportedly been developed by seven balance sheet lenders to represent the interests of their lending group; the association will seek to employ and enhance transparency, responsibility, fairness and security; its criteria for inclusion is primarily focused on business product lending. Source
UK bank Barclays has launched a new service for its small and medium-sized business customers; it will now offer the business customers mobile credit applications for loans and overdraft products; loan approvals and funding can be received in an hour. Source
Real estate P2P lending platform Octopus Choice has received full authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK; the FCA approval now allows it to begin the process for offering innovative finance individual savings accounts (IFISAs) for investors; the firm has been in business for nine months; it currently provides secured loans to residential property borrowers. Source
Zopa provides 2016 year end stats; in total they lent 680 million British pounds ($830 million); helped 20,000 people improve their home and 29,000 buy a car; the company also highlights several awards they won including Most Trusted Loan Provider by Moneywise for the seventh year in a row; the company struck many partnerships including offering phone finance with Unshackled, loans through personal finance app Pariti and a partnership with Airbnb; company also launched three new lending products for investors with varying risk and return profiles; in 2016 we also saw the first securitization of Zopa loans and learned of Zopa's plans to apply for a banking license. Source