A survey from TWINO and KPMG provides statistics on alternative lending market trends in Europe; says UK alternative lending volumes are four times higher than the rest of Europe; consumer loans account for 72% of online lending in Europe; the European online alternative lending market has grown by 23% since the end of 2015, reaching lending volume of 600 million euros ($623.39 million) as of September 30, 2016; UK has 81% of market share; geographic location across Europe is becoming less of a factor as advanced technologies are the main driver for platform success. Source
Assetz Capital is a large P2P lender in the UK and now has authorization from the FCA; the company has lent more than GBP316 million ($410 million) to businesses and is now working on the final stages of its Innovative Finance ISA which it expects will be available in Q4 2017; Stuart Law, CEO of Assetz Capital, stated: "Our cautious approach of employing a world-class credit underwriting team and taking realisable security on loans is essential for our investors' peace of mind. Our focus remains to ensure the growth and security of our lenders' investments, as well as the success of our borrowers' businesses. Our team has done fantastically well to deliver such success to all of our stakeholders over the last few years and yet there is also so much more to achieve ahead of this milestone and we are all excited about the continuing journey." Source
ISA statistics were released on Thursday by HMRC; last year two thousand Innovative Finance ISA accounts were subscribed with retail investors collectively investing GBP17 million (USD $22 million); this compares to GBP22.325 billion ($28.94 billion) into stocks and shares and GBP39.191 billion ($50.81 billion) into cash ISAs; about one third of money invested into IFISAs on P2P platforms last year was from transfers; while the accounts opened and amount invested were low it still shows appetite for such products. Source
London-based FOL Wealth has launched a new robo advisor service for its wealth management clients; the solution offers clients automated service at an annual fee of 0.90% with a minimum investment of 1,000 British pounds ($1,216); it is intended to serve as a hybrid solution complementing the human advice of the firm's wealth advisors. Source
Revolut has announced a new partnership with Lending Works that will allow the mobile banking app to offer P2P loans; through the partnership, the app's mobile users can submit loan applications and receive funding; loans will be available for 500 British pounds ($608) to 5,000 British pounds ($6,079) with APRs of approximately 9.9% and Lending Works will use customer data from Revolut in loan underwriting approvals; the partnership is expected to bring a significant amount of new business for Lending Works which was launched in 2014 and has lent a total of 50 million British pounds ($61 million) to consumers. Source
Niels Turfboer of Spotcap provides insight on UK disclosure standards for online lenders, a topic he will be discussing at the AltFi Europe Summit; Niels Turfboer presents the importance of framing the disclosure standards debate and evaluates some of the approaches being used in the industry; notes the disclosure of the UK's big four lenders and the SMART Box introduced by the US Innovative Lending Platform Association; also mentions the involvement of third parties in the disclosure process. Source
The updated guidance document makes an explicit reference to crypto assets, crypto exchange providers, and custodian wallet providers.
UK robo advisor Moola has hired Simon Moore, former chief investment officer of BlackRock's FutureAdvisor; Moola offers BlackRock's products to its clients for a minimum investment of £200 ($249.68); Moore will help the firm expand its investment capabilities and meet the evolving needs of the platform's customers. Source
In the midst of getting ready to launch in a few weeks the UK digital bank Tandem is now unable to launch with savings accounts; the bank was approved in 2015 for a banking license so long as they fulfilled a number of criteria including hiring a board, building out sufficient technology systems and raising enough capital to cover losses; the final point is where the bank was unable to comply, they fell short of raising enough capital and now are forced to launch without the savings feature; Tandem was expecting 29 million British pounds ($36.1 million) from House of Fraser, the UK department store chain that was bought by China's Sanpower Group, but Sanpower was worried about capital restrictions coming out of China so they pulled the funding. Source
The UK's MarketInvoice, a working capital lender for businesses, has been gaining significant market traction and is reporting ambitious plans for future business growth; it is estimating total lending of 2 billion British pounds ($2.5 billion) by the end of the year and is planning to offer its service to incumbent banks; the firm has also appointed Zopa's Giles Andrews as its chairman and hired Shaun Alexander as head of risk to improve its risk reporting, integrate more artificial intelligence programming and facilitate greater deal communication with large traditional banks. Source