Online lending appears to be driving increased personal loan borrowing from millennials; data from TransUnion says 4.33% of millennials obtained a personal loan in 2015 and online lenders accounted for approximately 30% of the personal loan market last year; TransUnion also reports that millennials are more conservative about credit card debt with two fewer cards on average than the previous generation. Source
New insurtech platform Ladder has launched, offering digital life insurance; the platform's life insurance product will be available to consumers in California; the company is marketing a faster, more efficient process for life insurance applications and coverage; its platform can approve customers in minutes for life insurance policies up to $8 million; it charges no annual policy fees and its policies are reinsured by Hannover Re US. Source
PeerStreet, a platform for investing in real estate backed loans, has now integrated with Personal Capital which is powered by the Envestnet | Yodlee data aggregation platform; customers will now be able to view their PeerStreet positions within their investment portfolio on Personal Capital; this is the third such integration as PeerStreet recently announced integrations with Wealthfront and Betterment; "Many PeerStreet customers have asked for this integration with Personal Capital. We're always working to improve the experience for our customers and provide greater control and transparency," said Brett Crosby, co-founder and COO of PeerStreet." Source
Jim Cramer of Mad Money talks with Mike Cagney of SoFi to discuss the unique business model of the privately managed business which has originated over $16 billion in loans and recently closed a $500 million fundraising round; Cagney provides details on the student loan refinancing business and the company's unique focus on supporting customers in many different aspects of their personal and financial lives; notes SoFi's return on equity advantages over banks and the market opportunity it is targeting as it builds out its business. Source
The Trump administration has announced a White House innovation office that will focus on modernizing technology of federal government departments; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will oversee the innovation office; private sector technology executive advisors to the innovation office include Tim Cook from Apple and Bill Gates from Microsoft. Source
Real estate marketplace lender Better Mortgage has raised $15 million in a new funding round bringing its total valuation to $220 million; the funding was provided by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Pine Brook Partners; the firm seeks to offer fast approvals for home loans and uses advanced algorithms to match borrower attributes with lending criteria from 20 large home loan buyers; launched in January 2016, the firm has funded over $500 million in home loans and is targeting $1.5 billion in originations for 2017. Source
PayPal's fourth quarter earnings release revealed a number of interesting developments for the company; the firm has been steadily growing its partnerships with e-commerce businesses which has helped increase the number of payment transactions per customer; in the fourth quarter PayPal reported 31.1 transactions per active customer which was an increase from 30.2 in the previous quarter and 27.5 in the comparable quarter; PayPal's CEO Dan Schulman has also discussed a new partnership with Amazon that would allow Amazon customers to pay for purchases with PayPal which would further support increases in its customer account activity. Source
Understanding the millennial customer is a key for most lenders in the market today and Stephen Dash of Credible explains how his firm handles this challenge during his fireside chat at LendIt USA 2017 with Dakin Campbell of Bloomberg; identifying who the millennial is and how they consume information will help you to tailor your products to this group; 25% of consumers today fall into the millennial category and Credible believes a strong, focused product set will help them to service this generation efficiently; before looking to sell other types of services you must first build a relationship with them, trust can be eroded in an instant; ensuring a compelling value proposition is the key and fully understanding what the customer needs will help you to hold that customer over the lifetime; ultimately customers are co-owned and you can help to make sure your relationship lasts by showing a loyal and durable product set. Source
Upstart has been steadily growing its online lending business and has now announced a new fundraising as well as the launch of a white label software as a service (SaaS) product; the fundraising will add $32.5 million in new capital from investors including: Rakuten, a large US-based asset manager, Third Point Ventures, Khosla Ventures and First Round Capital; Upstart has emerged with many significant developments in the online loan business including next-day funding and a robust proprietary credit underwriting platform built on machine learning and modern technology; with the evolution of the business, the firm has developed a new white label SaaS product called by Powered by Upstart which it is launching at LendIt USA; the service is an extension of the firm's proprietary credit underwriting system driven by machine learning and modern data science. Source
Online lending platform Marcus by Goldman Sachs is now open to all borrowers; the bank launched its lending platform in October 2016 for borrowers receiving an email code; like other marketplace lending platforms it offers low borrower interest rates; one of its leading advantages is that it offers no fees; Goldman Sachs will announce its fourth quarter earnings in January with insight expected on the new platform's business. Source