Think Finance cites Morgan Stanley's 2015 estimates for the marketplace lending industry which predict global marketplace lending will reach $290 billion by 2020; in their featured blog post they report on five key areas for platforms to achieve long term success; credit modeling, platform costs and differentiation are a few of the factors they focus on; Think Finance offers a full suite of services to online lenders to help them achieve success in branding, marketing, risk underwriting, portfolio management, loan originations and many other related lending services. Sponsored Blog Post
Lendio reported record growth in loan originations for the fourth quarter and full year of 2016; firm is one of the leading online multi-lender services for small business loans in the US; in the fourth quarter it facilitated loan originations of $70 million and in 2016 loan originations from the platform were more than $240 million. Source
SoFi has partnered with Promontory Interfinancial Network to help facilitate community bank investments in SoFi loans; Promontory Interfinancial Network will provide due diligence support for community banks; the Promontory Interfinancial Network includes a network of thousands of banks; for the partnership Promontory Interfinancial Network commissioned Promontory Financial Group (recently acquired by IBM) to provide a review and report on SoFi's underwriting, operations and systems to Promontory Interfinancial Network's banks for deal support; according to SoFi, the program will provide a gateway for small to mid-sized banks' participation in marketplace lending investment; Promontory Interfinancial Network will make SoFi's loan program information available for its bank network on its loan marketplace, Bank Assetpoint; network banks will not incur any additional charges for loan investment through the network and SoFi will pay Promontory Interfinancial Network a fee for each transaction. Source
A report from Crowdfund Insider says AssetAvenue has stopped originating loans; the California-based marketplace lender was providing property loans through its digital platform; firm raised $11 million in a Series A funding round in 2015; the firm's loans were primarily averaging approximately $2 million and the platform was open to all types of investors. Source
Innovate Finance has released a report on fintech investment showing global investment in fintech increasing but decreasing in the UK; global fintech investment increased by 10.9% in 2016 to $17.4 billion; in the UK, fintech investment decreased by 33.7% to $783 million; fintech investment in China and the US accounted for $13.9 billion of the total $17.4 billion. Source
Float will offer credit lines for US consumers in California and Utah; based in Los Angeles the company also announced a $3 million funding round from finance and tech industry angel investors; the company plans to expand to all 50 states over the next six to 12 months. Source
Citizens Bank has partnered with the Opportunity Network to provide increased support for business owners; the Opportunity Network is an innovative business-to-business networking platform; it includes 13,500 CEOs and reports approximately $35 billion of deal flow; through the business-to-business platform, businesses can connect with deal support for a number of activities including mergers, acquisitions and new market expansion. Source
Los Angeles-based Patch of Land has expanded its executive leadership team to help manage and continue business growth and market positioning for the online real estate platform; the firm has hired Robert Greenberg as its chief marketing officer and Min Lee as its chief financial officer; over the past year the firm has been building a strong leadership team with a number of new hires including CEO Paul Deitch; the firm's founders, Jason and Brian Fritton, have substantial growth prospects for the firm and expect to continue building on the firm's compound annual growth rate of 290%. Source
Babak Hodjat is managing a hedge fund in San Francisco run completely by artificial intelligence (AI); his firm Sentient Technologies Inc. has been building an AI system for analyzing markets and automating trading for over a decade; performance for the firm is not publicly disclosed; numerous firm's in the wealth management industry are using some form of unbiased automated trading however Sentient is one of few firms that completely uses AI technology for comprehensively managing assets. Source
Sofi has been leading the US fintech market with new products and record originations from its core student loan business; they recently acquired Zenbanx to offer deposit products; they are also expanding into nearly all aspects of financial services; Lend Academy talks with Mike Cagney in their podcast; Mike talks about their business model and how they are different from other top US lenders; also provides insight on their securitization funding and strategy. Source