Rob Pfeifer has been appointed to chief risk officer at Affirm; was previously chief financial officer; Pfeifer has been with Affirm since March 2013; prior to Affirm, Pfeifer worked in various financial analysis roles; he has extensive experience in forecasting, reporting and deal transactions.
In May 2015 SoFi's CEO, Mike Cagney, said the company planned to go public within the next 12 months; current plans have changed and the CEO now says it has no plans for an IPO anytime soon; the market for online lending IPOs has been volatile in recent months; SoFi has also been significantly focused on expanding its products beyond just student loans to meet broader needs for its customers; the CEO says its business and expanding business lines subject it to quarterly fluctuations in reporting metrics which could be detrimental under public investor scrutiny; given the firm's positioning it could be one of the industry's leading beneficiaries of the OCC's new fintech charter which will allow for national standards; as of last year SoFi had a valuation of approximately $4 billion and currently it's involved in a $500 million funding round to increase loan purchases and potentially equity. Source
Orchard provides insight on monthly trends in P2P lending originations; uses Lending Club's publicly available standard program data for the analysis; finds October has historically been the peak month for P2P loan originations; identifies loan purpose trends for 2015 with debt consolidation notably highest in January; categories with peak lending originations in December in 2015 included major purchase, other and small business. Source
The SEC Small Business Advocate Act of 2016 (HR3784) was signed into law; the law will add a new office within the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for small business advocacy; the small business advocacy office will oversee and support regulation and investment activities for small businesses and small business investors; the new law will also establish a small business capital formation advisory committee that will advise the SEC on small business market activity. Source
Estimated return on loan production in November 2016 was 6.58%, which is down from the previous three months; Prosper attributes its revised pricing and credit market trends overall to the month's weaker performance; the average FICO score in November was 714.2 which is approximately 10 points above the FICO scores in 2015 vintages; cumulative charge-offs are trending higher in 2015 and 2016 than 2013 and 2014; higher pricing is also a factor potentially affecting prepayment rates which are higher for loans originated in 2016. Source
In a recent interview, SoFi CEO Mike Cagney stated, "We feel very confident that in 2017 you'll be able to have a SoFi bank account with a debit and/or credit card."; further details are not known on how SoFi plans to offer deposit accounts; Cagney stated the company is working on two or three initiatives; back in July Cagney told investors that getting a traditional bank license was not a viable solution; the company may be able to leverage the OCC's recently announced nonbank fintech charter. Source
Massachusetts lender Radius Financial Group has begun experimenting with an all paperless mortgage in recent months as they look to become more efficient in this technological age; the process includes DocMagic, the MERS loan registry, Fannie Mae and Santander Bank; so far they've been able to complete six applications; the savings seen are significant, $200 a loan and on average nine to 13 days by using an e-warehouse line as compared to the traditional warehouse line. Source
According to American Banker, CAN Capital has laid off employees; this is following the news earlier this month of the company putting the chief executive officer and other executives on leave; according to an email from the company, "While this is a difficult decision, we believe it is necessary to position ourselves for long-term success."; documents from state officials in Georgia showed 136 layoffs in the Kennesaw, Georgia office while a source stated layoffs totaled 250 people, including all staff in Costa Rica; according to the source, layoffs were at least half of the company's total workforce. Source
Money360 is a marketplace lending platform focused on commercial real estate; Evan Gentry of Money360 provides insight on the firm in a Lend Academy podcast; the firm offers loans of $1 million to $15 million for commercial real estate properties; it has two primary products, shorter term bridge loans which are mainly funded by high net worth investors, family offices, hedge funds and institutional investors and then permanent longer term loans funded by banks and credit unions; the company has also launched an open-end fund which allows investors to invest in a portfolio of the company's commercial real estate loans; it has plans for continued growth in 2017 with the goal of $1 billion in annual originations over the next few years. Source
Phill Rosen spoke with Crowdfund Insider following the news last week of the company surpassing $1.5 billion in loan requests; according to Rosen, besides debt consolidation, weddings, auto and home improvement are the most popular categories for loans; average loan size is $10,551; Avant is the most popular platform by take rate followed by both Lending Club and Ascend who have high take rates according to Rosen; EVEN has seen a significant increase in demand since September which may be regular seasonal demand; for 2017, Rosen sees more consolidation for the space, followed by more growth. Source