Category: Binance

Thursday October 10 2019, Weekly News Digest

Lend Academy

News Comments Today’s main news: Affirm debuts shopping app. Zopa profits tick upward. RateSetter recovering from loan scandal. PPDAI stock rises 7% with lift in institutional-funded loans. Oportun ends Nasdaq debut with 8% gain. Australia: RBA cuts interest rates, online lenders follow. Today’s main analysis: The Future of Finance: Marcus, Neobank, and fintech. (A MUST-READ) […]

The post Thursday October 10 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

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News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

European Union

International

Other

News Summary

United States

OnDeck Survey: Economy is Top Concern for Small Businesses Ahead of 2020 Election (New Kerala), Rated: AAA

OnDeck today announced the results of a national survey of U.S. small business owners that finds economic issues are the most important factors in determining their choice for president in 2020.

  • Economic concerns arise in several dimensions, including tax policy, job growth, support for small businesses, government spending and the overall economic climate. These issues were cited as the top concerns of more than 33% of those surveyed;
  • Immigration was an issue of interest for 11.3% of small business owners surveyed, ranking second behind the economy as a concern.
  • 57% of small businesses surveyed said they were either Very Optimistic or Somewhat Optimistic about the economic outlook for their businesses;
  • 93% of those surveyed said they plan to vote in the 2020 election.
  • 60% of small business owners surveyed said they already know who they plan to vote for in the 2020 presidential election.

Affirm debuted a new app encouraging customers to start their shopping journeys with it (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

The point-of-sale (POS) financing provider 

Source: Business Insider

Affirm ships new shopping and bill splitting app (Finextra), Rated: A

Affirm’s app also allows consumers to pay at any brick-and-mortar store that accepts Apple Pay or Google Pay, which is increasingly important as 24% of consumers want the flexibility to look online and shop in-store.

Those with Apple Pay or Google Pay enabled have also seen up to 14% of transactions driven in-store, making the Affirm app a rare omnichannel solution for customer acquisition.

Max Levchin On The Future-Present Of Everywhere POS Lending (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Since Affirm’s launch, the landscape in the POS space is radically different than it was when Affirm entered. It is, first and foremost, a much bigger and more populated space than it once was. Other startups have come to the field — Afterpay, Uplift and Sezzle for example — but also bigger and more established names in financial services. In the last 12 months alone Square, Mastercard, PayPal and Chase have all rolled out POS installment lending products or enhancements as the market continues to pick up popularity among consumers, particularly younger ones.

Latest Macro; latest from Marcus; Oportun goes IPO (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

Q4 is off to a brisk start. The jobs report released this past Friday shows 114K in net new jobs (vs expectations of 120K), generally flat wages, and a drop in the unemployment rate to 3.5%.

On the one hand, the US economy is near ‘stall speed’ – around 1 to 1.5% growth rate.

Source: PeerIQ, The Daily Shot, Conference Board

House prices are expected to rise 5.8% over the next year due to low mortgage rates.

Two major financing announcements this week. FinTech lender, Oportun, led by CEO Raul Vazquez, ends its Nasdaq debut with an 8% gain. The debut is notable as it represents a positive shift in the sentiment to the reception of lenders to the IPO market.

My Quarterly Marketplace Lending Results – Q2 2019 (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

The upward trend in my returns continued in Q2, making it the fifth quarter in a row with increasing returns. My preliminary return for the 12 months ending June 30, 2019 is 6.20% (one investment is still not final), the best I have achieved since Q3 2017.

Source: Lend Academy

The Maybe-Dubious Rise of the Loans-for-Sneaker Business (GQ), Rated: AAA

Afterpay is one of a number of platforms that have sprouted up over the past couple years that are willing to float customers a couple hundred or thousand dollars to shop. In addition to it, there are Affirm, Sezzle, Klarna, and Quadpay. They are positioned as a more consumer-friendly option than credit cards, a whole host of services bent on—because this is 2019—disrupting the powers that be.

Globally, Afterpay, which launched in Australia, has over 4.6 million customers and 35,000 retail partners. In the U.S., where Afterpay only launched in May of last year, it has two million customers and is available at 6,500 retailers. Over three million people use Affirm, while another 500,000 have shopped with Sezzle.

Silicon Valley promises aside, Afterpay is, at best, a platform that allows you to take out what amounts to a small loan on an item. After an approval process—Afterpay does not check a credit score; others like Affirm do—the customer pays a fourth of the price upfront and the rest is paid off in three equal installments every two weeks.

Also new is the $1,500 limit, up from $500, that Afterpay raised after Hyde-McCormick proved himself a responsible shopper and the $87.50 payments currently due every two weeks.

a 

What Happened to Borro? (deBanked), Rated: A

In 2013, Borro, an innovative online lending company that was poised to disrupt pawn shop lending forever, invited me to their stylish offices at 767 Third Avenue in Manhattan.

Borro made $50 million worth of such loans in 2013 and doubled that number in 2014.

Auto, home equity are soft spots in consumer lending (American Banker), Rated: A

In its quarterly report that tracks consumer delinquency trends, the American Bankers Association said that 30-day past-due rates ticked up in eight of 11 categories in the second quarter when compared with the first quarter, but stressed that delinquencies remain well below historic norms.

Finally! Maker Offers Multi-Collateral DAI Lending (Cryptovest), Rated: A

Maker DAO, the most active decentralized finance app on the Ethereum network, has announced a date for its long-awaited multi-collateral DAI generation. According to observers, November 18 may be the date MKR starts accepting other assets as collateral.

Multi-collateral DAI creation has the potential to be riskier in comparison to ETH-based models. Currently, Maker is deliberately over-collateralized at above 300%, with the minimum at 150%, due to the high volatility of crypto assets.

A $ 40 Billion Pile of Leveraged Loans Is Battered by Big Losses (Bloomberg), Rated: A

Loans tied to more than 50 companies have lost at least 10 percentage points of face value in just three months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Some have dropped a lot more, with lenders lucky to get back just two-thirds of their investment if they tried to sell.

It’s hardly a full-blown apocalypse for the junk-rated leveraged loan market, which totals $1.2 trillion.

Energy is the hardest-hit sector on the list, with more than $12 billion of loans falling more than 10 cents on the dollar. Consumer and health care follow, comprising around $8 billion and $5 billion of loans outstanding, respectively.

Source: Bloomberg

Ruling cuts short debt collectors’ victory lap over CFPB proposal (American Banker), Rated: B

Under the CFPB’s May proposal, debt collectors could have unlimited contact with debtors through email and text messages, though consumers could opt out of such communications. Additionally, collectors could satisfy disclosure requirements with a hyperlink embedded in an email that takes consumers to a description about how they can dispute a debt.

The SEC is hiring a chief data officer (Business Insider), Rated: B

The Securities and Exchange Commission is hiring its first chief data officer, according to a job posting for the role.

Voyager Selects Celsius Network to Manage Certain Assets (AP News), Rated: B

Voyager Digital, LLC, a subsidiary of publicly-traded Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd (Ticker VYGR.CN), an industry-leading best execution crypto asset broker, today announced a partnership with Celsius Network, in which Celsius will manage a portion of Voyager’s digital assets.

United Kingdom

Zopa’s P2P profits tick up but group losses widen due to heavy investment in bank (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

Zopa Group – which incorporates the P2P platform and upcoming digital bank – reported a pre-tax loss of £18.295m for the year ended 31 December 2018, compared to a pre-tax loss of £5.536m the previous year.

Zopa: nine in 10 shoppers confused by car finance options (Verdict), Rated: A

In a survey of 2,000 consumers, 47% of people who had recently bought a car with finance are unable to identify which type of finance deal they signed up for. Zopa estimates that the average car buyer could save up to £11,000 over the course of their lifetime by working out the best finance deal available.

Ratesetter recovering from loan scandal (The Times), Rated: AAA

One of Britain’s largest peer-to-peer lenders appears to be recovering from a toxic loan scandal after its latest results showed it edging towards breaking even.

Accounts for Ratesetter, which links 56,000 ordinary investors with consumer and business borrowers, show that pre-tax losses narrowed by 69 per cent in the year to March.

Wonga customers’ average compensation payout may be just £118 (The Guardian), Rated: A

Customers who were mis-sold loans by the collapsed payday lender Wonga are expected to receive less than 10% of what they are owed in compensation after administrators revealed that only £41m will be put aside for claimants.

Payday loan alternative Savvy secures £20 million funding facility (Finextra), Rated: A

Stockport and Wilmslow based fintech company Savvy.co.uk is to create 25 jobs after securing a £20 million investment.

The funding, from London-based Cairn Capital, will increase lending capacity for the company who provide an ethical alternative to pay-day loans.

MEET THE FRENCHMAN WHO WANTS TO SOLVE THE UK’S HOUSING CRISIS (Business Leader), Rated: A

WHY DID YOU START BLEND NETWORK?

I started working in the financial industry as an FX trader before moving to trading gold and copper, both much more inefficient markets than FX. I realised that the UK property market was a hugely inefficient market in the sense that lenders and borrowers are not meeting. On the one hand, you have very experienced property developers across the country who are trying to access funds to build homes but traditional lenders are no longer active in providing development finance.

Instead, we lend in places such as Coventry, East Anglia, Doncaster, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a very good example of our strategic approach to lending. Last year, we did around 80-85% of our business in Northern Ireland.

Crowdfunding a start up options explained for businesses and investors (What Investment), Rated: A

Crowdfunding a start up brings to mind the statement ‘Nothing worth having comes easy’, never truer than in the case of launching a start-up. Getting a new business off the ground will often require capital. Something which a lot of people don’t know how to go about getting.

These are:

  • Reward based crowdfunding;
  • Equity based crowdfunding;
  • Debt based crowdfunding, and
  • Donation based crowdfunding.

Landlords wary of tax changes (Money International), Rated: A

Half of the 200 landlords approached agreed tax changes and tougher mortgage borrowing criteria have thwarted their plans to buy more properties, while 15% admitted they had been put off buying homes to rent.

A third who still wanted to invest are considering a switch from buy to let to peer-to-peer lending secured against property, while 8% have already done so.

China

PPDAI Stock Soars 7% on Increase in Institutionally-Funded Loans (Capital Watch), Rated: AAA

The stock in PPDAI Group Inc (NYSE: PPDF) closed 7% higher on Wednesday, at $2.83 per American depositary share, after it announced a positive trend in funding of loans by its institutional partners and increased loan origination volume.

For the third quarter, the Shanghai-based company, which operates an online consumer finance marketplace, said in a statement on Wednesday that the volume of loans facilitated by its institutional funding partners jumped to $2.64 billion, up 91% from the second quarter. Total loan origination volume was above PPDAI’s guidance, it said, as it reached $3.51 billion, up 14% from the previous quarter.

European Union

What we learned at this year’s LendIt Fintech Europe (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

At the conference, Business Insider Intelligence identified four emerging themes that we expect to set the tone for the space for the next year: further proliferation of partnerships between banks and fintechs, increased focus on digital banks’ sustainability, accelerated innovation and disruption from small- and medium-sized business (SMB) lenders, and more challenges ahead for the UK’s P2P lenders.

  • CYBG bank and price comparison site GoCompare recently partnered to offer an energy compare and switch service for all of CYBG’s B customers.
  • Barclays bank partnered with SMB finance fintech MarketInvoice last year to give Barclays’ SMB clients access to MarkeInvoice’s solutions. 
  • French Banking-as-a-Service platform Treezor was acquired by Société Générale last year, as the bank looked to enhance its ability to innovate and decrease time to market.
Source: Business Insider

Linked Finance launches ‘Beyond Brexit’ business loans (Bridging and Commercial), Rated: A

The new 18-month loan period will allow borrowers to access working capital facilities of up to €300,000 (approximately £265,194) in just 24 hours.

ID on track to double revenues as it eyes €300m+ of revenue within 2 years (Fintech Finance), Rated: A

ID Finance, the fintech operating in Europe and Latin America, saw revenue growth of over 100% in the first 9 months of 2019 and is on track to double its revenues to €90m revenue this year. The data science, credit scoring and digital finance company is now planning its first equity crowdfunding round via Crowdcube as it targets €300m+ of revenue within 2 years.

Binance Launches New Lending Program Phase (CoinCodex), Rated: A

The Binance cryptocurrency exchange has launched the latest phase of its relatively new lending program. For the program’s eighth installment, Binance is sticking with the model of short-term loans, as users only have to commit their crypto for 14 days.

International

A Guide to What’s Happening in the Fintech Revolution (Bloomberg), Rated: AAA

These underbanked markets, led by countries in Asia and Africa, have inspired fintech innovation that’s leapfrogging the technology available in the developed world. Ant Financial Services Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay in China, Paytm in India, and Safaricom’s M-Pesa in Kenya are some well-known examples.

Source: Bloomberg

Take Facebook Inc.’s plan to launch a digital currency called Libra in 2020. The social network’s gigantic reach—more than 2.4 billion active monthly users—could draw a much wider audience to Libra than has used previous cryptocurrencies. For instance, global remittances by migrants reached a record $689 billion last year, according to the World Bank.

Source: Bloomberg

San Francisco-based 500 Startups staked 43 such companies in the 12 months ended June 30.

Goldman’s $ 1.3B Marcus burn, Neobank £200MM loss; plus 14 short takes on top developments (Lex), Rated: AAA

Goldman is losing $1.3 billion on Marcus, trying to build a Fintech leader. Etrade is going to lose $75 million from cutting trading fees to $0 to keep up with Robinhood. Revolut is losing £35 million on £60 million in revenue, with another £140 million burned by Atom, Monzo, Tandem, and the rest.

Source FT Research and Future of Finance

Generally speaking, from a deposit point of view, these are still all small businesses at £1 billion in assets (e.g., Betterment manages $20 billion).

Source: ARK Invest and Future of Finance

The first is that the Robinhoods and Monzos of the world are 10x overpriced relative to the payments apps. I can sort of buy this — though money in motion is way easier to capture than money at rest. The second is that venture investors think a finance user is worth $1,500 in a digital bank.

Source: Future of Finance

Blockchain: the future of finance (Financier Worldwide), Rated: A

Recent examples of blockchain’s impact on financial markets go well beyond these initial applications or P2P lending or crowdfunding.

The first wave of applications in finance and banking is being driven by easily achievable gains in actively traded assets.

MasterCard incorporated a blockchain payment system providing vendors real time, lower cost settlements on cross-border transactions. Representing a consortium of more than 40 of the world’s largest banks, fintech firm R3 launched a payment system built on DLT platform Corda, to expedite intra-bank transfers.

St. Regis Aspen, a Colorado resort, is a partnership formed with a crowdfunding site, Indiegogo, that in lieu of a traditional IPO completed a private placement via DLT financing real estate. This sale of ‘tokens’ – fractional interests in the underlying property – raised $18m, compliant with securities laws.

Australia

Hot home loan rates starting with a 2 (mozo), Rated: AAA

The RBA has cut official interest rates for the third time this year, and already a handful of lenders have responded by slashing rates across their range of variable rate home loans. Right now, if your home loan doesn’t have a ‘2’ in front of it, you’re missing out.

loans.com.au jumps on October RBA home loan rate cut party (mozo), Rated: AAA

The online lender has announced its response to the 0.25% drop in the official cash rate though, with loans.com.au taking 0.15% off a number of variable rate home loan offers for both owner occupiers and investors.

The changes, which come into effect on October 17, will have an impact on a number of  loans.com.au home loan offers including:

• Essentials Variable loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 3.04% (3.06% comparison rate*).

• Smart Home Loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 2.88% (2.90% comparison rate*).

• ZIP Home Loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 3.08% (3.10% comparison rate*).

• Offset Variable loan – reduced by 0.15% with rates now as low as 3.12% (3.14% comparison rate*).

OnDeck appoints Robbie Fidler as new national broker chief (IT Wire), Rated: B

Online SME lender OnDeck Australia has appointed experienced commercial lending operator Robbie Fidler as its national broker channel manager.

Asia

SPV 2030: Sharing of risks and reward (The Malaysian Reserve), Rated: A

The growth and success of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is a testament of the viability of risk-sharing contracts, where the investors take on some risks (for higher return) from the ventures they are financing. This way, finance will be grounded in the real economy, which is another core principle of Islamic finance.

MENA

Beehive funds first SME in Bahrain (Arabian Business), Rated: AAA

Dubai-based Beehive, the region’s first regulated peer-to-peer lending platform, has funded its first SME in Bahrain.

Canada

BFS Capital Opens New Data Science and Engineering Hub in Toronto (Financial Post), Rated: B

BFS Capital, a leader in small business lending, has officially launched a data science and engineering hub in Toronto as the company accelerates its plans to develop best-in-class digital financial products for small businesses across the globe.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday October 10 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

A Discussion About Internet 3.0 , Decentralized Everything

Internet 3.0

Internet 1.0 is HTML websites. Internet 2.0 is a social network and user-created content. How is Internet 3.0 coming along? What is Internet 3.0? Are you familiar with Napster, Kazaa, and BitTorrent? Today, Bittorent has met Bitcoin and given birth to the following startups, networks, or organizations: Decentralized computing power. Golem, among others, is a […]

The post A Discussion About Internet 3.0 , Decentralized Everything appeared first on Lending Times.

Internet 3.0

Internet 1.0 is HTML websites.
Internet 2.0 is a social network and user-created content.
How is Internet 3.0 coming along?

What is Internet 3.0?

Are you familiar with Napster, Kazaa, and BitTorrent? Today, Bittorent has met Bitcoin and given birth to the following startups, networks, or organizations:

  • Decentralized computing power. Golem, among others, is a peer-to-peer market for putting your computer’s excess CPU power to use for other people. It works because there is no easy way to pay anybody on the planet fractions of a dollar for having used their CPU for 1 minute. This is, however, possible via blockchain.
  • Decentralized exchanges. Ether Delta, among others, is a cryptocurrency exchange which operates in a decentralized way (i.e., without a central counterparty). Decentralized exchanges allow peer-to-peer trading, which means that when a trade is executed the items are exchanged directly between the traders without touching any third party, and without the traders being able to stop the exchange. This approach eliminates counter-party risk entirely. On the other side, it also allows people to trade completely anonymously.
  • Decentralized protocol approval. Tezos, among others, is an open-source platform for assets and applications and allows the participants to vote to change its rules and protocols. Participants can choose to change the fee structure, rules, the protocol APIs, nearly everything. This protocol change-mechanism is built within the network rules, and nobody has the right of veto or override. Imagine if eBay merchants could vote to reduce the eBay fees without the eBay management being able to stop it. Of course, this opens the doors to politics, and also to oligarchies as having more Tezos coins obviously gives you more power to influence the votes.

Other similar companies include but are not limited to:

  • Decentralized file storage (Filecoin)
  • Decentralized domain naming (Namecoin)
  • Decentralized cloud storage (Storj)
  • Decentralized databases (BigchainDB, IPFS)
  • Decentralized internet address allocation (JACS)
  • Decentralized Video Encoding and Streaming (Livepeer).
  • Decentralize financial services (Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc.) and more.
Fig. 1. A map of some of the decentralized space from here.

Business models

Centralized online marketplaces , like Amazon, Uber, E-Bay or Lending Club, typically earn roughly 10%-35% of the value exchanges through the platform.

Other online platforms like Facebook or Google don’t share any of the ad revenue earned from the personal-data exchanged through the platform. They keep 100%.

In addition, all centralized marketplaces and platforms exert full control over who can advertise, who and what can be sold, to whom, where, etc.

Their full control, when the company is young or fragile, is not being exercised much. They want to attract users and customers. However, as the company grows, and pressure from investors and the financial markets increases, the platform position of the de facto monopoly in their sector is usually leveraged to increase fees and to control who and what can be transacted on the platform. For example, Google has a history of banning certain ad categories on its platform. Most people agree that the bans, so far, have been legitimate and are targeting harmful or mostly fraudulent industries from selling their products and services. However, Google’s power of life-or-death over entire industries is troublesome.

In comparison, decentralized networks and organizations have so far mostly tried a few different business models.

Financing and crypto coins

Traditional , centralized, startups sell their equity to investors. Equity is scarce by definition, to 100%. And once sold, investors typically have a contractual right preventing startups from creating more shares and diluting them without their approval.

Equity is a problem in a decentralized project. Equity to what? What does an equity holder control?

Most decentralized organizations mentioned above have created their own crypto coins in order to finance their creation. Their usual business model is to make the coin, artificially or legitimately, a required part of each transaction on their network. As the number of transactions grows and the coin inventory is limited, the coins become more valuable. And the network itself uses its own inventory of coins to finance its expenses. In addition, some decentralized networks also take a percentage of the value exchanged on their platforms.

However, the token approach has, so far, failed to work for most networks.

The most successful tokens today have thousands of active daily addresses.

Fig. 2 : Number of active addresses per network per day, log scale, for MakerDAO ( purple) , Tezos (blue), Binance (orange).

This is not surprising. All these decentralized organizations are new startups. It takes time for startups to build traction. A handful of them will have millions of users after 3-5 years. Most startups may still be viable businesses even though they only have hundreds of daily active users, but their tokens will not have any real value due to over-inventory. Therefore, maybe relying on token activity and scarcity to finance all decentralized projects may not be a viable way to finance these projects.

I believe an alternative token model is needed for most of these projects. A model that will have significant return to investors even if the network only achieves modest success of 100s of transactions per day. However, this may require an increase in network fees.

The X Open questions of decentralized entities

As I think of decentralization, many questions are on my  mind:

  1. What are these entities? Are they businesses, networks, organizations, protocols, or something else? The concept of Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO, has been used in the past. But to my knowledge, no actively operating entity using a real DAO model is live and generating revenue today. All entities have executives, employees, bank accounts, offices, etc. Or is it? The Bitcoin network itself, with all the developers in various organizations who are trying to contribute to it, is fairly decentralized.
  2. Governance: Leaders in centralized entities are required. Often, leaders aren’t any good at taking decisions, but making some decision is often better than not being able to make any decision. Many an organization has died because nothing at all was done. Are decentralized organizations able to make decisions fast and efficiently over 5 to 10 years while they grow?
  3. Are decentralized networks cheaper to run, and do they have a disruptor advantage over centralized networks? It is not clear. Lending Club, one of the first P2P lending startups, argued that their cost structure was cheaper than banks’. However, it turns out the cost of capital lending and cost of customer acquisition were under-estimated and banks have cheaper capital and cheaper customer acquisition. Lending Club’s profit margins are not impressive. Neither is Uber’s. Nor are Amazon’s. I believe there is no single answer to this question, but assuming that a decentralized entity is more cost effective than a centralized entity is not obvious. In human history, disciplined centralized organizations (armies, empires, …) have clearly been more successful than federations, communes, etc.
  4. Is there value built, and where is it? The startup/VC model has worked since the Dot Com boom because it was a profitable model for everybody involved. VCs made money, and successful entrepreneurs attracted more smart wannabe entrepreneurs. It is very important to see the founders and investors in these decentralized organizations be successful or there will be no second generation decentralized entities.

Conclusion

What is the innovation here?

I believe that an exchange that can work without counterparty risk is a real innovation.

I believe that a method to pay fractions of a dollars efficiently to anybody on the planet is a real innovation.

I believe one day we will see the Netflix of Internet 3.0 bankrupt the Blockbuster of Internet 0, 1.0, or 2.0.

However, questions remain. Is decentralization in business similar to communism in politics? Does this model really work? In 1990, in Moscow, everything was rationed, bread was extremely scarce. When a communist leader asked the London mayor who is in charge of the bread supply to London so they can learn their secrets, the mayor, confused, answered “Nobody!” Our modern food supply is a decentralized market, and fewer and fewer people are going hungry.

Author:

George Popescu

The post A Discussion About Internet 3.0 , Decentralized Everything appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday September 19 2019, Weekly News Digest

MAS Singapore

News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi to get its name on a football stadium. Petal raises $300M. Funding Circle closing in on 1-year anniversary of float. Zopa sends warning of imitation scams. Cumulative UK alt lending hits 11.3B GBP. Companies to get social credit in China. Today’s main analysis: Student loan refinancing rates are down. […]

The post Thursday September 19 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

MAS Singapore

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China/Hong Kong

International

Other

News Summary

United States

Sundays at SoFi: NFL Stadium in Inglewood Lands a Corporate Name (Commercial Observer), Rated: AAA

Online lender SoFi Lending Corp. has secured the naming rights and a 20-year deal with the Rams and Chargers, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The firm agreed to pay around $20 million per year, reports say.

SoFi Stadium, which will be the largest in the NFL, is the centerpiece to the much larger $5-billion Hollywood Park project developed by Rams Owner/Chairman E. Stanley Kroenke. Construction is 75 percent complete, and the stadium is expected to open next summer for other events before the NFL preseason begins in August.

Taylor Swift to Open SoFi Stadium Next Summer (KFI AM 640), Rated: B

The opening of the $2.6 billion SoFi Stadium will happen next summer on July 25th. However it’s not for a Rams or Chargers game. Swift announced that she will play two shows (July 25th and July 26th) at the stadium as a part in her much-anticipated 2020 world tour.

Economy is Top Concern for Small Businesses Ahead of 2020 Election (OnDeck), Rated: AAA

Key Findings from the OnDeck Small Business Survey:

  • Economic concerns arise in several dimensions, including tax policy, job growth, support for small businesses, government spending and the overall economic climate. These issues were cited as the top concerns of more than 33% of those surveyed;
  • Immigration was an issue of interest for 11.3% of small business owners surveyed, ranking second behind the economy as a concern.
  • 57% of small businesses surveyed said they were either ”Very Optimistic” or ”Somewhat Optimistic” about the economic outlook for their businesses;
  • 93% of those surveyed said they plan to vote in the 2020 election.
  • 60% of small business owners surveyed said they already know who they plan to vote for in the 2020 presidential election.

President Donald Trump was the choice of 37% of small businesses surveyed, followed by Joe Biden at 18%. When combined, the top five Democratic candidates were the preference of 44% of respondents.

Student Loan Refinancing Rates Down Sharply (Credible), Rated: AAA

During August:

  • Rates on 10-year fixed-rate loans averaged 4.70%, down 22% from a July 2018 peak of 6.05%
  • Rates on 5-year variable-rate loans averaged 4.03%, down 14% from September

A borrower repaying the average graduate school debt of $84,300 over 10 years at 6.36% interest — the average rate for grad school loans in recent years — could save:

  • $20,927 by refinancing into a 5-year variable rate loan
  • $8,327 by refinancing into a 10-year fixed-rate loan

Credit card start-up Petal raises $ 300 million debt round from Jefferies (CNBC), Rated: AAA

The New York City-based company announced a $300 million debt round from Jefferies on Tuesday, adding to existing venture capital investments from names like Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.

Plaid adds credit card data to Liabilities product (Tearsheet), Rated: A

In July, Plaid launched its Liabilities product that gives developers access to real time information about what consumers owe. Expanding beyond student loan data, the company has added support for credit card information, so firms can build better debt management solutions.

GoCardless launches US debit payments solution and opens San Francisco office (TechCrunch), Rated: A

GoCardless, the London fintech that aims to become the one-stop shop globally for businesses that want to let customers pay via recurring bank payments, has launched a U.S. debit solution.

Specifically, GoCardless’  new U.S. product supports debit payments on the ACH (Automated Clearing House) network.

The company has also opened an office across the pond in San Francisco’s financial district, headed up by Andrew Gilboy, general manager, North America, who was previously the company’s chief revenue officer.

Nav Launches New Feature to Help Business Owners Boost Business Credit (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Today Nav, a fintech company that matches business owners with their best financing options for free, announced new offerings to help small business owners boost their business credit scores, giving an easy solution to developing a strong business credit profile that alternative and traditional lenders can trust and finance.

Why would HUD gut its own disparate impact rule? (The Times Weekly), Rated: AAA

Since 2013, the disparate impact rule has objectively examined the effects of business practices with lenders, landlords, insurers, and real estate professionals against the provisions of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The rule required that first a plaintiff must establish a discriminatory effect in policies and/or practices, before the defendant(s) would bear the responsibility of proving their own practices were nondiscriminatory.

During delivery of Capitol Hill testimony earlier this spring, Nikitra Bailey, an EVP with the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) also underscored the importance of disparate impact in fair housing.

“Disparate impact analysis encourages creative approaches that both increase effectiveness and inclusion,” testified Bailey. “This process and the value of disparate impact analysis was recently pointed out and endorsed by the largest personal loan company in the country, Lending Club.”

BlueVine Appoints Dosh & PayPal Vet Brad Brodigan As New Chief Commercial Officer (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Online lender BlueVine announced on Wednesday it has appointed Brad Brodigan as its new Chief Commercial Officer. BlueVine reported that through this role, Brodigan will be responsible for overseeing revenue-generating functions including sales, customer service, and partner management.

Money360 Closes $ 170 Million in Commercial Real Estate Loans in July and August (GlobeNewswire), Rated: A

Money360, a technology-enabled direct lender specializing in commercial real estate (CRE) loans, announced today it closed approximately $170 million in loans during July and August. This benchmark brings Money360 close to $500 million in loans closed this year.

Groundfloor Now Allows Real Estate Developers to Gain Pre Approval on Loans (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Groundfloor, a real estate lending and investing platform that allows anyone to participate directly in real estate investments, has launched a new product to make the lending process more easier for real estate investors. Groundfloor now allows certain developers to gain pre-approval on loans with a new program called “QC Maxx.”

ABS East; Stripe’s Lending Arm; Madden Decision (PeerIQ), Rated: A

In financing news, student loan fintech “College Ave” locked down a $300MM securitization and a AAA rating this week. The securitization was co-led by both Barclays and Goldman Sachs. Affirm, led by Max Levchin, is reportedly close to wrapping up a $1.5 Bn debt and equity financing with Thrive Capital and Spark Capital leading.

Stripe is mirroring other payments companies that have since built lending capabilities – notably, Square and PayPal. Stripe believes it can compete in an already crowded small business lending market (OnDeck, Kabbage, Fundera, Funding Circle, etc.) due to its data & channel advantages stemming from its payments business.

Fintech Firm OppLoans Announces Its First Bank-Led Credit Facility (GlobeNewswire), Rated: A

OppLoans, a growing fintech and top rated direct-to-consumer online lending platform, announced today that it has secured its first bank-led asset-backed revolving credit facility. This facility structure will enable OppLoans to further its mission by broadening access to online personal lending products for more middle-income consumers with credit challenges.

Aura Completes Three Social Bond Issuances Totaling 5 million Over Last 4 Months (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

M&G Investments and Community Capital Management, a mutual fund that specializes in impact and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) related investments, have joined with U.S. and international banks to invest $145 million in Aura’s social bonds to finance the origination of affordable, small dollar installment loans to working families in the United States.

Challenger banks insist they’re equal to the task of lending (American Banker), Rated: A

Almost all U.S. challenger banks offer no-fee checking, savings accounts and enhanced personal financial management tools. Now some of the most popular have taken, or are poised to take, their next step: making loans.

Personal loans and credit cards are lucrative but inherently risky, and these young companies — like MoneyLion, Varo and others — will have to prove to regulators, investors and the public that they have the wherewithal to weather downturns in the credit cycle.

Cash-flow data shows promise as predictor of credit risk (American Banker), Rated: A

Melissa Koide, co-founder and CEO of FinRegLab, analyzed loan data from six lenders that use cash-flow data in their underwriting. She shares what she found.

Prevu Raises $ 2 Million in Seed Funding to Grow its Digital Home Buying Platform (Digital Journal), Rated: A

Prevu, a customer-focused digital home buying platform delivering industry-leading efficiency and savings, announced today the closing of its $2 million seed funding round. The round was led by Corigin Ventures, a prominent seed-stage venture capital firm with expertise in the real estate technology and consumer industries as well as a history of backing startups disrupting residential brokerage business models.

Embattled Prodigy Network CEO Rodrigo Niño to step down (The Real Deal), Rated: A

Prodigy Network founder Rodrigo Niño is stepping down from his position as CEO amid mounting financial and legal issues, The Real Deal has learned.

Prodigy, a real estate crowdfunding platform, has faced criticism from investors in recent months over underperforming investment properties and unpaid distributions. On Monday, an investor in one of Prodigy’s newest projects — the 13-story Standard Hotel in Chicago — filed a lawsuit alleging the firm was “insolvent” and had used investments “for purposes other than those relating to the project.”

EquityMultiple Provides Investors with Options to Take Advantage of Unique Tax Benefits (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Opportunity Zones are new, tax-advantaged vehicles for investors to earn more on their money. Created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the first qualified opportunity zones (QOZs) first hit the market in early 2018. Designated by state authorities, there are now thousands of QOZs in the US designed to boost development in selected communities. Investors receive a break on capital gains taxes which can be significant. Local officials can spur economic development which leads to more jobs. Online investment platforms immediately saw the opportunity intrinsic to QOZs with multiple platforms now offering investments in developments that benefit from these tax breaks.

Why are your Opportunity Zone Offerings better than some others available on competing investment platforms?

Soren Godbersen: There are a number of firms out there now marketing Opportunity Zone offerings to investors. We’re proud of what we have been able to offer to our investor network and there are a few things about our Opportunity Zone investments that are unique:

How to Recession-Proof Your Investments (U.S. News), Rated: A

AFTER A DECADE OF steady growth, the economic cycle is due for a reversal, with concerns of a recession.

  • Consider other types of investments outside of stocks and bonds.
  • Know that timing the market is difficult.

What to Invest in During a Recession?

Other less correlated assets include the real estate niche. With real estate crowdfunding, hypermarket segmentation is available. Investors can choose their property type and geographic region when investing in real estate. Two real estate crowdfunding platforms for accredited investors are CrowdFund and EquityMultiple. Fundrise and Groundfloor open targeted real estate investing to nonaccredited investors as well.

Litecoin Non-Profit to Hold Undisclosed Treasury Sum with Crypto Lender (CoinDesk), Rated: A

The Litecoin Foundation is putting its capital to work, lending at interest through another cryptocurrency program.

The Foundation has tapped the Celsius Network, a blockchain-based crypto lending program, to become its preferred crypto wallet, Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky told CoinDesk.

As part of the deal, the Foundation will allocate an undisclosed portion of its treasury to the Network. LTC holders can receive up to 10.53% annually back on their crypto holdings and dollar loans as low as 4.95 percent as well.

Fintechs give small business more choice for credit than just banks (PaymentsSource), Rated: AAA

It’s no secret working capital is the lifeblood of all small businesses. It’s the fuel that keeps them running, helps them grow and take on new opportunities.

And yet, so many small businesses struggle with cash flow. In fact, according to a recent study from Intuit QuickBooks, 61% of small businesses have had cash flow issues in the past year.

Source: FIS

Walmart’s New Credit Cards Have One Big Goal: Boost E-Commerce (Bloomberg), Rated: A

In a sign of how much Walmart Inc. is betting on e-commerce, the retailer’s revamped credit-card program with Capital One Financial Corp. offers better rewards for online shopping and checking out with its mobile app.

The new options, which become available Sept. 24 and use Mastercard Inc.’s network, offer 5% cash back for purchases made at Walmart’s website, including groceries. At the chain’s physical stores, shoppers only get that rate for a year and have to check out with Walmart Pay at the cashier. Otherwise, store customers get 2% back.

Finicity Releases New Verification of Income and Employment Solution for Lenders (PR Web), Rated: B

Finicity, a provider of real-time financial data access and insights, announced today the release of its new Verification of Income and Employment (VOIE) solution using patent-pending TXVerify technology that will speed up borrower verifications and further advance the industry shift toward a fully digital experience.

The Finicity VOIE solution digitally extracts a borrower’s pay statement data from the paystub and then cross-verifies that key data with their income transactions from their financial institutions. Enabled by its TXVerify technology, this detailed vetting process creates a real-time picture of an applicant’s income and employment for fast, accurate reports. The solution does this by leveraging the highest value data – direct from banks – along with a scan, photo or PDF of a borrower’s paystubs. This process significantly shifts the current paradigm from a mostly manual process to one that is fully digital, all while reducing fraud and increasing confidence in the underwriting process.

Sallie Krawcheck: Why ‘don’t buy daily coffee’ is terrible advice (CNBC), Rated: B

“Don’t buy daily coffee” is the go-to financial advice. Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, Sallie Krawcheck, says that advice is misleading and just enjoy your latte.

Ethereum Development Studio ConsenSys Announces Codefi, A New DeFi Software Suite (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin announced at the Ethereal Tel Aviv press conference (on September 15) that his New York-based venture studio is launching a new product, Codefi, for the emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

Despite not having invested in emerging DeFi platforms, Lubin described P2P lending systems such as Uniswap and MakerDAO as some of the blockchain industry’s most promising projects.

ApplePie Capital Partners with LSQ Funding on A/R Franchise Financing (Monitor Daily), Rated: B

Online lender ApplePie Capital entered into a new strategic partnership with LSQ Funding Group, a technology-enabled provider of accounts receivable financing for small and mid-sized businesses.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle nears one-year anniversary of London float (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

The peer-to-peer business lender began conditional dealings on the London Stock Exchange on 28 September before being officially admitted to the bourse on 3 October. It launched with an offer price of 440p per share, giving the firm a valuation of £1.5bn.

However, its market capitalisation as of 17 September has since dropped to £348.7m, with its shares now trading at just over 100p.

Zopa warns over imitation scam firms (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

ZOPA has warned over a growing number of scam operators targeting UK customers using the peer-to-peer lender’s name to dupe investors.

They include: asking customers directly for their Zopa login details; claiming to work with companies investing money in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies; or working with companies who would ask them to take out a Zopa loan to fund an investment.

Record numbers of investors and borrowers as cumulative lending hits £11.3bn (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

MORE than 150,000 lenders were invested in 321,483 loans facilitated by Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) platforms at the end of the second quarter, which the trade body deemed “a record level of involvement in the sector”.

Funding Circle is the largest P2P lender among the P2PFA platform members, having lent out a cumulative total of £5.4bn as of the end of the second quarter. It is followed by Zopa at £4.5bn, with ThinCats in third place with just over £491m.

£814m of new loans were made in the second quarter, compared to £866m in the first three months of 2019.

Monzo halts cash referrals as it hits three million users (AltFi), Rated: A

Monzo has ended its cash incentivised referral system as the firm continues to grow users at a rapid pace.

Monzo now has passed the 3 million ‘users’ number, hitting the milestone late on yesterday and is now onboarding 55,000 people to Monzo every week.

Transferwise Books Its Third Consecutive Year of Profits (Lendit), Rated: A

European fintech company Transferwise has recorded its third year in a row of profits; the company reported its net profit after tax climbed to £10.3 million in the fiscal year ending March 2019, up 66% from the previous year on revenue of £179 million;

Payment provider Klarna appearing at London Fashion Week has everybody talking (MyLondon), Rated: A

UK fashion Designer Henry Holland decided to take things up a notch in Saturdays catwalk show with a T Shirt design in collaboration with Klarna.

Klarna expands partnership with Mothercare (The Paypers), Rated: B

Klarna and Mothercare have announced an extension to their partnership, which will see Klarna’s Pay later, Pay in 3, and Slice it products available online and in-store across the UK.

OakNorth Bank provides £3.7m loan to Clearview Developments (London Loves Property), Rated: A

OakNorth Bank the UK bank powered by OakNorth has provided a £3.7m loan to Clearview Developments for a new residential development in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Smarterly and OakNorth Bank partner to offer new Notice Cash ISA range to Smarterly customers (Fintech Finance), Rated: B

The product range includes five Cash ISA Notice accounts, exclusive to Smarterly, ranging from 35 days at 1.05% to one year at 1.25%; Customers will not be able to apply for these products with OakNorth directly;

These five Cash ISAs Notice Accounts are:

  • 35 days – 1.05%
  • Three months – 1.10%
  • Six months – 1.15%
  • Nine months – 1.20%
  • One year – 1.25%
China/Hong Kong

Coming Soon: ‘Social Credit’ for Companies, Too (WSJ), Rated: AAA

A key target of China’s coming “social credit” system, which among Westerners usually triggers visions of “1984”-style monitoring of people, is actually misbehaving businesses.

Corporate America needs to prepare.

About 80% of information on the main data-sharing platform relates to companies rather than individuals, according to China consulting…

Hexindai Reports Unaudited First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2020 Financial Results (PR Newswire), Rated: A

First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2020 Operational Highlights

  • Total loan volume facilitated[1] was US$ 28.2 million (RMB192.3 million) during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, a decrease of 93.5% from the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Gross billing amount (net of VAT)[2] was US$4.7 million during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, a decrease of 90.7% from the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Gross billing ratio (net of VAT)[3] for credit loans was 16.7% during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, an increase from 11.7% during the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Number of borrowers[4] was 18,546 during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, a decrease of 36.0% from the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Number of investors[5] was 9,534 during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, a decrease of 85.9% from the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.

First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2020 Unaudited Financial Highlights

  • Net revenue was US$4.9 million during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, a decrease of 90.5% from the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Operating costs and expenses were US$12.6 million during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, a decrease of 18.9% from the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Net loss was US$7.2 million during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, compared to net income of US$29.7 million in first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Basic loss per ordinary shares in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was US$0.15, compared to basic earnings per ordinary shares (“EPS”) of US$0.62 in first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Diluted loss per ordinary shares in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was US$0.15, compared to diluted EPS of US$0.56 in first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Adjusted net loss attributable to Hexindai Inc.’s shareholders (Non-GAAP) in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was US$7.0 million, compared to adjusted net income attributable to Hexindai Inc.’s shareholders (Non-GAAP) of US$29.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.
  • Adjusted EBIT (Non-GAAP) in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was (US$5.8) million, compared to US$36.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.

CreditEase’s Zhang Sees China’s Credit Demand Rising (Bloomberg), Rated: A

Zhang Yue, senior vice president at CreditEase, discusses the demand for credit in China, write downs in her portfolio, P2P lending, their wealth management business and their expansion plans.

Securing privacy concerns in FinTech in Hong Kong (Lexology), Rated: A

Hong Kong has built a strong environment for fostering innovation and financial technology or FinTech. With its large financial sector and its strategic role with Mainland China and gateway to the rest of Asia and the world, Hong Kong has the potential to take on an important role in being a leader in FinTech. In March 2019, for example, Hong Kong issued its first virtual banking licences, which will likely increase adoption of FinTech in the financial services sector.

Emerging technologies used in Fintech services and operations come in different forms, and include:

  • data analytics that support the operations of financial institutions (for example, credit scoring, loan processing);
  • peer-to-peer (P2P) financing (such as P2P lending and crowdfunding platforms);
  • distributed ledger technology, such as cryptocurrency, bitcoin transactions and smart contract applications, as well as blockchain services to help reduce fraud by keeping provenance data on the blockchain; and
  • financial investments, such as stock trading apps, robo-advisors and algorithmic trading and budgeting apps.
European Union

Binance Announces Phase Five of Crypto Lending Featuring Privacy Coins XMR, ZEC, and DASH (Crypto-Economy), Rated: AAA

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced its launch of the fifth phase of its cryptocurrency lending product in which it customers subscribe to an allocation to lend other users their funds for interest rates as high as 15% Apr.

the 15% interest rate was only available to Binance’s native coin lenders in the first phase. On Tuesday, the exchange revealed three coins that will be included in the crypto lending product including only privacy-centric coins Monero [XMR], Zcash [ZEC] and Dash [DASH]. Their annualized interest rates will be a constant 3.5% but the lending period is only two weeks starting from this Friday September 20th through October 4th.

P2P Lender creditshelf to Acquire SME Finance Provider Valendo (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

creditshelf Aktiengesellschaft has signed a purchase agreement for the acquisition of all shares in Valendo – part of the finleap Fintech ecosystem.

According to a company release, the purchase price was in the “low seven-digit amount.” Payment will take place in two separate tranches. creditshelf has the option of settling both tranches in the course of two capital increases via a contribution in kind.

International

How MAS propelled Singapore to the top of the class (Euromoney), Rated: AAA

Today, Singapore sits proudly atop the Euromoney Country Risk (ECR) rankings. Based on ECR’s blend of financial and economic data, combined with the views of leading economists, no country in the world today has a stronger financial position.

When MAS said in July 2019 that it planned to issue five new digital banking licences, analysts soon spotted that three of them were wholesale licences, open to banks and non-banks alike.

Winners will be encouraged to lend, using digital means, to small and medium-sized enterprises and other non-retail segments – further evidence that corporate banking will be the next segment to feel the hot breath of disruption on its neck.

Source: Euromoney County Risk

Goldman Leads Trulioo’s $ 70M Raise To Expand Global Digital ID (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Trulioo, the global identity verification provider, has raised $70 million in new funding, eyeing growth in its core digital identification efforts, the company announced Tuesday (Sept. 17).

The company said in a release that the funding includes $60 million in a Series C round that was led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity. Other participants included Citi Ventures, Santander InnoVentures and existing investor American Express Ventures. The remaining $10 million came as unannounced follow-on financing from early investors, including BDC Capital and Blumberg Capital.

Equifax Continues Leadership In Alternative Data With Worldwide Urjanet Partnership (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) and Urjanet today announced a global partnership that empowers consumers and businesses to share their payment data from thousands of utility, telecom and cable providers worldwide for a more complete picture of individual payment history, easier identity verification and the potential for better access to credit. This partnership builds on Equifax’s leadership in alternative data, using the Urjanet Utility Data Platform to incorporate consumer-permissioned data into the Equifax differentiated data approach.

5 Reasons Investors Should Consider Tokenized Assets (Benzinga), Rated: A

According to Deloitte, we shouldn’t view DLT as just a new type of “database ” but rather as a new way to organize the security value chain from issuance to custody. But what exactly can be transmitted through this chain?

Fractional ownership – take as much as you want

Digitizing shares makes them highly divisible, meaning that investors can buy very small percentages of tokenized assets.

So long, intermediaries! 

Security tokens have a simpler investment structure and lower fees.

On the way to maximum liquidity

Cherry on top

A security token is basically a digital signature connected with a smart contract responsible for facilitation and verification of ownership rights transactions.

India

Ribbit leads Series B funding in online investment platform Groww (VC Circle), Rated: AAA

Groww, an online investment platform that sells mutual fund products, has raised $21.4 million (Rs 152.5 crore at current exchange rate) in a Series B funding round led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Ribbit Capital.

Groww said existing investors Sequoia India and Y Combinator also participated in the funding round.

RBI looking at how NBFCs, HFCs set their lending rates (livemint), Rated: AAA

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is studying how non-bank lenders and home financiers price their loans, close on the heels of directing commercial banks to link their loan rates to external benchmarks.

Source: livemint

RBI restricts access to credit data of consumers (Economic Times), Rated: A

The Reserve Bank of India has ordered commercial banks and non-banking lenders to stop providing unregulated entities access to consumer data held by credit bureaus, dealing a blow to scores of fintech startups that have based their business models on such information.

Source: India Times

RBI not in favour of ‘teaser’ loans, examines rate-setting mechanism of NBFCs, HFCs (CNBCTV18), Rated: B

The banking regulator is not in favour of hybrid loan products or ‘teaser loans’, a senior Reserve Bank of India (RBI) official today clarified. The remark gains significance in the light of State Bank of India chairman Rajnish Kumar’s recent comment that SBI would seek the regulator’s view on whether banks can introduce fixed-cum-floating rate products.

No dearth of demand on credit side, disbursed credit worth INR 5 billion: Flexiloans Co-founder (IBS Intelligence), Rated: A

FlexiLoans.com, an online lender for MSMEs in India, said that it has crossed a milestone number of disbursing over INR 5 billion of unsecured business loans across the country with its unique digital-only model. The Mumbai-based company, which has disbursed over 16000 loans across 1000 cities and towns in the country, says that there is no dearth of demand on the credit side. The company caters primarily to micro, small and medium-sized businesses.

How has the online lending market shaped up in the last few years?

Digital Lending market is currently at about USD 2 billion, up from about USD 1 billion in 2016. Significant traction and market niches discovered by various FinTech startups across the country have made this space very exciting, holistic and game-changing.

Online SME lender Cash Suvidha plans to raise upto $ 10 million (IBS Intelligence), Rated: B

The online lender for business and personal loans, Cash Suvidha, is planning to raise $5 million -$10 million equity funds in the next six months.

Asia

Terafunding Closes US$ 18M Series B Financing Round (FINSMES), Rated: AAA

Terafunding, a Seoul, South Korea-based Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platform, raised US$18M in Series B funding.

Backers included KB Investment, Hana Ventures, IBK Industrial Bank and Woomi Construction.

Julo raises $ 10M to expand its P2P lending platform (TechCrunch), Rated: A

Julo, a peer-to-peer lending platform in Indonesia, said on Wednesday it has extended its $5 million Series A raise to $15 million as it looks to scale its business in the key Southeast Asian market.

The $10 million Series A2 round for the Jakarta-headquartered startup was led by Quona Capital,  with Skystar, East Ventures,  Provident, Gobi Partners and Convergence participating.

Chinese P2P Firms Seeks Business in Vietnamese Market (W7 News), Rated: A

The declining demand for peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in China has prompted firms to find business elsewhere. LearnBonds report that Chinese P2P companies are eyeing Vietnam, which alarmed local lending companies.

MENA

Now Money offers alternative for Gulf’s unbanked expats (Financial Times), Rated: AAA

About 70 per cent of the population in the Middle East and north Africa do not have access to banking services, says Ian Dillon, co-founder of Now Money, a Dubai-based financial technology group.

The GCC recorded outbound remittances of $120bn in 2017, according to World Bank data. However, Gulf banks tend to exclude workers earning less than $1,400 a month, leaving most of them reliant on exchange houses to remit cash home.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday September 19 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday September 5 2019, Weekly News Digest

neobanks

News Comments Today’s main news: LendingPoint closes $178M personal loans securitization. OnDeck hits $879M in online financing in Texas alone. RateSetter adds three products. Funding Circle lenders face longer cash out waits. Yirendai files Form 6-K. Today’s main analysis: International P2P lending volumes for August 2019. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Silicon Valley is building a social […]

The post Thursday September 5 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

neobanks

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

China

International

Other

News Summary

United States

LendingPoint : Closes $ 178 Million Personal Loans Securitization (MarketScreener), Rated: AAA

LendingPoint, the company revolutionizing and democratizing commerce, announced today that it closed its inaugural securitization of consumer loans. LendingPoint Receivables Trust 2019-1 (“LDPT 2019-1”) issued $177.85 million of notes backed by a pool of $187.22 million of direct-to-consumer loans originated on the LendingPoint platform.

The LendingPoint Receivables Trust securitization was rated by Kroll Bond Rating Agency, Inc. and includes $117.76 million of Class A notes rated “A-“, $24.74 million of Class B notes rated “BBB-“, $23.68 million of Class C notes rated “BB-” and $10.67 million of Class D notes rated “B-.” The notes priced at a blended yield of 4.05% per annum and provided for a 95% advance rate. The transaction has a 5% overcollateralization Deposit and a 5% overcollateralization Target. The risk adjusted yield of the receivables securing the notes is expected to be 13.14% per annum.

TyMac Electric Powers Business Success with Online Financing from OnDeck (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

OnDeck today announced that TyMac Electric of Plano, Texas is its Small Business of the Month for August, 2019.  The 30-person company serves the Dallas-Fort Worth area with high-quality, professionally managed electrical services.

Over the last two years, OnDeck has provided additional financing to TyMac Electric as the business grew to meet demand in the Dallas-Fort Worth commercial marketplace.

Overall, OnDeck has provided more than $879 million in financing online to small business owners in the State of Texas.

2019’s Best & Worst Places to Retire (WalletHub), Rated: AAA

Best Retirement Cities

Overall Rank
(1 = Best)		 City Total Score ‘Affordability’ Rank ‘Activities’ Rank ‘Quality of Life’ Rank ‘Health Care’ Rank
1 Orlando, FL 60.87 9 11 68 48
2 Tampa, FL 59.06 10 19 45 95
3 Scottsdale, AZ 58.35 98 22 3 58
4 Charleston, SC 58.30 42 21 56 51
5 Miami, FL 57.21 51 5 105 74
6 Denver, CO 57.08 113 17 43 17
7 Fort Lauderdale, FL 56.58 65 18 82 56
8 Cape Coral, FL 56.50 19 51 15 109
9 Minneapolis, MN 56.46 145 3 58 5
10 Cheyenne, WY 56.06 2 142 50 33

Source: WalletHub

Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system (Fast Company), Rated: AAA

Have you heard about China’s social credit system? It’s a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior. The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.

Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

Fundrise Opportunity Zone Fund Has Raised Over $ 22 Million (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Real estate investment platform Fundrise has raised over $22 million for their Opportunity Fund. The information was revealed in a recent Form D 5o6c filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Kabbage acquires Radius Intelligence, the marketing tech firm with a database of 20M small businesses (TechCrunch), Rated: A

Data is the new oil, as the saying goes, and today Kabbage — a fintech startup backed by SoftBank that has built a business around lending up to $250,000 to small and medium enterprises, using AI-based algorithms to help determine the terms of the loan — is picking up an asset to expand its own data trove as it looks to expand into further SMB financial services. The company has acquired Radius Intelligence, the marketing technology firm that has built a database of information on some 20 million small and medium businesses in the U.S.

Here is a list of the top nonbank and alternative lenders in 2019 (Business Insider), Rated: A

Nonbanks and alternative lenders have garnered attention in the banking industry due to their ability to partner with legacy banks and utilize technology to make financial transactions more efficient and convenient for users.

Source: Business Insider

Chime now has 5 million customers and introduces overdraft alternative (TechCrunch), Rated: A

Challenger bank Chime has reached 5 million customers in the U.S. The San Francisco-based startup is creating an FDIC-insured mobile bank without any physical branch. The company also promises fewer fees.

Back in March, Chime  said it had 3 million customers when it announced its $200 million Series D round. So that’s 2 million additional customers in roughly 5 months.

Zac Prince of BlockFi (Lend Academy), Rated: A

Even Financial raises $ 25 million to connect banks with channel partners (VentureBeat), Rated: A

Even Financial, a four-year-old New York-based provider of APIs for financial services search, acquisition, and monetization, today announced that it’s raised $25 million in a strategic round of investment co-led by Citi Ventures and MassMutual Ventures, with additional participation from LendingClub. Existing backers American Express Ventures, Canaan Partners, F-Prime Capital, GreatPoint Ventures, and Goldman Sachs also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total raised to $50 million.

Credit Sesame, a platform for managing loans and credit scores, picks up $ 43M en route to IPO (TechCrunch), Rated: A

Credit Sesame — which lets consumers check their credit scores and evaluate options to rebalance existing debts and loans to improve that score and thus their overall “financial health,” in the words of CEO and founder Adrian Nazari — has raised $43 million. With the company already profitable and growing revenues 90% each year for the last five, Nazari said that this round is likely to be the last round the company raises before it goes public.

Household debt in the U.S. continues to rise and as of this year now stands at nearly $14 trillion.

Fintech startup CrowdBureau closes $ 1.1 million Series A equity funding with $ 9.7M valuation (Tech Startups), Rated: A

CrowdBureau Corporation, a fintech startup and index provider, has closed $1.1 million Series A equity funding to expand its series of benchmarks and launch a pilot program for its patent-pending regulatory technology product. The round, which values the company at $9.7 million, was led by Clydagh Limited, Estuary Holdings Ltd. and Alpama Limited along with existing investors.

Some Companies Offer a New Benefit: Payroll Advances and Loans (WSJ), Rated: A

A growing number of companies are helping workers gain access to payroll advances and loans, reflecting concern over the impact money problems are having on productivity levels and worker retention.

Employers including Walmart Inc. and Pima County, Ariz., have recently added these services. The aim is to help cash-strapped employees, many with damaged credit, cover unexpected expenses without resorting to high-cost debt.

Lendingblock Launches Institutional Crypto Lending Platform (Lendingblock), Rated: A

Lendingblock, the regulated, open exchange for institutional borrowing and lending of digital assets, today announces the launch of its institutional lending platform on September 3, 2019. The lending product, which is a reinvented version of securities lending from traditional capital markets, is the first exchange fully dedicated to pure crypto lending and aims to support the needs of the broader cryptocurrency market by providing a secure and liquid venue for lending and borrowing needs of institutional market participants.

Upon launch, Lendingblock platform users will be able to borrow and lend BTC, ETH, PAX and USDT on a fully collateralized basis, for loan terms of 1, 7, 14 and 30 days, with a minimum trade size of $100,000 equivalent of a specified digital asset.

How American Express uses machine learning to detect fraud (American Banker), Rated: A


A financial planner says there’s a ‘huge opportunity’ to build wealth during a recession (Business Insider), Rated: A

As long as you have a cash safety net to fall back on should you lose your job or face an unexpected expense, there’s little reason to panic, says Lauren Anastasio, a certified financial planner at SoFi, a personal-finance company.

Are P2P Loans A Viable Investment for Your Portfolio? (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

Peer to peer (P2P) loans allow you to act as a bank, providing loans directly to other individuals or businesses in exchange for a return on your investment via interest payments. Investing in P2P loans, which are typically smaller than a traditional bank loan, has proven to be reliable no matter the economic climate.

Judge Rejects States’ Fintech Charter Challenge, Again (Bloomberg Law), Rated: A

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was able to beat back a challenge by state regulators to its proposed charter for financial technology firms for a second time, but the charter remains in limbo due to other litigation.

White Oak Global Advisors Announces Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing Program (GlobeNewswire), Rated: B

White Oak Global Advisors, LLC (“White Oak”) is pleased to announce the California Statewide Communities Development Authority (“CSCDA”) has named White Oak as a commercial PACE Program Administrator for the CSCDA’s Open PACE Program.  As a Program Administrator, White Oak will provide up to 100% financing for energy efficiency, renewable energy, water conservation, and seismic retrofit projects on commercial real estate.

White Oak is seeking to fund projects ranging in size from $500,000 to $150 million.

United Kingdom

RateSetter revamps investment products (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

RATESETTER is rejigging its investment products, to boost liquidity and give the peer-to-peer lender more control over market rates.

The three new products, which will be available on 3 October, will be called Access, Plus and Max. Access will offer three per cent interest and no fees to access money; Plus will offer four per cent interest and cost 30 days’ interest to access money; and Max will offer a five per cent interest rate, with a fee of 90 days’ interest to access money.

Funding Circle Amateur Lenders Facing Longer Waits To Cash Out (Morningstar), Rated: AAA

Amateur lenders on peer-to-peer lending platform Funding Circle Holdings PLC are facing waits of 100 days to cash out of their loans, it has emerged.

Investors who provide funding for small businesses through the platform can list old loans for resale to other investors if they wish to withdraw all their money.

But the PA news agency understands that the amount of time taken to re-sell the loan parts has risen from just a few days in January to up to three months in recent transactions.

Funding Circle reveals inclusion in FTSE4Good Index Series (Funding Circle), Rated: A

Funding Circle today reveals its inclusion in the FTSE4Good Index Series, which recognises companies that demonstrate the highest standards of corporate governance and sustainability.

Woodford trust is on the FTSE 250 casualty list (The Times), Rated: B

The investment trust, which focuses on early-stage companies, was one of six companies to be relegated from the second tier of quoted stocks.

Among them is Funding Circle, the online peer-to-peer lender aimed at small and medium-sized companies, which floated at 440p a year ago. Last night its shares closed at 110¼p.

P2PGI blames writedowns and Funding Circle bad debts for poor July (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

P2P GLOBAL Investments has blamed writedowns in the value of two equity stakes and bad debts from Funding Circle for a “disappointing” performance in July.

The alternative finance-focused investment trust delivered a 0.33 per cent NAV return for the month of July, down from 0.48 per cent the previous month. This brought the trust’s year to date return to 2.88 per cent, and 23.93 per cent since inception.

Investors ‘nearly’ double IFISA holdings (AltFi), Rated: A

Small investors have parked £588m across 40,400 accounts by the end of the second quarter of this year, according to trade body the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA).

The compares with around £300m invested in this product 12 months ago across major platforms such as Funding Circle, Ratesetter, Zopa, said the trade body.

Lending Works targets profitability and £10m turnover in 2019 (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

The peer-to-peer consumer lender reported a loss of just over £2.1m for the year ended 31 December 2018, up from £1.41m the previous year, which chief executive Nick Harding (pictured) attributed to a larger wage bill.

There is no requirement for businesses to report revenues in small company accounts, but Harding revealed that the firm saw revenues rise to £6.2m last year and is targeting £10m this year.

Peer to Peer Lender Folk2Folk Tops £300 Million in Lending (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Folk2Folk, a peer-to-peer lender for local, rural and SME businesses, has now surpassed £300 million in lending, according to a company release. Folk2Folk notes that it is the 3rd largest P2P Lender to UK businesses in terms of money lent.

P2PFA boss Paul Smee: ‘Lendy was an outlier that should not have been authorised’ (AltFi), Rated: A

The collapse of Portsmouth-based property peer-to-peer firm Lendy, with outstanding loans of more than £160m, and some £90m in default, prompted the new rules from the FCA. The watchdog is also carrying out an in-depth report into the firm’s failure, which affected with some 21,500 investors. Critics argue that Lendy under competitive pressure wrote poor quality loans to swell its balance sheet, which then turned bad.

However, the Lendy crash, taken together with the poor float of the sector’s biggest firm Funding Circle last October, which languishes 75 per cent below its 440p float price at around 112p this week, has tarnished the sector.

UK Fintech Curve fastest startup ever to reach £4m Crowdfunding on Crowdcube (Fintech Finance), Rated: B

Last month, Curve announced plans to launch a seven figure crowdfunding campaign for early September, with plans to raise £1million. However, just 42 Minutes after launching to pre-registered customers, Curve had raised four times that figure, breaking records in the process. The current overfunding amount stands at £5million.

China

Form 6-K Yirendai Ltd. For: Sep 30 (Street Insider), Rated: AAA

  • Cumulative number of investors served reached 2,185,513, representing an increase of 1% from 2,159,490 in the first quarter of 2019 and compared to 1,974,984 in the second quarter of 2018.
  • Number of active investors in the second quarter of 2019 was 671,957, representing a decrease of 13% from 768,514 in the first quarter of 2019 and compared to 928,251 in the second quarter of 2018.
  • Total assets under management (“AUM”) for Yiren Wealth was RMB 43,604.2 million (US$ 6,351.7 million) as of June 30, 2019, representing a decrease of 7% from RMB 46,663.1 million as of March 31, 2019. Average AUM per investor reached RMB 149,480 (US$ 21,774) as of June 30, 2019, representing an increase of 7% from RMB 139,473 as of March 31, 2019.
  • AUM of non-P2P products amounted to RMB 354.3 million (US$ 51.6 million) in the second quarter of 2019, representing a decrease of 23% from RMB 457.7 million in the first quarter of 2019 and compared to RMB 951.0 million in the second quarter of 2018. Non-P2P products include money market funds, mutual funds and insurance.

Consumer Credit—Yiren Credit

  • Total loan originations in the second quarter of 2019 reached RMB 9.7 billion (US$1.4 billion), representing a decrease of 12% from RMB 10.9 billion in the first quarter of 2019 and compared to RMB 18.2 billion in the second quarter of 2018.
  • Cumulative number of borrowers served reached 4,491,466, representing an increase of 2% from 4,404,812 in the first quarter of 2019 and compared to 4,027,254 in the second quarter of 2018.
  • Number of borrowers in the second quarter of 2019 was 135,246, representing a decrease of 10% from 149,715 in the first quarter of 2019 and compared to 267,628 in the second quarter of 2018.
  • The percentage of loan volume generated by repeat borrowers was 35.9% in the second quarter of 2019.
  • 52.5% of loan originations were generated online in the second quarter of 2019.
  • Remaining principal of performing loans reached RMB 58,071.3 million (US$8,459.0 million) as of June 30, 2019, representing a decrease of 8% from RMB 63,213.8 million as of March 31, 2019.

Yirendai Ltd. (YRD) Q2 2019 Earnings Call Transcript (The Motley Fool), Rated: AAA

As of September 2019, the line of credit we have obtained from our institutional partners has increased from RMB19 billion in Q1 2019 to close to RMB30 billion. We are now working with approximately 10 partners, including leading joint stock and city commercial banks. We expect loan origination funded by institutional partners to reach approximately 30% by the end of this year.

China Rapid Finance Retains China Merchants Bank New York and Pangaea Finance as Co-Financial Advisors for Recapitalization and Restructuring (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: AAA

China Rapid Finance Limited (XRF) (the “Company”) today announced that its Board of Directors has retained China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd., New York Branch (CMBNY), and Pangaea Finance as separate Co-Financial Advisors, and Pangaea Finance as Structuring Agent, to advise it for strategic alternatives, including but not limited to potential strategic partnerships, recapitalization of certain operating companies, and for a related reconfiguration of the Cayman company as a listed investment vehicle for China credit.

Central bank to include troubled P2P lending industry in credit system (Technode), Rated: A

China’s central bank will include the country’s troubled online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms in its credit reference system as the clampdown on illegal financial services continues, Chinese state-run media reported on Wednesday.

China’s credit system to cover P2P lending in tightening regulation (Xinhua), Rated: A

P2P lending platforms in operation will provide certain information such as online lending interest rates to credit reference agencies such as operators of financial credit information basic databases and Baihang Credit, China’s only licensed and market-oriented personal credit agency, according to an official guideline.

China Central Bank’s Credit System to include P2P Lending Platforms amidst tightening regulations (China Knowledge), Rated: A

Credit information of P2P lending platforms will be collected, regardless of their operational status. New penalties will also be imposed on defaulting borrowers of P2P online lending. Some of the penalties include higher loan interest rates and restriction limits to loan and insurance services.

Chinese entrepreneur among 41 arrested over illegal P2P platform (CGTN), Rated: A

Property mogul and founder of a leading Shanghai contemporary art museum Dai Zhikang has turned himself into police following the collapse of a peer-to-peer lending platform, as China continues to crackdown on illegal online lending.

Shanghai police confirmed Monday that Dai, the founder and head of Zendai Group, was among 41 people being investigated over illegal fundraising through an online P2P platform called Laocaibao.

European Union

Revolut is looking to hire 400 customer support staff following compliance complaints (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

Revolut is looking to hire up to 400 staff at a new base in Portugal, a move that will increase its employee headcount by almost a third.

Source: Business Insider

German online bank N26 expands to Switzerland (Verdict), Rated: A

German online bank N26 has launched its services in Switzerland, as it continues to build up its footprint across the globe.

Binance Crypto Lending Program expansion – a bad idea for traders (FX Street), Rated: A

Binance is one of the latest entries in launching its crypto lending platform on August 28. In the first phase, it began with a short period fixed return on Binance (BNB), USDT (Tether) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). It provides an annual return of 15%, 10%, and 7% respectively, beginning with a 14-Day fixed period. Binance starts with about $30 million in crypto-lending. Moreover, the annual interest offered is higher than the return from banks.

International

International P2P Lending Volumes August 2019 (P2P-Banking), Rated: AAA

Milestones in culumulative volume lent crossed this month:

  • Bondora: 250M EUR
  • Fellow Finance: 500M EUR
  • Mintos: 3000M EUR
  • Thincats: 500M GBP

The total volume for the reported marketplaces in the table adds up to 634 million Euro. I track the development of p2p lending volumes for many markets.

Source: P2P-Banking

Fall Conference Season for Fintech Kicks Into Gear This Month (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

ABS East

When: Sept 22-24, 2019
Where: Miami, FL
Link:  /> Discount code: LEND10

Lend360

When: Sept 25-27, 2019
Where: Dallas, TX
Link: 

LendIt Fintech Europe

When: Sept 26-27, 2019
Where: London, UK
Link:  /> Discount code: LENDACADEMYVIP

Moneyconf

When: Nov 4-7, 2019
Where: Lisbon, Portugal
Link: 

Money2020 China

When: Dec 4-6, 2019
Where: Hangzhou, China
Link: 

I WISH I’D BOUGHT IT WITH KLARNA (The Drum), Rated: B

The Swedish ‘pay later’ service, Klarna has launched its first international campaign – ‘I wish I’d bought it with Klarna’ – with the internet sensation Celesta Barber as its leading lady.

Australia

Ethereum lossless lottery PoolTogether is still innately flawed despite updates (finder), Rated: A

How do you encourage people to practice responsible saving? Easy. You shake it up with a dose of randomness and call it a lottery instead. This is the basic principle behind Pool Together, a lossless lottery designed in such a way that there are no losers. The idea is that everyone always gets back the price of their ticket, but one lucky person walks away with a lot more than that.

Pool Together is built on Ethereum, and utilises the Dai stablecoin in combination with the Compound crypto lending system.

India

Online lender Namaste Credit launches digital-only bank (Finextra), Rated: AAA

Online lending marketplace Namaste Credit today said that it is launching its Neobanking solutions for MSMEs, becoming a full-fledged “Digital-Only Bank” with a foundational SaaS play.

IndiaMoneyMart opens the first East-India branch for NBFC-P2P Lending (United News of India), Rated: A

Making sense of regulatory sandbox for Fintech startups (Vantage Asia), Rated: A

Over the past few years India has seen rapid development in the financial technology sector and it has the second highest number of Fintech startups in the world. According to certain estimates, India’s Fintech sector added about 1,300 startups from 2015 to 2018. According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies, India’s Fintech market is expected to be worth US$2.4 billion by 2020.

India Government Panel Pushes for Fintech, Regtech Adoption (Regulation Asia), Rated: A

The panel has also proposed the development of a marketplace model for P2P lending, and the introduction of virtual banking in India.

Why fintech panel believes P2P platforms can ease credit supply (India Times), Rated: A

While the importance of P2P lending sector in India is understood by all stakeholders, and a lot has been done over the last few years to encourage the sector, a lot more needs to be done to accelerate its growth.

APAC

Leading Southeast Asian Peer to Peer Lender Funding Societies Revamps with New Executive Team (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Funding Societies, one of the largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms in Southeast Asia, has revamped its executive team with new hires.

Matt Lambie joins as the Chief Technical Officer, Dheeraj Chowdhry as the Chief Executive Officer and Jared Goldberg as the Chief Data Officer.

Top 10 APAC Startups Reigning the Future Finance Industry (Banking CIO Outlook), Rated: A

Africa

AlphaCode of South Africa Invests $ 1.5 Million in Three Domestic Fintech Startups (CryptoNewsZ), Rated: AAA

AlphaCode is the incubation and investment arm of Rand Merchant Investment Holdings, and in a new development, the company has decided to invest a combined $1.5 million in three separate Fintech startups in South Africa. The companies in question are Zande Africa, which is a platform meant for merchant finance, while the others are Bright On Capital, a peer to peer lending firm and Livestock Wealth, an agricultural investment startup. AlphaCode invested $655,000 each on Bright On Capital and Zande Africa, while Livestock Wealth got an injection of $131, 000.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday September 5 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday August 29 2019, Weekly News Digest

VC-backed fintech

News Comments Today’s main news: Funding Circle closes $198M ABS for U.S. SMBs. KBRA assigns preliminary ratings to Consumer Loan Underlying Bond Credit Trust 2019-P2. SoFi to create 300 jobs in Jacksonville, Florida. LendInvest postpones IPO until at least 2020. Binance offers crypto lending. Today’s main analysis: The nonbank and alternative lending industry in 2019. […]

The post Thursday August 29 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

VC-backed fintech

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

European Union

International

Other

News Summary

United States

Funding Circle Closes $ 198 Million Securitization to Support US Small Businesses (Valdosta Daily Times), Rated: AAA

Funding Circle today closed its first asset-backed securitization (ABS) of US small business loans originated through its platform. The $198 million deal marks the debut of Funding Circle’s US securitization sponsorship capability, and is the fifth securitization of Funding Circle business loans globally.

KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Consumer Loan Underlying Bond (CLUB) Credit Trust 2019-P2 (Benzinga), Rated: AAA

Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) assigns preliminary ratings to three classes of notes issued by Consumer Loan Underlying Bond (CLUB) Credit Trust 2019-P2 (“CLUB 2019-P2”). This is a $287.80 million consumer loan ABS transaction.

Preliminary Ratings Assigned: Consumer Loan Underlying Bond (CLUB) Credit Trust

2019-P2

Class

Preliminary Rating

Initial Class Principal

A

A+ (sf)

$200,700,000

B

A- (sf)

$37,900,000

C

BB (sf)

$49,200,000

DeSantis says SoFi, SS&C Technologies will create 498 jobs in Jacksonville (Jax Daily Record), Rated: AAA

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that two international information technology companies will create a combined 498 jobs in Jacksonville, disclosing the names of Project Quail and Project Liberty.

SoFi, a California-based online personal finance company, has been seeking $1.5 million in state and city incentives through the Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund program as code-named Project Quail to establish its southeastern operations center and create 300 jobs in Jacksonville.

Court activity on Aug. 27: Sofi Lending Corp. vs Cindy Luu (SE Texas Record), Rated: B

The Harris County Civil Court reported the following activity in the suit brought by Sofi Lending Corp. against Cindy Luu on Aug. 27: ‘Original Petition Citation Issued’.

Swimming Pools Are a Highly Prized Amenity Amid the Summer Heat (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

A new LendingTree study ranks the 50 largest cities by its share of homes with a swimming pool. We found that about 10% of homes have pools, ranging from nearly 33% in Phoenix to 1% in Portland, Ore. We also looked at the values of homes with and without swimming pools to show how much this amenity is worth. Let’s dive in.

Key findings

  • You’ve gotta pay to play: The median home with a pool is valued at $469,187, while the median home without a pool is valued at $305,152 — a 54% premium. The highest premium is in Memphis at a whopping 157%.
  • Go West: It’s no surprise that six of the top 10 cities for swimming pools are in the West — four in California and one each in Arizona and Nevada.
  • Hot, hot, hot: Phoenix, which experiences more than 100 days above 100 degrees a year, leads the way with 32.7% of homes having a swimming pool.
  • Sunshine State: Florida is not far behind California with three cities in the top 10. Miami, Tampa and Orlando rank second, third and fourth, respectively.
  • Rain and water don’t mix: Two of the cities with the least swimming pools are in the rainy Northwest. Portland is in last place with just 1% of homes with pools, while Seattle is not far ahead with 1.3%.
Source: LendingTree

Brex Teams With BigCommerce To Offer Merchant Financing (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Corporate eCommerce card company Brex has announced a partnership with leading SaaS eCommerce platform BigCommerce, according to a release.

Brex’s open credit line, three-month payment terms and interest-free financing are now available to all BigCommerce merchants through the BigCommerce App Store.

German challenger bank N26’s plan to win over Americans (American Banker), Rated: A

N26’s new SoHo office has all the design elements of a tech startup — high ceilings, distressed wood, big windows, a pingpong table, beanbag chairs, community meeting areas.

Digital Banking And Branches Not An Either/Or Proposition (PYMNTS), Rated: A

GOBankingRates found that 25 percent of consumer prefer banking with a mobile app, though nearly half preferred banking in person at a branch or ATM. Yet 76 percent said they wouldn’t open an account with a bank that doesn’t have a mobile app.

According to Fiserv, the preference for digital interactions (online plus mobile) is 58 percent, considerably ahead of the preference for branch interactions (32 percent).

When breaking out online, though, there is a preference for online (37 percent) compared to mobile (17 percent).

Why Fifth Third is raising its bet on alternative power (American Banker), Rated: A

Fifth Third Bancorp is building out its renewable energy banking business, highlighting how the alternative power niche isn’t just for the biggest banks.

The $169 billion-asset Fifth Third recently added three new managing directors to its renewable energy investment banking group. With the additions of Timothy Beach, Ari Citrin and Oliver Janssen, the bank intends to offer more specialized capital markets and M&A advisory services to renewable energy firms, most of which are in solar.

How to Get Your Small Business Ready for a Recession (Successful Meetings), Rated: A

How students are trying to avoid college loans (Marketplace.org), Rated: AAA

Student debt can seem inevitable. Today, more than 44 million Americans owe nearly $1.5 trillion in student loans. This debt has been blamed for many things: Americans’ lack of retirement savings, declining rates of home ownership, even the death of marriage.

A look at the nonbank and alternative lending industry in 2019 (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

According to Oracle’s Digital Demand in Retail Banking study of 5,200 consumers from 13 countries, over 40% of customers surveyed think nonbanks can better assist them with personal money management and investment needs, and 30% of respondents who haven’t tried a nonbank platform said they’re open to trying one.

Business Insider Intelligence’s Online Mortgage Lending Report found that the top five US banks – Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp, and Citigroup – only accounted for 21% of total mortgage originations, which is a huge decline from their 50% combined market share in 2011.

Source: Business Insider

According to a survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, in 2016 only 58% of loan requests from small businesses were approved by incumbent banks, compared to 71% approved by alt lenders that same year.

Fund That Flip Raises Another $ 11M to be the Funding Solution for Real Estate Speculators (Alley Watch), Rated: A

AlleyWatch caught up with Matt Rodak to learn more about the company’s success, future growth plans, and recent round of funding, which brings its total funding to $13M across four rounds.

New Tools Help Mortgage Lenders Build Stronger Relationships with Borrowers’ Real Estate Agents (SimpleNexus), Rated: A

SimpleNexus makes it easy for loan originators to create co-branded mobile apps for Realtor partners to share with borrowers. The shared platform enhances the borrower experience by keeping partners up-to-speed on loan progress and putting mortgage calculators and other handy tools at partners’ fingertips.

Pagaya Expands PAID Shelf with Prosper: Closing $ 115 Million Consumer Credit ABS (BusinessWire), Rated: A

Pagaya, a global financial technology company using artificial intelligence (AI) to reshape asset management, today announced the closing of a consumer credit asset-backed security (ABS) at $115 million. Led by structuring agent Cantor Fitzgerald, the ABS will be actively managed by Pagaya’s AI.

Pagaya has been working closely with Prosper to develop innovative financing solutions for consumers, which will be featured in this securitization.

Tech startup Blooma launches out stealth with $ 2.75 million seed funding for its loan origination AI platform (Tech Startups), Rated: A

Blooma, a tech startup that reduces time to revenue for commercial lenders, launches out of stealth with $2.75 million seed funding to transform the lending experience for commercial and private lenders and other organizations. The financing was led by Floodgate, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based investor. Other backers include: Abstract Ventures, Crescent Ridge Partners and Serra Ventures.

Former PayPal executive joins crypto lending startup Cred as CFO (The Block Crypto), Rated: B

Cryptocurrency lending and borrowing startup Cred has hired former PayPal executive as its chief financial officer (CFO), according to an announcement Monday.

iCapital Network expands exec team with four New hires (PE Hub), Rated: B

“STYLE360” Celebrates 15 Years At New York Fashion Week With New Title Sponsor Klarna (PRWeb), Rated: B

Fashion event agency, A-List Communications announces their lineup and new title sponsor Klarna for their 15th year of STYLE360, which will take place during the latter portion of Spring/Summer 2020 New York Fashion Week from September 9 – 11, 2019.

White Oak Commercial Finance Originates a Revolving Credit Facility to The Good Kitchen (Financial Content), Rated: B

White Oak Commercial Finance (“White Oak”), an affiliate of White Oak Global Advisors, announced today the origination of a new revolving credit facility to healthy meal service company The Good Kitchen. Originally founded as a meal delivery service, The Good Kitchen will use the proceeds of the credit facility to expand its business into packaged meals sold at 1,500 stores across the United States.

Lenders Moving Away From Small-Dollar Loans to High-Interest Installment Loans (Lexology), Rated: B

California non-bank consumer lenders are moving away from small-dollar short term payday loans and are, instead, embracing longer-term installment…

United Kingdom

LendInvest reportedly shelves IPO plans for now (AltFi), Rated: AAA

Nearly a year after announcing a $39.5m “pre-IPO” funding round, LendInvest has delayed plans to IPO this year in favour of another private cash injection, according to a report by Financial News.

Mobile banking apps in the UK are surging ahead of investment and insurance apps (Business Insider), Rated: A

Over three-quarters of consumers in the UK use a finance app, according to a new study from Speedie Consultants that surveyed 200 people in the country. Twenty-four percent of those surveyed use their finance apps around twice a week, and 23% said they use it daily. The most common finance app users were aged 25-45, in addition to consumers over 65.

Source: Business Insider

Klarna launches VAR campaign created by 72andSunny (Prolific London), Rated: A

Swedish fintech payments firm Klarna has launched a new campaign focused around the introduction of Video Assistant Referee technology in the UK’s Premiere League.

Celsius Network Sees A 20x Increase In Deposits, However, Many Analysts Are Concerned (Bitcoin Exchange Guide), Rated: A

According to the latest press release, leading crypto lending firm Celsius Network has seen an increase of 2,165% growth in deposits. The network has already surpassed 20,000 BTC through mobile app deposits during the first year of operations.

New data reveals rapid growth in Peer-To-Peer lending is cannibalising High st bank market share (ResponseSource), Rated: A

Know Your Money data revealed that:

• Peer to Peer and Challenger lenders comparison searches have more than doubled in 3 years

• 33% of Businesses selected a P2P or challenger lender on  in 2019 – compared to just 15% in 2017

• Alternative lending interest more than doubled in the last 2 years

Revolut Boosts Executive Leadership with New Hires from Traditional Banking (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: B

According to Revolut, the Fintech bank has hired Philip Doyle as Director of Financial Crime Risk, Wolfgang Bardorf as Treasurer and Stefan Wille as Deputy Chief Financial Officer.

European Union

Zurich-based Numbrs is the latest fintech to join the unicorn club (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

The Zurich-based fintech, whose investors include former Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann, raised $40 million at a valuation of over $1 billion, reports Bloomberg. The latest investment brings Numbrs’ total raise to date to almost $200 million, CEO Martin Saidler told the outlet.

Notably, in contrast to many of its peers, Numbrs has joined the unicorn club not by focusing on venture capital and private equity funding, but instead by relying mostly on individuals and families — 50 have invested in the company thus far. The startup’s app enables users to aggregate their various bank accounts and manage their finances, and offers a marketplace for consumers to purchase various financial products.

Source: Business Insider

P2P Global Investments sells largest position for €250m (AltFi), Rated: A

The £1bn P2P Global Investments has sold one of its largest positions, in Castlehaven Finance, an Irish alternative development and bridging finance lender.

Castlehaven typically provides loans of between €1m – €20m in the property space, an increasingly big proportion of P2P GI’s portfolio.

The investment trust has provided financing in excess of €385m to Castlehaven since 2016.

What is the EU doing to understand if Artificial Intelligence apps are trustworthy? (Open Access Government), Rated: B

The University of Oxford received an immense £150 million donation to create a centre studying the ethics surrounding AI in the modern world, whilst global audiences continue to be fascinated by shows like Black Mirror which explore the worst-case consequences of AI accessing personal data.

The project is composed of three distinct, albeit related, parts, run in sequence from January 2019 to December 2020:

Part 1: Application of AI for risk management in bank and peer to peer lending

Part 2: Application of AI for risk management in financial investments and robot advisory

Part 3: Application of AI for risk management in blockchain payments and crypto assets

International

Binance Launches Crypto Lending Service (CryptoGlobe), Rated: AAA

Binance has launched a lending service allowing its users to earn cryptocurrency without trading, in a passive way. Currently the service is open for only a few tokens – its Binance Coin (BNB), Tether’s USDT stablecoin, and Ethereum Classic (ETC). Annualized interest rates are of 15% for BNB, 10% for USDT, and 7& for ETC.

Alternative Finance is Experiencing an Unprecedented Boom Worldwide (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Ten years after the financial crisis, Alternative Finance continues to exhibit strong growth. The sector is estimated to account for nearly €300 billion of inflows worldwide, a market exhibiting 25% annual growth and largely dominated by the Chinese (75%), which percentage was already recorded in 2015 by a study conducted jointly by KPMG and the University of Cambridge.

The United States takes second place with 19% of the market, while Europe currently represents just 6%, 60% of which comes from the United Kingdom. In France, alternative finance raised €1.4 billion in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 39% according to the annual report of KPMG and the non-profit group Financement Participatif France (FPF).

The latest crowdfunding trend is in real estate (Born2Invest), Rated: A

The global crowdfunding market is estimated to be expanding from 2018 to 2022 to $89.72 billion. From the first recorded successful crowdfunding in 1997, to how the first dedicated crowdfunding platform ArtistShare had come about in the year 2000,  crowdfunding has indeed disrupted many industries in different levels.

How and why the global centre of cryptocurrency moved back to Asia (Finder), Rated: A

The problem of investment scammers is much bigger than cryptocurrency though, Wong pointed out, and much bigger than Invest: Asia.

“I don’t think Invest: Asia is big enough to move the needle if you’re running a scam in China,” he said. “That just speaks to the size of the population in China. In general, I think there’s lots of financial scams in general in China, right? For example, a couple years ago there was a big peer to peer lending scandal.”

“The peer to peer lending was legitimately becoming a hot growth FinTech sector in China, but then people were running these peer to peer scams. Because it was so hot, everyone’s talking about it. It creates the conditions for scammers to launch whatever scheme that they want to launch.”

Australia/New Zealand

Prospa Full Year 2019 Results (Scoop), Rated: AAA

• FY19 loan originations of $501.7 million up 36.6% on the prior year (FY18: $367.3 million), 3.1% ahead of prospectus forecast.
• FY19 revenue of $136.4 million up 31.2% on the prior year (FY18: $104.0 million), in line with prospectus forecast.
• FY19 pro forma EBITDA of $6.8 million, ahead of prospectus forecast by 11.5%.
• Prospa has now delivered approximately $1.2 billion in loans since inception and total customer numbers in Australia and New Zealand grew to over 20,000 in FY19, up 58% on the prior year.
• Customer satisfaction remains consistently high, with Prospa’s annual average Net Promoter Score in excess of +77 in 2019. Prospa also has a rating of 9.8/10 on independent review platform TrustPilot.
• Business expansion has continued with the successful launch of new cash flow products and services and diversification into New Zealand.
• Further investment in executive strength, with new Chief Technology Officer, Chief Commercial Officer and Executive General Manager, Growth Channels appointed.

2019 Finder Awards winners (Finder), Rated: AAA

The 2019 Finder Awards recognise the market’s most competitive offerings across credit cards, home loans, personal loans, car insurance, banking, insurance, technology and superannuation.

Source: Finder
Source: Finder
Source: Finder
Source: Finder
Source: Up Bank
India

What future trends do you foresee in the startup ecosystem? (New India Express), Rated: AAA

P2P lending has also become increasingly popular as an alternative lending route as small businesses find it easier to obtain loans directly from other individuals. Going forward, we can expect more cloud-based services backed by advanced analytics that offer personalized loan limits and payback schedules, based on the borrower’s credit history.

Traditional players will also get into online lending and emulate the strategies of P2P lending companies. More businesses will start adopting work-from-home policies to increase cost savings and productivity. On the tech front, businesses will start investing more in AI and analytics to get a deeper insight into customer behaviour.

– Kewal Kapoor, director and creative strategist of CHAI Kreative and Return of Million Smiles  

Xiaomi is moving into India’s consumer-lending market (Business Insider), Rated: A

The fourth-largest mobile phone vendor plans to launch a consumer-lending business, dubbed Mi Credit, in India in the next few weeks, according to Reuters. It will offer loans of up to 100,000 rupees ($1,451), with interest rates starting at 1.8%.

Xiaomi is positioned as a leading smartphone manufacturer in India, with 70 million mobile phones in use throughout the country. It already launched its payment app, dubbed Mi Pay, in the country in March, which is reportedly “doing well,” per Reuters. For context, in China, Xiaomi’s lending business shows a loan book worth $8 billion.

Source: Business Insider

Furniture rental startup RentoMojo to raise Rs 27.7 Cr led by Samsung VC arm (YourStory), Rated: B

In July 2019, the company secured Rs 1.16 crore from Renaud Laplanche, the Co-founder and CEO of Upgrade, who earlier participated in the startup’s Series C funding round of Rs 77 crore in May, along with Accel Partners, Chiratae Ventures, IDG Ventures, and Bain Capital. At that time, the startup said the funds will be used for accelerating its growth and expansion to new cities.

Canada

IOU Financial Inc. Releases Financial Results for the Three and Six- Month Period Ended June 30, 2019 (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

  • Loan originations increased 31.8% to US$38.5 million in Q2 2019 compared to Q2 2018.
  • Total loans under management increased 36.4% to $101.0 million as at June 30, 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.
  • Adjusted gross revenue increased 25.1% to $5.5 million in Q2 2019 compared to Q2 2018.
  • Adjusted Operating Expense Ratio decreased to 10.0% in Q2 2019 compared to 11.9% in Q2 2018.
  • Adjusted net earnings amounted to $0.3 million in the second quarter of 2019, representing the sixth consecutive profitable quarter. Adjusted net earnings amounted to $0.8 million year-to-date.
Africa

Why and how peer-to-peer lending had to become market place lending (Business Live), Rated: AAA

The linked dangers of an inverted yield curve and a slowing economy have hammered banks stocks in recent months, and profit margins are already compressing. But the banks’ worries pale in comparison to challenges confronting the peer-to-peer or “market place” lenders — the start-ups that have set out, over the past decade or so, to upturn the banking industry.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday August 29 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday May 30 2019, Weekly News Digest

financial hub

News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi has raised $500M. Morningstar accelerates acquisition of DBRS. PayPal hits $10B in small business loans milestone. Lendy goes into administration. Klarna launches installment loan app for all retailers. New York overtakes London as financial hub of the world. Today’s main analysis: LendingClub’s advance shareholder meeting presentation (A MUST-READ). Today’s […]

The post Thursday May 30 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

financial hub

News Comments

United States

United Kingdom

European Union

International

Other

News Summary

United States

Online lender SoFi has quietly raised $ 500 million in funding, led by Qatar (TechCrunch), Rated: AAA

Online lending startup Social Finance, better known as SoFi, took another tack this morning, quietly announcing in a press release that it has closed half a billion dollars in a single funding round led by Qatar Investment Authority, a Doha, Qatar-based private equity and sovereign wealth fund.

SoFi Raises $ 500M, Valuation Remains $ 4.3B (PYMNTS), Rated: A

The company said it will use the capital to invest in growth and add some muscle to its $2.3 billion balance sheet. The company’s valuation will stay about the same as with the last funding round two years ago, which was led by Silver Lake.

SoFi Is Close to a Deal Putting Its Name on L.A. Football Stadium (Bloomberg), Rated: A

Social Finance Inc., a financial technology startup, is close to signing a deal that would put its name on a new NFL stadium under construction in Inglewood, California, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The deal for the stadium, which would be home to the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, hasn’t been signed so figures could change. But currently the agreement would have SoFi pay $20 million a year for 20 years, these people added.

Morningstar to Accelerate Credit Ratings Business with DBRS Acquisition (Morningstar), Rated: AAA

Morningstar, Inc. today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DBRS, the world’s fourth-largest credit ratings agency, for a purchase price of $669 million. The combination of DBRS with Morningstar Credit Ratings’ U.S. business will expand global asset class coverage and provide an enhanced platform for providing investors with leading fixed-income analysis and research.

PayPal’s Latest Milestone: $ 10 Billion In Small Business Loans (Forbes), Rated: AAA

The small business lending market is booming and it’s not the traditional banks that are benefiting. Fintechs are leading the way. Case in point: PayPal.  It hit a milestone, announcing it has provided more than $10 billion in loans to more than 225,000 small businesses around the globe.

The $10 billion mark comes a little more than five years after PayPal made its first loan. Today it has issued more than 650,000 loans through financing programs in the U.S., UK, Australia, Germany, and Mexico.

PayPal Crosses $ 10 Billion In Small Business Loans (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

Now they are hitting some impressive quarterly milestones, originating $1 billion per quarter, so their next $10 billion is surely to happen even quicker.

deBanked recently highlighted the leading small business originators which showed that PayPal is solidly the leader when it comes to originations in the US. OnDeck which is second to PayPal reported originations of $636 million in Q1 2019. According to data provided by Funding Circle on their website, which includes their lending globally, they have originated $9.5 billion in loans.

Source: deBanked.com

LendingClub Posts Presentation in Advance of Shareholder Meeting (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Borrowers can save over $ 2,000 by shopping for lenders who offer low mortgage fees (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

Key findings

  • Mortgage fees in the first quarter had a median of $2,059 for purchase loans and $1,807 for refinancing.
  • The more offers a borrower receives, the greater the potential for savings. For people receiving five offers, the median spread between the highest and lowest fees offered was $2,045.
  • 7% of new purchase borrowers and 8% of refinance borrowers were offered $0 in fees.
  • 15% of new purchase borrowers and 19% of refinance borrowers paid less than $500 in fees.
  • 28% of purchase borrowers paid less than $1,000 in mortgage fees, with 35% of refinance borrowers also paying less than $1,000 in fees.
  • At the high end, 13% of purchase borrowers were hit with fees over $5,000, 3% over $10,000 and 0.21% over $20,000.
  • For refinance loans, 12% were offered upfront fees over $5,000, 1% over $10,000 and 0.02% over $20,000.

Home Loan Provider Earns Top 5-Star Rating from TopConsumerReviews.com (PRWeb), Rated: A

TopConsumerReviews.com recently gave their highest rating to LendingTree, an industry leader among providers of Home Loans, for another consecutive year.

Where Are We in the Credit Cycle? (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

First, a quick summary of headlines. The Fed agreed to keep interest rates on hold for longer according to the minutes of the April meeting. The decision is expected to help inflation pick up towards the Fed’s 2% target. The Fed’s latest ‘dot plot’, shown below, indicates Fed governors on the margin expect lower rates in the 2019 to 2021 timeframe suggesting lower growth expectations.

Source: PeerIQ, US Federal Reserve, Bloomberg

“…what we see is right now the fundamentals of the economy in the U.S. on a global basis and the fundamentals of consumers and unemployment being low as you mentioned, means that credit is in good shape and we just don’t see that changing a lot.”

Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America

Kroll also released a report on the Evolution of the Consumer Loan Marketplace Sector to lay out how the sector has matured over time. The report comes on the heels of a Fitch report that said that declining credit enhancements in MPL deals is unwarranted.

Prevent attrition and win new relationships with loan options (Bankless Times), Rated: AAA

Small business clients are increasingly looking to alternative lenders for financing. There are numerous draws for SMB clients: a fast and easy application process, quick funding, and a higher chance of being approved for a loan.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey, the main reason clients applied for funding from an online lender was the speed of decision / funding (63 percent) followed by a better chance of being funded (61 percent).

The number of small business owners who turn to alternative lenders for funding has increased steadily since 2016.

Source: Bankless Times

RedWeek Teams Up with Affirm to Help Travelers Vacation Now and Pay Later (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

RedWeek.com, the largest online community for timeshare rentals and resales, announced a new partnership with Affirm that will give travelers the flexibility to pay for their vacation rentals in simple, monthly installments.

Travelers can check eligibility for a loan online before booking their next trip and, after entering five simple pieces of information, receive a real-time decision without impacting their credit scores.

3 Alternative Lending Options to Help Build Your Business Credit (Nav.com), Rated: A

1. Online Business Loans

Once upon a time, if you wanted to borrow money for your business you had to make a trip down to your local bank branch or credit union to see if you could qualify for funding. However, a new generation of business lenders has since emerged to offer business owners an alternative way to secure capital.

2. Invoice Financing

Is your business structured in a way so that it gets paid after delivering services or goods to customers? If so, invoice financing is an alternative lending option that might work for you.

3. Microloans

Microloans are issued through non-profit organizations aptly named microlenders. Although the maximum loan size is generally $50,000, the average microloan issued to a small business or startup is a much smaller $6,000.

CoreLogic Teletrack launches a new platform for lenders and credit issuers (Automotive News), Rated: A

CoreLogic today launched the new CoreLogic Teletrack platform, offering lenders and credit issuers superior access and greater insight into alternative credit data through one of the industry’s largest alternative credit databases. The new platform and solution combine upgraded services, data, products and an analytics engine to help users discover new market segments, make smarter risk decisions and grow their business throughout the credit lifecycle.

What Intuit knows about you (AXIOS), Rated: A

Intuit said Tuesday it had agreed to buy analytics company Origami Logic, effectively doubling down on the use of customer data to enhance its marketing.

The company can cross-sell its own products as well as products and services from third parties — like a Capital One Platinum Credit Card or a loan from Lending Club — based on what it knows about you.

Kabbage And Azlo Collaborate To Make Small Business Lending Easier (eSellerCafe), Rated: A

US online banking platform Azlo and online small business lender announced the launch of Mission Street Capital, a new program that provides small businesses banking with Azlo access to loans through Kabbage up to $250,000.

BitX Funding Strikes Equipment Finance Alliance (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Small business lending marketplace BitX Funding has struck an alliance with transportation equipment finance company Pelagic Capital, the companies said in a press release Tuesday (May 28).

On the Dark Web, your social security number is only worth (CB Insights Email), Rated: A

5 Home Loan Apps To Test-Drive (Spokes-Recorder), Rated: B

Not many know this discount bulk retail giant also provides a loan marketplace to shop for the best mortgage rate. While open to all, Costco members can access discounts on lending services. Loan options include home equity, fixed and adjustable rate, FHA, VA, USDA, and jumbo. Note, this lender’s services are strictly digital so you will not be able to meet up with someone face-to-face.

Top 5 ways to start Investing With Little Money!! (EconoTimes), Rated: B

Though P2P lendings are not low investment choices; with Fast invest, it is possible. You can start investing here with just 1 pound to accelerate cash flow. The website allows investors to deposit amounts and based on that suggests loans. After you choose the loan pack as an investor, the site assigns borrowers. Once the borrower takes the loan from you, the site starts increasing your invested amount with the applied interest rate of up to 14% till the payback period. It also comes with buyback guarantee if the borrower fails to return your loan in the payback period.

Real estate crowdfunding sites provide you the opportunity to invest in third-party properties. Fundrise is the best crowdfunding platform to go for that lets you start investing with only $500. With a year’s saving, you can start investing in this crowdfunding site and gain 8.7 to 12.4% annual returns based on your deposited amount.

BFS Capital Appoints Fred Kauber as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: B

BFS Capital today announced the appointment of Fred Kauber as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer. As a member of the management team reporting to CEO Mark Ruddock, Kauber will be responsible for leading a customer-focused product and technology organization whose mission is to help BFS re-imagine financial services for small businesses.

United Kingdom

Peer-to-peer lending provider Lendy enters administration (Credit Strategy), Rated: AAA

Damian Webb, Phillip Sykes and Mark Wilson of RSM Restructuring Advisory have been appointed as joint administrators of three companies within the Lendy Group: Lendy Limited, Saving Stream Security Holdings Limited and Lendy Provision Reserve Limited.

Does Lendy Collapse Hint the Failure of P2P Loans Industry? (LearnBonds), Rated: A

Before administration, over £90 million of loans defaulted out of £160 million of outstanding loans. The collapse of Lendy means investors had lost millions of pounds.

BondMason Reportedly Is Shutting Down P2P Business (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

BondMason, an online savings and investments platform that sources investments from across the peer-to-peer (P2P) market for its clients, has reportedly announced it is officially shutting down its P2P lending business.

Combating The Payday Loan With On-Demand Wages (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Peter Briffett, CEO of U.K. FinTech Wagestream, told PYMNTS in a recent interview that the cash flow constraints of having to wait for a single day to receive wages every month can be dangerous to the financial wellness of professionals. A single, expensive incident can force these professionals into debt via bank overdrafts or credit cards — or worse, Briffett said, into the payday loan cycle.

The company recently announced a $51 million funding round for its solution — led by Balderton Capital and Northzone, which provided equity, and Shawbrook, which provided debt.

Microfinance Trends and Size of the Market (Cryptopolitan), Rated: A

And that is where microfinance is moving – to an era where individuals and businesses can get financial services from other individuals and business entities. Technology is providing tools for matching borrowers and lenders. And even more important – the tools for creating contracts that execute accordingly.

European Union

Klarna Launches a Direct-to-Consumer App With Installment Payments Built in (Digital Transactions), Rated: AAA

Announced Tuesday, the Klarna app presents the retailer’s site with a footer containing a Pay with Klarna button. When selecting that option, the shopper can pay for purchases in four equal installments with no interest or fees. The app is open to any merchant, not just those already affiliated with Klarna, the company says. These could include retailers without an alternative-payment option or that use a competitor’s program.

10 more big retail tech plays in 2019 (Retail Innovation Hub), Rated: A

PayTech venture Klarna is launching its first UK “all-immersive store” in London’s Covent Garden, with a private VIP party on 4th June.

Becoming a mortgage lender (IPE), Rated: A

Stabelo’s model is to pool capital from institutional investors in exchange for fixed-income securities and uses the money raised to lend mortgages directly to homebuyers. The firm offers mortgages in conjunction with Avanza Bank, which is the biggest online lender in Sweden, and owns just under 20% of Stabelo.

International

London toppled by New York as world’s financial hub (Tech HQ), Rated: AAA

A survey by consultancy and advisory firm Duff & Phelps, involving 180 executives in asset management, private equity, hedge funds, banking and brokerage, found that confidence in the UK capital has plummetted in the last year.

Just 36 percent ranked London as the foremost global financial hub— a year-on-year drop of 17 percent. With New York rising 10 percent, ranked by more than half (52 percent) as the world’s new financial powerhouse, the two cities have “switched places”.

Source: Duff & Phelps

Crypto Lending Platform Cred to Migrate Tokens to Binance Mainnet in New Partnership (CoinTelegraph), Rated: A

Major crypto exchange Binance has partnered with decentralized crypto lending platform Cred to bring its services to the Binance ecosystem, according to a press release publishedon May 29.

As part of the agreement, Cred will migrate some of its ERC-20 LBA tokens to Binance’s mainnet, Binance Chain, and become the official lending and borrowing platform for the decentralized financial ecosystem.

Crypto Lending Startup BlockFi Launches Gemini Dollar Accounts (CoinTelegraph), Rated: A

Cryptocurrency asset management company BlockFi announced that its interest-bearing accounts now support the gemini dollar (GUSD) in a post published on May 29.

Per the announcement, GUSD deposits will see a yearly yield of 6.2%, paid in the stablecoinin question. BlockFi notes that it also offers GUSD as a U.S. dollar funding option and as collateral from institutional cryptocurrency borrowers.

Top 5 emerging fintech hubs (World Finance), Rated: A

São Paulo
Brazil has more fintech start-ups than any other Latin American country, and most of them are consolidated in the country’s financial centre, São Paulo.

Lithuania
One country poised to see an explosion of opportunities after Brexit is Lithuania. In February of this year, the country saw around 100 British financial companies apply for a licence in the country.

Estonia
Estonia has one of the highest rates of start-ups per capita in Europe. According to Startup Genome, 29 percent of all jobs created by these start-ups are within the country’s fintech industry.

Frankfurt
Home to the European Central Bank and more than 200 banks – most of which are foreign – Frankfurt plays an important role in the EU’s financial system.

Bengaluru
Bengaluru (previously Bangalore) is anticipated to become one of the next big tech hubs. One of Asia’s fastest growing start-up ecosystems, the city is home to 438 fintech start-ups and has been dubbed the ‘Silicon Valley of India’.

Nexo Releases Crypto Lending Update Clarifying Misconceptions and Future Outlook (Bitcoin Exchange Guide), Rated: B

Nexo claims their key business model “is unchanged” but that the company is:

“actively exploring new avenues to maximize token utility and investor value.” The company also claims their ultimate goal is to become “a multi-billion dollar financial institution.”

These are the world’s 100 most influential people in gender policy this year (CNBC), Rated: B

Apolitical, a peer-to-peer lending platform for governments, unveiled its list of the world’s 100 most influential individuals on gender equality on Wednesday. It recognized politicians, activists and academics, among others, who were shaping gender policy in 2019.

Australia/New Zealand

Advice beyond mortgages: “the opportunity is huge” (NZ Adviser Online), Rated: AAA

According to Adrienne Church, General Manager at small business lender Prospa, venturing into an unfamiliar type of lending may be worrying – but it is also necessary as the lending market expands, and the property market remains as unpredictable as it inevitably always is.

Asia

TaniGroup Secures US$ 10 Million in Series A Funding to Re-Imagine Agriculture in Indonesia (Global Banking and Finance), Rated: AAA

Agritech startup TaniGroup, which operates agriculture e-commerce TaniHub and peer-to-peer lending provider TaniFund, today announced it raised a US$10 million Series A round of financing led by Openspace Ventures with participation from Intudo Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, and The DFS Lab.

Peer-To-Peer Lending In Indonesia: A Regulatory Update (Mondaq), Rated: A

In February of this year, the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (Otoritas Jasa Keuangan  or “OJK”) issued an updated checklist for peer-to-peer lending (“P2P lending”) platform providers (“Checklist”) registering with the OJK or applying to the body for a business license or change of ownership. The new Checklist introduces several changes to the previous checklist issued in October 2018. We highlight the key material changes and new requirements introduced by the Checklist.

MENA

Qatar Investment Authority invests more than $ 500M in SoFi (Mobile Payments Today), Rated: AAA

Qatar Investment Authority has led an investment of more than $500 million in SoFi, a mobile-first personal finance firm. The investment values the company at $4.3 billion on a pre-money basis, according to a release from the fund.

East Africa

Kenya Is Also Setting The Standard For Mobile Lending (Forbes), Rated: AAA

We all know that Kenya revolutionized mobile payments for the developing world and brands like M-Pesa continue to lead the market, but what about mobile lending? According to Creditinfo Kenya, 93 percent of all mobile loans originate from regulated financial institutions, and there are around five million borrowers and each has an average of 5.89 loans.

Canada

This Alternative Lending Company Offers Investors a Huge Margin of Safety (The Motley Fool), Rated: AAA

Home Capital is a specialty finance company that primarily deals in mortgages. The company typically deals with borrowers who don’t meet normal bank requirements. It offers traditional mortgages and consumer lending as well as securitizing insured mortgages and offering home equity lines of credit.

Authors:

George Popescu
Allen Taylor

The post Thursday May 30 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.