Category: Fed Report

 

United States

Chase’s Push Into SMB Lending, (Payments), Rated: AAA

Clarence Nunn was the head of GE Capital’s franchise business before General Electric decided new regulations gave it a good reason not to be in that business anymore. So now Nunn has a new mission — building out Chase’s U.S. expansion in mid-sized business lending in the southeastern U.S. Nunn will oversee a region including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, where the bank is expanding its middle-market lending into eight more cities this year.

Firms with $20 million to $500 million a year are becoming an increasingly important subset of Chase’s business — while other segments in smaller business lending have seen contractions, Chase has expanded lending in this segment into 30 new service regions. In the same period, lending in areas targeted for expansion increased nearly six-fold to $10.7 billion.

“Middle market growth has averaged 46 percent a year. As the economic recovery is continuing to really take hold, Chase is committed to keeping credit available for the businesses that are really pushing recovery,” Chase commercial banking chief Doug Petno told investors earlier this year.

All in all, revenue has grown to $351 million since 2008 — and executives have a long-term target of $1 billion.

“We’ve made a huge amount of progress in a very short amount of time in these new markets,” said Petno. “Building organically, banker-by-banker, client-by-client, loan-by-loan, we’ve essentially created a nice size bank from scratch.”

Fed Report on Online Lending for Small Businesses, (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

The report can be found here.

Online alternative lender websites are alluring, but trigger concerns about data security and privacy.

Using information typically provided on online alternative lenders’ websites, small businesses find it difficult to compare credit products.

Virtually all the focus group participants want clearly stated product features and costs and an easier way to compare product offerings.

Cash flow and cash-related problems are what keep many of the participants up at night.

Potential borrowers appear to consider “online” a place, not a category of loan.

Rejecting “True Lender” Arguments, California District Court Dismisses Claims Against Student Loan Servicers, (JD Supra), Rated: AAA

In Beechum v. Navient Solutions, Inc. this past Thursday, September 22, a federal district court in the Central District of California dismissed an action raising usury claims against several student loan servicers, rejecting the plaintiffs’ arguments based on the “true lender” doctrine.

The decision comes on the heels of a decision by another judge of the Central District of California in U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. CashCall, Inc. (covered here), which relied on the true lender doctrine to rule in favor of plaintiff CFPB. The two cases illustrate contrasting approaches to the application of true lender doctrine to marketplace lending models.

The plaintiffs in Beechum v. Navient Solutions, Inc. obtained student loans from Stillwater National Bank and Trust Company.

Although the decision is a narrow one based on California State law, it adds yet another data point to the growing body of law on the true lender doctrine. The court’s analysis is potentially noteworthy for several reasons:

• The court’s focus on the face of the transaction is a departure from cases like CFPB v. CashCall, which have, in similar contexts, applied a “predominant economic interest” test to scrutinize a transaction.
• The defendant servicers argued that the court should dismiss the complaint on the alternative ground that application of State usury law to loans originated by Stillwater would run afoul of federal preemption under the National Bank Act. Because the court dismissed on the ground of a State law usury exemption, however, it did not reach the federal preemption issue. This may signal reluctance to wade into thorny preemption issues created by the Second Circuit’s May 2015 decision in Madden v. Midland Funding, LLC.
• Although the court does not explicitly mention the principle that a loan valid when made cannot become usurious as a result of a subsequent transfer, the result in the case adds to the body of case law standing for that proposition.

Orchard Weekly Online Lending Snapshot, (Email), Rated: AAA

 

Source: Orchard Platform

Source: Orchard Platform

Source: Orchard Platform

Source: Orchard Platform

Canvas Ventures raises $ 300 million fund to back startups, (Reuters), Rated: A

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Canvas Ventures has raised a $300 million fund to make new investments into startups working on fintech, healthcare, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technology.

Its previous investments include marketplace lending company Lending Club Corp. (LC.N), which went on to raise more than $1 billion in its 2014 initial public offering; mobile payments company Check, which was acquired by Intuit (INTU.O); and Wifi camera company Dropcam, which was acquired by Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O).

New GC takes Helm at Lending Club, (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Russell Elmer has been named as the new GC replacing Jason Altieri who has been Lending Club’s GC for the past seven years. As one would expect, Elmer will be reporting to Lending Club CEO Scott Sanborn.

Most recently Elmer has been Deputy GC and Corporate Secretary at PayPal so he has plenty of Fintech/ payments exposure. Elmer has also been General Counsel at Pricelock and General Counsel at E*Trade. He was also a Partner at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich (now DLA Piper) where he spent nearly a decade. Elmer is expected to oversee all legal matters including corporate securities, M&A, corporate governance, government and regulatory affairs and litigation.

The Current State of Marketplace Lending and Investing, (Pepper Hamilton), Rated: A

Recent legal and regulatory developments are affecting the ways that marketplace lenders and investors do business — and their impact will continue to be felt well into the future. This is a turbulent time in this developing industry and senior members of Pepper Hamilton’s Marketplace Lending practice sat down for a podcast to discuss some of the industry’s most significant issues and their implications leading into the 2016 Marketplace Lending + Investing Conference taking place in New York this week.

This podcast with

When Will Marketplace Lending Platforms Offer Mortgages?, (CFA Institute), Rated: A

Marketplace lending is so popular that Foundation Capital’s Charles Moldow predicts that by 2025 these platforms will originate $1 trillion in loans globally.

On the other hand, marketplace mortgages could divert billions of dollars of income from banks, which would hurt their already thin margins and shake up — even transform — the credit sector.

Several marketplace lending entrepreneurs I interviewed said they avoid direct competition with banks. They prefer to serve a small segment of the credit sector that banks have little to no interest in.

Such modesty is uncalled for. Marketplace lending is an explosive idea with enormous potential.

But when my colleague,Ioannis Akkizidis, and I stress tested a portfolio of marketplace loans from one of the major US platforms, returns diverged toward zero already under moderate stress. In addition, if banks manage to compete with the interest rates offered by these lending platforms, a wave of prepayments could ripple through the sector, curtailing interest income. Medium and strong stress resulted in losses for investors, which was accelerated by the absence of collateral.

Silicon Valley Clueless? Orchard Says Contrary to Popular Belief ABS Industry Positive Towards Online Lending, (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

At ABS East conference Steve Eisman was quoted saying;

“The central problem is that these lending startups, their founders and backers in particular, don’t have a lot of experience making loans to consumers, and some of them approach loan-making as they would retail sales…When you go to Amazon and buy a book, you buy it and the transaction is over. But when you take out a loan, that is just the beginning of the transaction — it’s like a relationship. Silicon Valley, I think, is clueless”

Hoopes explained (via an email to Bloomberg) that;

“Traditional Wall Street occasionally forgets that online lending has a long track record and that these platforms have been built by people with deep financial markets experience. Borrowers and investors are turning to these online products because they are delivering enormous value compared to the traditional alternatives.”

Celebrated Entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran And OnDeck Team Up In New Campaign Highlighting The Importance Of Financing For Small Businesses, (Email), Rated: A

Beginning this month, Ms. Corcoran will be featured in television and radio commercials and customer communications emphasizing OnDeck’s unique ability to provide small businesses across the United States access to much-needed financing. She will also serve as a contributing editor to the OnDeck blog, offering advice to OnDeck’s customers and small business readers.

The launch of the Barbara Corcoran marketing campaign follows a busy summer for OnDeck, which unveiled a new brand identity with the enhanced

United Kingdom

Debut securitisation for Zopa loans, (FT) 

Europe’s first securitisation backed by unsecured consumer loans from an online platform has priced today, in the latest sign of nascent integration between new lending companies and institutional funding markets. The £150m deal is backed by loans originated on the Zopa platform, which were made and previously held by P2P Global Investments PLC.

Deutsche Bank was the sole arranger and manager on the Zopa deal. P2P Global Investments PLC will retain a “net economic interest” in the deal for the duration of the transaction.

Funding Circle lent over £1.5 billion to British businesses, (Funding Circle), Rated: A

Folk2Folk CEO Jane Dumeresque Shares Vision of P2P Lending, (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

While embracing technology that facilitates the lending process, Folk2Folk maintains numerous brick and mortar locations as they believe in dealing with people – not just websites.

Folk2Folk is a small business lender that provides “responsible” credit. LTVs only go up to 60% of the value of the security.

To date, Folk2Folk has facilitated over £115 million in loans.

Our vision is to replicate our unique and successful business model across the UK in 2017. This expansion will help us scale the business to reach our target of a loan book of over £1 billion by 2020.

 There has been an industry slowdown, which I believe has been down to a number of factors from seasonality, Brexit uncertainty as well as increased competition in borrowing rates as the BoE has reduced rates.

The important factor is that despite the slowdown, or bump in the road as you put it, the industry is still growing well above 50% year-on-year.

We are fortunate in being a very well diversified business and currently over 75% of our staff are female.

European Union

Estonia’s Bondora P2P lending platform launches referral program, (SMN Weekly), Rated: A

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform Bondora said last week it has launched a Refer-A-Friend program, under which investors can earn 5% from the amount their referred friends lent in the first 30 days of signing up via the platform.

Late last month, PledgeMe, a New Zealand-based crowdfunding platform, also launched a referral program, PledgeMe.Friends, under which users get a $500 reward if a friend they’ve referred launched a successful campaign that raises more than $50,000.

Bondora is an leading Estonia-based P2P lending platform. The platform has facilitated the disburse of more than €66 million. The average Bondora loan is €2,370, but loans range from €500 to €10,000. Bondora also operates a secondary market for P2P loans where investors can buy and sell their existing investments.

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