Thursday September 5 2019, Weekly News Digest

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.

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 credit system like China’s. Yirendai’s earnings call transcript. Best and worst places to retire in 2019. Fall fintech conferences around the world.

United States

LendingPoint closes $178 million ABS. Congratulations!
OnDeck reaches $879 million in online financing for small business in Texas. Excellent achievement. Congratulations.
The best and worst places to retire in 2019. Five of the top 10 are in Florida. An excellent analysis from LendingTree.
Silicon Valley is building a social credit system like China’s. This is an excellent read. While there seems to be some evidence that social credit data is useful for determining risk to lenders, consumers are growing more weary of the tactics used to gather that data.
Fundrise Opportunity Zone Fund has raised over $22 million.
Kabbage acquires Radius Intelligence.
The top alternative lenders in 2019.
Chime has 5 million customers.
Interview with BlockFi’s Zac Prince.
Even Financial raises $25 million.
Credit Sesame snags $43 million.
CrowdBureau closes $1.1 million equity round with $9.7 million valuation.
Some companies are offering employee loans.
Lendingblock launches institutional crypto lending platform.
How American Express uses machine learning for fraud detection.
A SoFi financial planner says there is opportunity to build wealth during recession.
Are P2P loans viable for your portfolio?
Judge rejects fintech charter challenge–again.
White Oak to administrate PACE program.

United Kingdom

China

Yirendai files 6-K. Yirendai appears to be struggling. Loan originations are down from last quarter while the cumulative number of borrowers is up.
Yirendai’s earnings call transcript for Q2.
China Rapid Finance retains China Merchants Bank, Pangea Finance.
Central bank to include P2P lending in credit system.
Regulations tighten.
P2P lender operational status irrelevant.
Founder of Zendai Group was arrested over Laocaibao.

International

P2P lending volumes for August 2019. Bondora, Fellow Finance, Mintos, and Thincats report milestones in cumulative volume. Total volume across the board was 634 million euros.
Fall conference season. A great list of must-attend conference to attend from September to December from Los Angeles to China.
Klarna launches international marketing campaign.

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 March 28 2019, Weekly News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: Klarna launches open banking platform. SoFi re-engineers home loans. Apple’s new credit card. OakNorth secures guarantee of $133M. Qupital raises $15M to bumrush China. Today’s main analysis: Arbuthnot Banking Group audited final results for 2018. Today’s thought-provoking articles: U.S. yield curve, new fintech products. Cities with most overleveraged mortgage debtors. Household debt. Expanding access to credit […]

The post Thursday March 28 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: Klarna launches open banking platform. SoFi re-engineers home loans. Apple’s new credit card. OakNorth secures guarantee of $133M. Qupital raises $15M to bumrush China.
Today’s main analysis: Arbuthnot Banking Group audited final results for 2018.
Today’s thought-provoking articles: U.S. yield curve, new fintech products. Cities with most overleveraged mortgage debtors. Household debt. Expanding access to credit in land of new halves. Consumers hunger for loans.

United States

SoFi re-engineers home loans. Every business model needs adjusting from time to time.
Apple’s new credit card keeps financial advisors guessing. Interesting read.
U.S. yield curve, new fintech products. From PeerIQ.
Cities with most overleveraged mortgage debtors. A MUST-READ.
Household debt. From DBRS.
Expanding access to credit in land of new halves. A guest article on Lend Academy from Sasha Orloff, former CEO of LendUp. Very interesting read.
Amount empower’s TD Fit Loan from TD Bank.
Freebies that come with student loans.
CNote launches Wisdom Fund for women.
70% of Americans would share more personal data for fairer credit.
Survey on alternative data sharing.
7 top real estate crowdfunding platforms.
Technology prepares ABS professionals for next economic cycle.
TrustToken’s stablecoin available on Cred.
OCC fintech charter update.
Mortech, Roostify partner for enhanced online mortgage experience.
Finastra launches Fusion Digital Front Office.
Huobi U.S. launches OTC crypto trading for institutions. Includes crypto lending.
Elevate a finalist for LendIt Fintech 2019’s Financial Inclusion Award.
J.D. Power ranks Regions among top alternative lenders for personal loans.

United Kingdom

International

Other

Europe: Klarna launches open banking platform. Not a surprise. We knew it was coming, and this will likely push Klarna even further up the ranks of most important fintechs globally. With aggressive expansion, Klarna can leverage this platform to focus its core competency in the area of instant loans all around the globe.
China: Qupital moves into China with $15 million fund raise.
Canada: Shadow banking has grown.
China: Consumers hungry for loans.
India: New modes of lending.
Southeast Asia: Bukalapak partners with three P2P lenders.
Russia: Bank 131 launches. A digital bank targeting global Russian entrepreneurs.
Australia: APRA proposes strict credit risk management standards.

News Summary

United States

SoFi Refreshes Home Loans, Making Home Buying Painless and Paperless (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Today, SoFi announced the refresh of its mortgage offering as SoFi Home Loans, complete with a reengineered process that helps people buy or refinance a home with an online application, no hidden fees, or prepayment penalties.

SoFi Home Loans offer competitive rates including affordable down payments, with as little as 10% down on loans up to $3MM, with no hidden fees or prepayment penalties. SoFi allows applicants to choose between four different loan terms and fixed or adjustable rates. Those interested in refinancing can choose between traditional mortgage refinancing, cash-out refinancing, and student loan cash-out refinancing. If SoFi Home Loans isn’t able to handle a loan request, SoFi provides an easy option to digitally transfer member information to its affiliate partner who may be able to help.

Apple’s new credit card keeps advisors guessing (Financial Planning), Rated: AAA

The Apple credit card is the latest offering by a Silicon Valley tech giant looking for a ready-made avenue into the financial services’ sector. While the new card mostly benefits loyal users of Apple products, it’s also an unwelcome reminder of an ever present question on the minds of wealth managers: Will the FAANG companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet continue their land grab of services historically provided by the financial services industry — and at what cost to traditional RIAs?

Ominously, a majority of investors considering switching financial services providers said they would consider banking with a tech company like Facebook, Google or Amazon if they could, according to a recent survey by Novantis.

US Yield Curve Inverts; New Products from FinTechs (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

For the first time in 3,000 days, and with much anticipation, the 3-month and 10-year treasury curve inverted. The median time to a recession after this curve inverts is between 1 to 1.5 years. However, unprecedented interventions such as QE (and higher central bank holdings globally) make it difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions. Market participants are pricing in a 41% probability of an interest rate cut in the September meeting.

Source: PeerIQ; Bianco Research

New Products from FinTechs

FinTech innovation continues with new products from PeerStreet and Figure. PeerStreet has launched a 30-year loan to enable private investors to buy rental properties. Residential for Rent loans are targeted towards rental home operators. The rental market in the US has grown exponentially post-crisis people struggle to buy homes. The number of rental homes has grown from 36 Mn in 2006 to 43 Mn in 2017.

Source: FactTank, PeerIQ

2019’s Cities with the Most Overleveraged Mortgage Debtors (WalletHub), Rated: AAA

Buying a home represents an important milestone for most consumers. But for those who dive in to the deep end of real estate without a financial safety net, the decision could lead to buyer’s remorse in the long run. Mortgage rates are slowly falling after reaching their latest peak in November 2018, and are close to the lowest they’ve been in the past 3 decades. This makes 2019 a tempting time to buy a home. Some industry experts believe 2019 is friendlier toward buyers than sellers because of the lower rates.

Source: WalletHub

Household Debt – Mixed Signals (DBRS), Rated: AAA

The most recent Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the Fed) and Equifax Inc. (Equifax) showed that household debt rose for the 18th consecutive period during Q4 2018 to $13.5 trillion, $869 billion higher than the peak reached in 2008. This represented the third-smallest increase (0.24%) over the 18 consecutive periods of growth, partly because of decreasing mortgage loan debt during Q4 2018 to $9.2 trillion from $9.4 trillion at the end of Q3 2018 and flat levels of auto loan debt at $1.3 trillion for both Q3 and Q4 2018.

Expanding Access to Credit in the Land of New “Halves” (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

Credit is one of the largest, most powerful, lucrative and important industries in the world. It also is one of the best tools for wealth creation – home ownership, small business ownership and growth, and, leveraged investing. This is readily accessible for prime consumers with more options now than ever before. But for the other half of the country that is non-prime, options are still limited and in many cases non-existent.

Early pioneers of securitizations like SoFi, the scaling of marketplace lending like Lending Club, Prosper and Best Egg, and new distribution models like Greensky and Affirm have contributed towards increasing comfort of these “new asset classes” that were mostly locked up in bank’s balance sheets.

There are a lot of new “halves” in today’s world.

Half of our country have a subprime credit score.
Half of our country live paycheck to paycheck.
Half of our country have volatile incomes.
Millennials and the next generation are approaching half of the workforce, with very different attitudes about loyalty, institutions, and how they spend their money and repay their debts.

Amount Delivers Seamless Digital and Mobile Lending Platform to TD Bank (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Amount, a technology provider for financial institutions, today announced a strategic partnership with TD Bank. TD Bank, a top ten U.S. bank, is leveraging Amount’s platform to power the bank’s TD Fit Loan, which launched in August 2018. This initial offering allows consumers to consolidate higher-interest debt, while helping TD meet growing consumer demand for a seamless digital and mobile lending experience. Through this partnership, TD and Amount will roll out additional offerings, as well as standalone tools addressing fraud, verifications and decisioning.

5 Freebies With Your Student Loans (NerdWallet), Rated: A

1. Career coaching

Who offers it: SoFi.

SoFi members have received over 15,000 coaching sessions to date.

4. Referral bonuses

Who offers it: Multiple refinance lenders.

Education Loan Finance offers $400 for each successful referral, as well as $100 for the loan applicant.
Laurel Road lets you split its $400 bonus however you and your referral see fit.
Splash Financial provides $250 apiece for both parties.

5. Charitable work

Who offers it: CommonBond.

If you prefer freebies that help others, CommonBond has a one-for-one social impact mission. For each loan the lender issues, it donates an amount based on a formula that funds a child’s education in a developing country through the nonprofit Pencils of Promise. Those donations have totaled over $1 million to date.

CNote Launches Wisdom Fund to Close Lending Gap for Women (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S. Yet less than 5 percent of small business lending—only $1 in $23—goes to women. CNote aims to fix this disparity with the Wisdom Fund, a new impact investment opportunity launching today.

Investors in the Wisdom Fund will earn an estimated 4 percent annual return, over a 60-month term, on a loan portfolio that’s diversified across established CDFIs. Email wisdomfund@mycnote.com to learn how you can help fund more women-owned businesses today.

Women seeking loans should contact a participating CDFI. Partners in the Wisdom Fund’s first phase include:

Carolina Small Business Development Fund, which provides small business loans and financial training to startups, existing businesses and community organizations in North Carolina.
LiftFund, a Texas-based organization that empowers underserved entrepreneurs with capital and support services in 13 states.
TruFund, a national nonprofit organization that provides affordable capital to small businesses and nonprofits in Alabama, Louisiana and New York.

Study Finds 70% of Americans Would Share More Personal Data for Fairer Credit Decisions (PR Newswire), Rated: A

More than half (54%) of loan applicants don’t even have a clear understanding of why they receive the interest rate they do from a lender, while a majority (70%) say it is difficult finding lenders who will look at them as something other than their credit score.

7 in 10 American adults (71%) wish there was another way to prove themselves to credit lenders outside of the standard credit score.
- Hispanics (82%) and African Americans (81%) are more likely than Whites (67%) to want lenders to look at additional factors in lending decisions.
77% believe more data is better when evaluating potential borrowers’ credit.
71% would be willing to share more personal data with a lender if it resulted in a fairer credit decision. The motivation is even higher among middle-class earners. 79% of people making $50,000 to $75,000 would share more personal data to prove their creditworthiness, compared to 66% of people making over $100,000.
84% think their bank should use modern technology to assess their creditworthiness.
- Specifically, about half of loan applicants (53%) would like their ideal lender to use machine learning to make fairer credit decisions.
- More than 2 in 5 (42%) would like their ideal lender to use machine learning to make the credit for homeownership more accessible to everyone.
- Surprisingly, older generations want newer technology even more. Baby boomers and seniors (83% and 87%, respectively) wanted their banks to use new technologies to score them, compared to 79% for Millennials and Gen Zers.

Survey: Alternative Data Sharing (Urjanet), Rated: B

Urjanet surveyed more than 300 U.S.-based adults to assess consumer sentiment around alternative data sharing in the lending process. Key findings include:

A majority of consumers have multiple alternative sources of payment history
Alternative data sharing represents a huge opportunity for lenders to drive financial inclusion
Most consumers (59%) are willing to share utility and telecom data to boost chances of approval

SigFig launches platform to help retail banks sell financial products (Investment News), Rated: A

SigFig, the financial technology firm that developed digital advice platforms for several large financial institutions, wants to help banks automate more than investment management.

SigFig Atlas is billed as a “financial advice and software-guided sales platform” for banks. Accessible either in a branch office or online, SigFig Atlas will assess a customer’s financial needs, then use algorithms to determine which of a bank’s products or services would work best. Beyond robo-advice, Atlas can also recommend checking and savings accounts, loans, mortgages or any other bank products. “ArborCrowd is the first crowdfunding platform launched by a real estate institution, offering a vastly different model than others in the space,” says Adam Kaufman, co-founder and managing director at ArborCrowd.

7 Top Real Estate Crowdfunding Platforms (U.S. News), Rated: A

“ArborCrowd is the first crowdfunding platform launched by a real estate institution, offering a vastly different model than others in the space,” says Adam Kaufman, co-founder and managing director at ArborCrowd.

“We are a marketplace where sponsors can list their offerings and investors can invest typically between $25,000 and $1 million per investment to own their pro-rata portion of that deal or fund,” says Brandon Banks, vice president of real estate at RealCrowd.

Bradley Fulkerson, senior managing director at Transwestern in Atlanta says through Groundfloor, investors provide short-term, high-yield loans, secured by the underlying real estate.

Accredited investors can participate in both equity and debt real estate funding through Portland-based CrowdStreet.

“PeerStreet’s accredited investors earn a stable, consistent return with a yield that’s generally higher than bonds and sometimes even more than equities,” says Brett Crosby, co-founder and chief operating officer at California-based PeerStreet.

Small Change is crowdfunding investing for socially conscious small investors. From the platform, investors choose their projects and invest.

Highly selective RealtyMogul offers commercial real estate investing for accredited and nonaccredited investors.

Technology to Play Crucial Role in Preparing ABS Professionals for Next Economic Cycle (ABL Advisor), Rated: A

An overwhelming majority (90 percent) of asset-backed securities (ABS) professionals feel that adopting new technologies will be important to preparing their businesses for the next economic cycle, according to Capital One’s sixth annual survey at SFIG Vegas 2019.

The survey also revealed that ABS professionals believe the biggest risks to their businesses are uncertainty around regulatory risk and increased credit risk, both at 29 percent. However, despite regulatory risk being a top concern, the industry’s apprehension has nearly cut in half over the last two years. In 2018, 48 percent noted regulations were the biggest risk to their businesses while 58 percent thought so in 2017. Additional top-of-mind concerns for 2019 include increases in interest rates (18 percent) and increased competition (17 percent).

TrustToken’s Stablecoin Now Available On Cred’s Crypto Earning Platform (BlockTribune), Rated: A

Asset tokenization platform TrustToken has announced a strategic partnership with crypto lending platform Cred.

Founded by former PayPal financial technology veterans, Cred is a decentralized global lending and borrowing platform that allows stablecoin issuers, exchanges and wallets to provide valuable earn and lending services worldwide.

Fintech in Brief: Update on Legal Challenges to OCC Fintech Charter (JDSupra), Rated: A

On March 19, 2019, the New York State Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) filed a brief in opposition to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (“OCC”) motion to dismiss the NYDFS’ lawsuit challenging the OCC’s statutory authority to grant special purpose national bank charters to Fintechs (the “Fintech Charter”). The brief in opposition signals that the NYDFS will continue its opposition to the Fintech Charter under the leadership of Acting Superintendent Linda Lacewell, who replaced outgoing Superintendent Mari Vullo in February. In opposing the OCC’s motion to dismiss, the NYDFS argued that it has standing to challenge the Fintech Charter, the matter is ripe for judicial review, and its claims are not time-barred. The NYDFS also argued that the OCC’s interpretation of the “business of banking” is not entitled to Chevron deference and “should be invalidated in its entirety.”

Mortech Partners with Roostify for Enhanced Online Mortgage Experience (Business Wire), Rated: A

Today, Mortech, a Zillow Group business providing mortgage technology solutions for mortgage lenders and secondary market teams, announced a new partnership between Mortech’s product and pricing engine (PPE) and Roostify, a digital lending platform that gives customers more control of their home buying process while allowing loan officers to utilize the latest technology to more easily process loans. The strategic partnership will integrate two proven mortgage technology solutions to improve the digital mortgage experience for many industry-leading lenders.

Finastra brings community banking services outside the branch with the launch of Fusion Digital Front Office (Finastra), Rated: A

Finastra has launched Fusion Digital Front Office, an innovative tablet-based banking platform that enables community banks and credit unions to take services directly to the consumer, outside of the branch. The solution provides a simple gateway to manage account origination, sales and service, and transaction processing from any remote location.

Huobi’s US Arm Launches Institutional Group for OTC Crypto Trading (CoinDesk), Rated: A

“We’re entering the market now with a real institutional offering, we’re definitely going to be offering some new products and services,” such as token lending and over-the-counter (OTC) trading, in the coming months, he added.

Elevate Named as a Finalist for LendIt Fintech 2019’s Financial Inclusion Award (AP News), Rated: B

Elevate Credit, Inc. (“Elevate”), a leading tech-enabled provider of innovative and responsible online credit solutions for non-prime consumers, has been named as one of six finalists in the “Excellence in Financial Inclusion” category for the LendIt Fintech Industry Awards 2019. This award is given to the company that has made the biggest impact in expanding access to financial services in new and innovative ways.

J.D. Power ranks Regions among top alternative lenders for personal loans (Biz Journals), Rated: B

Birmingham’s largest bank has ranked among the top alternative lenders in the U.S. for providing personal loan satisfaction through digital applications.

United Kingdom

ARBUTHNOT BANKING GROUP (“Arbuthnot”, “the Group” or “ABG”) Audited Final Results for the year to 31 December 2018 (Morningstar), Rated: AAA

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

· Profit Before Tax £6.8m (2017: £2.5m)

· Underlying profit before tax £7.4m (2017: £3.2m)

· Operating income increased by 24% to £67.9m (2017: £54.6m)

· Negative earnings per share 134.5p (2017: positive 43.9p)*

· Continuing earnings per share 38.0p (2017: 14.0p)

· Underlying earnings per share 40.3p (2017: 17.6p)

· Final dividend per share 20p (2017: 19p), an increase of 5%

· Total full year dividend per share 35p (2017: 33p)

· Bonus share issue to create new class of non-voting shares

· Net assets £196m (2017: £236m)

· Net assets per share 1283p (2017: 1547p)

· Underlying return on deployed equity 5.6% (2017: 4.2%)

Consolidated statement of financial position

		At 31 December
		2018	2017
	Note	£000	£000
ASSETS
Cash and balances at central banks	17	405,325	313,101
Loans and advances to banks	18	54,173	70,679
Debt securities at amortised cost / held-to-maturity	19	342,691	227,019
Assets classified as held for sale	20	8,002	2,915
Derivative financial instruments	21	1,846	2,551
Loans and advances to customers	22	1,224,656	1,049,269
Other assets	24	12,716	20,624
Financial investments	25	35,351	2,347
Deferred tax asset	26	1,490	1,527
Interests in associates	27	–	83,804
Intangible assets	28	16,538	15,995
Property, plant and equipment	30	5,304	3,962
Investment property	31	67,081	59,439
Total assets		2,175,173	1,853,232
EQUITY AND LIABILITIES
Equity attributable to owners of the parent
Share capital	37	153	153
Retained earnings	38	209,083	237,171
Other reserves	38	(13,280)	(949)
Total equity		195,956	236,375
LIABILITIES
Deposits from banks	32	232,675	195,097
Derivative financial instruments	21	188	931
Deposits from customers	33	1,714,286	1,390,781
Current tax liability		236	705
Other liabilities	34	18,549	16,239
Debt securities in issue	35	13,283	13,104
Total liabilities		1,979,217	1,616,857
Total equity and liabilities		2,175,173	1,853,232

Read the full report here.

Tech Nation Lists 10 Fintech Pioneers In Future Fifty 2019 Cohort (Forbes), Rated: AAA

Revolut, Monzo, Starling Bank, Currencycloud, Aire, Blockchain, MarketInvoice, Quantexa, Nested and Salary Finance were revealed to be among the 24 most dynamic and fast-growing late-stage technology companies to be chosen to join Future Fifty’s 2019 cohort.

Tech Nation and Dealroom data has also revealed that the U.K. has attracted a whopping $7.9 billion in funding in 2018 and closed the gap for exits of venture-backed companies with the U.S. As well as this U.K. sales, IPOs and mergers were worth $40 billion – ahead of every other European country – which points to the success of the tech sector as a whole in the country.

OAKNORTH ANNOUNCES BRITISH BUSINESS BANK ENABLE GUARANTEE OF £133M (Business Leader), Rated: AAA

OakNorth has today announced its participation in the ENABLE Guarantee programme, securing a guarantee of £133m from the British Business Bank, the UK government’s economic development bank. OakNorth will use the guarantee to strengthen further its lending support to fast-growth businesses and established property developers and investors.

The ENABLE Guarantee programme is designed to encourage banks to increase their lending to smaller businesses by reducing the amount of capital required to be held against such lending. Under an ENABLE Guarantee, the UK Government takes on a portion of the lender’s risk on a portfolio of loans to smaller businesses, in return for a fee.

Inside OakNorth’s plan to take its lending technology global (Tearsheet), Rated: A

As a challenger bank, OakNorth charts a different course. While Revolut, Monzo, and N26 focus on putting their digital current accounts in the hands of millions, OakNorth doesn’t even offer a current account. While other challengers are racing to acquire banking licenses all over the world, OakNorth is happy with just a UK license.

OakNorth is also posting profits while other challengers aren’t. The bank announced a £33.9m profit for 2018, up 220 percent from 2017.

OakNorth provides debt financing to entrepreneurs in growing businesses, lending £0.5M to £40M to profitable, scale-up, British businesses. To fund its underwriting, OakNorth offers digital savings accounts. It currently has 40,000 customers with digital savings accounts and has lend £3 billion in under four years.

Successful UK Payday Lender Western Circle Limited Begins Offering Personal Loans Online (Finger Lakes Times), Rated: A

Western Circle Limited has made a name for itself by offering responsible payday loans online. Their decision to branch out into the personal loans market through the new brand PersonalLoansNow.co.uk was well received by their customers.

Five last-minute IFISA ideas (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

THE END of the tax year is fast approaching, so if you haven’t yet taken full advantage of your £20,000 ISA allowance to make tax-free returns, now is the time. The peer-to-peer lending industry is expecting to see an uptick in inflows into Innovative Finance ISAs (IFISA) this year now that there is a much wider choice of products available and the potential for higher returns than cash with lower volatility than the stock market.

FINTECH LAUNCHES AI LOAN COMPARISON SERVICE (Business Cloud), Rated: A

Loan marketplace Monevo has launched a new platform to give consumers comparisons of pre-approved loans.

Based in Macclesfield, the business is a licensed credit broker for personal and business loans and is Europe’s largest personal loan marketplace.

An Alternative Approach (IFA Magazine), Rated: A

When it comes to asset allocation, advisers constantly face the challenge of finding real diversification in client portfolios. Sue Whitbread met with Matthew Ardron and Benedict Yung of Basset & Gold Group, to talk about their approach of offering fixed rate bonds that invest in alternative lending.

Half of Brits running out of cash before payday – pushing them to rogue lenders (Mirror), Rated: A

Exclusive research for Mirror Money shows by the end of this month, those turning to payday loans will have shelled out more than £214million – that works out at £28 per second

P2P to have strong presence at Innovate Finance Global Summit (P2P Finance News), Rated: B

FOUNDERS of the ‘big three’ peer-to-peer lenders are among the confirmed speakers at Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS), which takes place next month at London’s Guildhall.

Giles Andrews of Zopa, Samir Desai of Funding Circle and Rhydian Lewis of RateSetter are all participating in various sessions at the fintech industry trade body’s flagship conference on 29-30 April 2019, which marks the start of UK Fintech Week.

Other confirmed speakers from the P2P world include Zopa chief executive Jaidev Janardana, ArchOver’s Angus Dent, Ali Celiker from British Pearl and Roxana Mohammadian-Molina from Blend Network.

China/Hong Kong

Hong Kong SME financing platform raises $ 15m for China push (Finextra), Rated: AAA

Hong Kong-based online SME trade financing platform Qupital is targeting the mainland after closing a $15 million Series A funding round led by CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund.

Consumers hunger for loans, lenders popping up everywhere (Shine), Rated: AAA

Qin Shuifeng, 30, who lives in the suburban district of Jiading, went to a branch of the Postal Savings Bank of China in 2016 to seek a loan for home improvements.

The lender granted her and her husband a credit line of 1 million yuan (US$148,600), of which they drew 600,000 yuan, with an interest rate 10 percent higher than the benchmark rate.

Competition

The central government has issued a series of policies favorable to consumer lending since the second half of 2018.

Still, risks remain. To realize sustainable development, players need to build strong operational and risk control capabilities, either by themselves or in partnership with financial technologies firms.

European Union

Klarna Launches Open Banking Platform (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Today, Klarna, one of Europe’s leading payment providers and the global market leader in payment initiation services, announces the launch of its own Open Banking Platform. This platform will enable access to more than 4,300 European banks through a single Access to Account (XS2A) API in line with Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Klarna’s XS2A API is the most established and proven solution that has been developed at scale across markets for almost 15 years through the Klarna Group company Sofort.

This platform provides a fully proven and mature infrastructure, superior market coverage and connectivity, with access to 99% of online banking consumers currently across 14 European markets. By opening up its own advanced technology and capabilities, Klarna is simplifying and democratising access to APIs securely. Both established and newer banks and fintechs as well as other licensed businesses, will be able to build smart and personalised offerings that meet the evolving needs of consumers across Europe. Klarna has been one of the leading proponents of the PSD2 legislation and believes high-quality APIs will drive innovation and competition but most importantly will empower consumers across Europe with increased choice, control and clarity on their finances, and ability to access better products.

International

Has Alternative Lending Seen Its VC Peak? (PYMNTS), Rated: AAA

U.S. FinTech funding reached its highest level in five years in 2018, according to CB Insights data published last month, hitting $11.89 billion. Yet at a time when analysts say VCs are focusing more on late-stage investment, alternative lenders are having a tougher time securing funding, particularly market newcomers in a crowded market.

But there is evidence that investors’ appetite for alternative lending startups is on the wane, even as overall FinTech funding continues to climb — and as the success of the alternative lending market grows, too.

eToro buys blockchain company Firmo (Fintech Futures), Rated: A

Just weeks after launching in the US, trading and investment platform eToro announced plans to purchase Copenhagen-based blockchain firm Firmo, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate.

Founded in 2017, Firmo offers a programming language called FirmoLang that runs on a sidechain. Exchanges can leverage FirmoLang to create financial instruments such as P2P lending platforms or cryptocurrency derivatives with tokens. And Firmo is versatile, allowing the tokens to be run on any blockchain.

Battlestar Capital Earns 30% Returns For Holding Crypto (ChainBits), Rated: B

Battlestar Capital, which is a blockchain staking-as-a-service company, revealed that customers could potentially earn up to 30 percent on a yearly basis when it comes to their idle crypto holdings. Here is everything about the startup’s claims in a nutshell.

In an interview, the company said that it has teamed up with crypto lending startup called Celsius Network in an attempt to launch a large-scale service capable of offering potentially high returns.

Australia

APRA Proposes Stricter Credit Risk Management Standards (Regulation Asia), Rated: AAA

The revised prudential standard enhances board oversight of credit risk and requires more intensive credit checks on borrowers. APRA also highlights the risks of P2P originated loans.

India

New modes of lending, fund raising on cards (The Asian), Rated: AAA

In a bid to change the market dynamics of the banking and financial sectors, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon come up with alternative models of lending and capital raising for the sectors.

Asia

Bukalapak partners three P2P lenders to provide loans for offline businesses (Tech in Asia), Rated: AAA

Bukalapak is teaming up with Indonesian P2P lending startups Amartha, Modalku, and PohonDana to provide loan facilities in a program called Modal Mitra. The loans are available to offline vendors who are part of the company’s Mitra Bukalapak program.

The financing offered through Modal Mitra ranges between US$70 and US$700 and can be paid back in up to six months, with weekly installments starting from US$6. It can only be used for purchases in the Mitra Bukalapak app.

Eurasia

Russian fintech launches digital bank 131 (Finextra), Rated: AAA

Bank 131, a new digital bank focused on Russian companies and entrepreneurs that work for global internet companies and/or buy from global ecommerce companies with a Russia presence, announced today they have received their banking license from authorities – the first and only new bank to do so in four years.

Canada

Shadow banking has grown, but risks to financial systems are modest (Advisor’s Edge), Rated: AAA

Canada’s shadow banking sector has grown substantially in recent years, but the overall financial system has grown even faster, keeping risks in check, suggests a new report from the Bank of Canada.

In the report, the central bank details the results of its monitoring of so-called “non-bank financial intermediation” (NBFI), also known as shadow banking. Among other things, the report finds the Canadian NBFI sector has grown by 1.7 times since 2006, driven by strong growth in investment funds, securities financing transactions and private lending.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday March 28 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday March 21 2019, Weekly News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: BlockFi hits $25M in deposits in 2 weeks. Cash-back ETF injects trouble into ETF market. PeerStreet expands product line. Funding Circle fund higher impairments drag returns. Dianrong blames Chinese regime for troubles. Today’s main analysis: New home equity loans do not significantly alter credit scores. Today’s thought-provoking articles: SoFi Money review. Can Citi, JPMorgan beat […]

The post Thursday March 21 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: BlockFi hits $25M in deposits in 2 weeks. Cash-back ETF injects trouble into ETF market. PeerStreet expands product line. Funding Circle fund higher impairments drag returns. Dianrong blames Chinese regime for troubles.
Today’s main analysis: New home equity loans do not significantly alter credit scores.
Today’s thought-provoking articles: SoFi Money review. Can Citi, JPMorgan beat fintech personal loans? Revolut tests the limits of finance. Top 7 lending startups in 2019. Vietnam is SE Asia’s fintech hub.

United States

BlockFi hits $25 million in deposits within 2 weeks. Crypto lending is beginning to become a major force in alternative lending. BlockFi is one of the leaders.
SoFi Money review. Nerdwallet takes a look at SoFi Money.
Can Citi, JPMorgan compete with fintechs on personal loans? Fintechs had 36% of the personal loan market in 2017. Can big banks make a comeback? I think their efforts in doing so are going to make this a much more competitive market. Can alternative lenders continue to grow with streamlined processes and leaner teams?
New home equity loans do not significantly alter credit scores. Another great LendingTree study.
Cash-back ETF causes stir in the ETF market. PR stunt or not, Salt Financial has upped the game.
PeerStreet expands product line with residential for rent loans.
There are millions of dollars in student loans left on the table because people abandon their FAFSA forms.
Online lenders still seek Madden fix.
State of digital engagement for online lenders.
X Financial’s Q4 results take stock 5% higher.
Why corporates can’t fund early pay programs.
ZestFinance using artificial intelligence in mortgage lending.
CoreLogic launches PanoramIQ.
White Oak Healthcare Finance launches real estate investment vehicle with new hires.
Banks seek help from Congress to block industrial charters for online lenders.
Senmiao Technology’s S-3.
Figure Technologies expands leadership team.
LendPro hires VP of sales.
Affirm seeks corporate counsel.

United Kingdom

China/Hong Kong

Other

Southeast Asia: Top 7 lending startups in 2019. Southeast Asia is poised to see explosive growth in online lending.
Europe: Finnest, Invesdor merge.
Vietnam: Top fintech hub.
Germany: Bitbond, BitGo partner on security token offering.
Indonesia: Ovo acquires Taralite.
Malaysia: TurnKey Lender opens in Kuala Lumpur.
Singapore: Travelstop showcases business travel management platform.
India: Banking and financial services are one of top sectors that need upskilling.
India: RentoMojo gets funding from Renaud Laplanche.
Singapore: Golden Gate Ventures partners with Hanwha to invest in tech startups.

News Summary

United States

BlockFi Receives $ 25 Million in Crypto Deposits in Just 2 Weeks After Launching Lending Products (CryptoGlobe), Rated: AAA

BlockFi Lending LLC, a New York-based “secured non-bank lender” that provides cryptocurrency-backed loans in USD to digital asset investors, has revealed that its interest-generating deposit accounts have received over $25 million in cryptocurrency.

SoFi Money Review: Online Checking (Nerdwallet), Rated: AAA

SoFi Money is an online checking account by SoFi, a company best known for its student loan refinance loans. SoFi’s account has a top-of-the-line interest rate and no monthly or overdraft fees. There’s no free ATM network, but SoFi reimburses many third-party ATM fees and doesn’t charge its own. SoFi also boasts unique perks: free career counseling and financial planning sessions.

Can Citi and JPM beat FinTech Personal Loans? (PeerIQ Email), Rated: AAA

The personal loan market has grown rapidly since 2010 and the growth has been driven by FinTechs.

Source: TransUnion, PeerIQ

“My Chase Plan” and “My Chase Loans” – a point-of-sale financing alternative and a personal loan product respectively – that will be offered to its existing credit card customers.

LendingTree Study Finds New Home Equity Loans Do Not Significantly Alter Credit Scores (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

Home prices in the United States have rebounded to new highs since the financial crisis. As a result, American homeowners are sitting on the largest amount of home equity in history — at just over $15 trillion dollars, according to the Federal Reserve.

The decline in scores averaged just 13 points. At the high end, scores declined by 24 in San Jose,Calif. The smallest decline was 5 points in San Diego. Borrowers had an average score of 735 to start, so the declines are quite negligible in terms of access to credit and may have marginal impacts on the cost of credit. The highest starting credit score was 752 in San Francisco, while the lowest was 712 in Indianapolis.
The decline took an average of 158 days to reach bottom, which is just over five months. St. Louis homeowners saw their credit scores reach their lowest points in an average time of 101 days (3 months), while the longest decline was for homeowners in Dallas at 211 days (7 months). Loans do not appear on credit reports immediately after closing. Typically, the lender starts reporting to the credit bureaus after your first payment, depending on the lender’s reporting cycle. Thus it may take about 60 days after closing or even longer for it show up and start affecting a score.
Scores recovered over an average of 163 days. This is also just over five months, so the time to fall and recover are about equal. The quickest time to recover was 102 days, or slightly over 3 months, in Cincinnati. Borrowers in Chicago had the longest recovery time of 243 days, just over 8 months.
Scores recover within a year and begin to move higher. The complete cycle to return to the credit score prior to the home equity loan takes 321 days, less than 11 months. The shortest cycle was in St. Louis at 211 days and the longest in Chicago at 443 days, about 15 months.

As Cash-Back ETF Hits Market, Signs of Trouble Start to Mount (Bloomberg), Rated: AAA

Last week, one ETF upstart created a minor splash by doing what was once unthinkable — offering to pay investors to buy into its exchange-traded fund. That comes on the heels of eight fund providers — including JPMorgan Chase, Vanguard and BlackRock to name a few — all slashing fees in one of the industry’s most aggressive rounds of price cuts to date.

The sub-zero fee giveaway by Salt Financial, which previously ran a single $11 million ETF, is widely seen as a marketing gimmick to drum up a little PR, get customers in the door and increase its assets under management. During the first year, investors will receive 50 cents for every $1,000 in a new low-volatility stock ETF — until it grows to $100 million. After a year, a management fee of 0.29 percent, or $2.90 per $1,000, could kick in.

The race to zero, however, is very real. Fidelity Investments jump-started the no-fee push in August by offering index funds for free. In February, SoFi said it would waive charges on two planned ETFs for the first year. Last week, JPMorgan started selling America’s cheapest-ever ETF for the princely sum of 20 cents for every $1,000 invested. And BlackRock unveiled plans Wednesday to cut fees for large clients in one of its S&P 500 indexed mutual funds.

PeerStreet Expands Product Line with Residential for Rent Loans (BusinessWire), Rated: AAA

PeerStreet, a platform for investing in real estate backed loans, today announced the launch of a new loan product for private lenders: Residential for Rent loans. Residential for Rent loans have a 30-year term so borrowers can secure long-term financing for residential rental properties. This launch is in response to key market conditions: as more people struggle to finance buying a home, the rental market has continued to grow.

3 Big Reasons To Fill Out The FAFSA (Even If You Think You Earn Too Much) (Huffington Post), Rated: A

One-quarter of families don’t complete the FAFSA, according to Sallie Mae’s 2018 How America Pays for College survey. Of those that don’t fill it out, 48 percent say it’s because they don’t believe they’ll qualify for financial aid.

But they’re often wrong: An analysis by NerdWallet found that in 2017, students left an estimated $2.3 billion in federal financial aid on the table by not filling out the FAFSA.

According to Elaine Rubin, senior contributor and communications specialist at private student loan marketplace Edvisors, most Americans are eligible for some type of federal aid. In fact, it’s available to anyone with a household income below $250,000 per year, CNBC reported.

Madden lawsuit nears end, but online lenders still seek fix from regulators (American Banker), Rated: A

An 8-year-old class action that wreaked havoc on the online lending industry is finally winding down, but the lobbying push in Washington to undo its impact shows no signs of abating.

Lawyers in the case have filed a proposed settlement that would provide $9.8 million in cash and debt relief to as many as 58,000 consumers, setting up the final chapter in a lawsuit that is likely to be remembered best for the legal precedent it established.

The State of Digital Engagement for Online Lending (LendIt), Rated: A

A recent trend report by Clarity Services, a credit reporting provider, showed that online funded loan volumes grew by almost 500% between 2013 and 2017.

How Far are Most in their Digital Transformation Strategy?

54% of financial institutions have developed a digital strategy, but have not yet implemented it
29% of financial institutions are currently developing a digital transformation strategy
Only 14% of financial institutions are in the process of implementing a digital transformation strategy

How Much Will They Be Investing In Digital Transformation in the Next 12-18 Months?:

65% are planning to increase spending by 10%
26% are planning to increase spending by 1-9%
6% have no plans to change spending

What will They be investing in over the next 12-18 Months?

Replace or upgrade legacy IT systems — 88%
Reduce operational inefficiency — 76%
Improve customer experience — 74%

X Financial’s Fourth Quarter Results Take Stock 5% Higher (Capital Watch), Rated: A

The stock of X Financial (NYSE: XYF) jumped more than 5 percent Tuesday morning, to $6.55 per American depositary share, after the peer-to-peer lending marketplace announced improved revenue and profit for the fourth quarter, as well as a dividend for 2018.

The Shenzhen-based company, which connects borrowers and investors on its platform, reported in a statement Monday evening that its revenue grew 18 percent year-over-year to $125.5 million during the three months through December.

Its net income, X Financial said, was $35.2 million, or 22 cents per share, at a 53 percent increase from the same period of 2017.

Why Corporates Cant Fund Early Pay Programs (Dynamic Discounting + SCF) (Spend Matters), Rated: A

If you look at the graph below, 5% of S&P 500 companies hold more than half the overall cash; the other 95% of corporations have cash-to-debt levels that are the lowest in data going back to 2004, according to Wells Fargo research. We know who those 5% are — they are the GAFA companies: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

Source:

ZestFinance Using AI To Bring Fairness To Mortgage Lending (Forbes), Rated: A

Discrimination in lending has long been a problem, shutting minority groups out of the home buying process.

ZestFinance, the artificial intelligence software company focused on the credit market is trying to change that with ZAML Fair, a new software tool that aims to reduce the instances of biases and discrimination in lending.

CoreLogic Launches PanoramIQ to Provide More Accurate and Complete Property Insights (CoreLogic), Rated: A

CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today announced PanoramIQ, an intelligent property solution that delivers a more complete view of property data with more current and reliable sources than public-record data alone. Utilizing a combination of public and proprietary property datasets, a unique property ID, machine learning and advanced analytics, PanoramIQ provides lenders, mortgage industry professionals and government entities with deeper, more accurate and complete property insights, allowing clients to make better decisions in a timely and efficient manner.

White Oak Healthcare Finance Launches Real Estate Investment Vehicle with New Hires (ABL Advisor), Rated: A

White Oak Healthcare Finance, LLC announced it will broaden its product offering and enter the healthcare real estate investment market. White Oak hired Jeff Erhardt, Paul Nevala, Mike Treiber and John Brussard to build out the vehicle, which will initially invest up to $500MM and will focus on investments in seniors housing and skilled nursing properties using triple net leases and joint-venture RIDEA structures.

Banks seek Congress’ help to block fintech path to ‘industrial’ charters (Roll Call), Rated: A

A bank industry group is lobbying Congress to block financial technology firms, such as online lender Social Finance Inc. and payment processor Square Inc., from obtaining an obscure form of a state bank charter that would let them operate nationally with little federal supervision.

The Independent Community Bankers of America last week distributed a policy paper around Washington calling for an immediate moratorium on providing federal deposit insurance to industrial loan companies, or ILCs, which are chartered by only a few states — most notably Utah.

Form S-3 Senmiao Technology Ltd (Street Insider), Rated: A

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: From time to time after this registration statement becomes effective.

Debt Securities. We may offer debt securities, which may be secured or unsecured, senior, senior subordinated or subordinated, may be guaranteed by our subsidiaries, and may be convertible into shares of our common stock. We may issue debt securities separately or together with, upon conversion of or in exchange for other securities. It is likely that any debt securities issued will not be issued under an indenture.

Figure Technologies, Inc. Expands Leadership Team as It Builds Out Financial Empowerment and Wealth Offerings (PR Newswire), Rated: B

Figure Technologies, Inc., a fintech company in both the home equity and blockchain space, announces that John Sweeney has joined the company as the head of Wealth and Asset Management, along with Dr. Michael Dooley, who joined as chief economist. These hires reflect Figure’s commitment to empowering consumers and building out products to improve their financial well-being.

LendPro Hires Belinda Kelton as Vice President of Sales (LendPro Email), Rated: B

LendPro LLC, a provider of Lending-as-a-Service (LaaS) products and platforms for retailers, has hired retail industry veteran Belinda Kelton as its Vice President of Sales, the company announced today. Kelton is the latest of many new hires for the fast-growing fintech company, which recently moved to a new location to accommodate new staff members and provide the best service possible to customers.

Corporate Counsel, Commercial (Go In House), Rated: B

Affirm is looking for a business-minded Corporate Counsel, Commercial with broad expertise in complex commercial transactions. This role will report to Affirm’s Associate General Counsel.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle fund sees higher impairments continue to drag returns (AltFi), Rated: AAA

The Funding Circle SME Income fund saw just a marginally positive performance in February with Net Asset Value growth of just 0.05 per cent as impairments continued to hurt performance.

Impairments reduced NAV returns by 0.7 per cent in February, said analysts at Liberum, in line with the average monthly impairment rate of recent months.

Revolut Is Testing the Limits of Finance (Bloomberg), Rated: AAA

Storonsky is getting a taste of the scrutiny that lies ahead as he tries to upend the world of banking with Revolut, his 3-1/2 year-old startup. The U.K.’s financial regulator is examining why the digital bank last summer temporarily turned off a system designed to automatically block suspicious transactions.

It was valued at $1.7 billion at its last fundraising and now has over 4 million customers after new accounts tripled in 2018. That’s about three times more than the two lenders combined and the same number of customers as foreign-exchange business TransferWise, which is four years older.

Source: Innovate Finance

CrowdProperty launches equity sale after increasing loan book by £100m (PlaceTech), Rated: AAA

The specialist peer-to-peer lender has secured £100m of loan capital as it launches a public crowdfunding campaign, already oversubscribed, that values the business at more than £15m.

Having raised £100m from an unnamed “major institution”, CrowdProperty will use the funds to expand the number of property projects it backs over the next 12-24 months.

OakNorth reports £33.9m profit for 2018 and commits to donating 1% of all future net profit to charitable causes and social entrepreneurship (OakNorth Email), Rated: A

IFISA Guide: SME loans (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

Ablrate’s IFISA offers returns ranging between 10 and 15 per cent, enabling investors to fund asset-backed loans to UK businesses.

ArchOver’s IFISA enables investors to fund secured business loans and enjoy tax-free returns of up to 10 per cent per year.

MoneyThing’s IFISA is one of the highest-paying tax wrappers that invests in secured business loans, offering annual returns of up to 13 per cent.

Assetz Capital

Returns vary depending on the account, going from 4.1 per cent to 6.25 per cent on its auto-invest products, and up to 15.5 per cent with its manual lending option.

Funding Circle

The minimum investment in this flexible IFISA is £1,000.

LendingCrowd

The Growth and Income ISAs automatically spread investors’ money across a range of loans and have variable target rates of six per cent and 5.6 per cent, respectively.

Specialist lender funding will be the key issue for 2019 – LendInvest (Mortgage Solutions), Rated: A

The situation is a big reminder to lenders that it is crucial to concentrate on building a diverse range of funding sources, rather than just one single route.

It’s something that we have put a lot of work into at LendInvest, as it allows us to lend with confidence, knowing that the funds we have promised to a borrower will be there.

The firm sent out an email on 24 January 2019 suggesting that recipients should have a “stockpile ready” as some believe Brexit “could affect the amount of food available,” while offering a £5 promotional discount on a loan.

Why investors are fleeing the ‘fear and greed’ of stock markets for peer-to-peer loans (The Telegraph), Rated: A

Investors are ditching the stock market in favour of bundled loans sold by fledgling platforms that are yet to be tested by a financial crisis.

The top 20 UK places for high net worth earners (Citywire), Rated: B

Nearly two fifths of the UK’s top earners now live in London, according to research from peer to peer lending platform easyMoney.

China/Hong Kong

China’s Online Lender Dianrong Blames Chinese Regime for its Woes (NTD), Rated: AAA

Dianrong, one of China’s biggest peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders, is laying off staff and shutting stores. The company blamed the Chinese regime for its troubles and said the absence of clear-cut policies was proving to be a heavy burden.

Dianrong shut down 60 of its 90 offline stores and laid off an estimated 2,000 employees, Reuters reported in early March.

Pintec’s Stock Rises on Steady Results During Quarter of IPO (Capital Watch), Rated: A

Pintec Technology Holdings Ltd. (Nasdaq: PT) gained 15 cents in trading by midday after reporting a slight increase in revenue and narrowed losses for the fourth quarter.

The Beijing-based tech platform facilitating financial services said on Wednesday that its revenue in the three months through December was $32.9 million, 2 percent higher year-over-year. Its net loss was $1.2 million, a 10 percent decrease from the same period of 2017. Loss per share was 1 cent.

For the full year, Pintec reported revenue of $153.1 million, 85 percent higher from the preceding 12 months, and profit of $1.1 million in contrast to a loss in 2017.

KKR Raising First Asia Real Estate Fund, Targeting $ 1.5 Billion (U.S. News), Rated: A

Global investment powerhouse KKR & Co Inc is raising its first Asia-focused real estate fund, targeting $1.5 billion as it looks to deepen its real estate portfolio in the region, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Investment firms raised $18.6 billion in 26 Asia-focused real estate funds last year, the highest since 2008, according to data provider Preqin. KKR’s U.S.-based rival Blackstone Group raised the region’s biggest real estate fund last year at $7.1 billion.

China and distressed debt top DB’s hedge funds tastes test (City Wire Selector), Rated: A

Alternative investors are increasingly drawn to Asian hedge funds and distressed strategies, according to the latest Alternative Investment Survey from Deutsche Bank.

The 2019 survey canvassed the views of 425 asset allocators running $1.7 trillion of hedge fund assets in 28 countries.

European Union

Finnest and Invesdor Merge to Combine Debt and Equity Operations in Europe (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Finnest, an Austria based Fintech that provides debt capital to small and medium-sized firms, has announced a planned merger with Finland based Invesdor Oy. The newly formed company will see the combination of a leading Nordic equity crowdfunding platform and a top online lender serving the DACH region (Deutschland, Austria, Switzerland). The two companies will now be able to offer a full stack of debt and equity services and investments across Northern Europe as well as more numerous options for investors.

Invesdor claims over 50,000 registered users as well as a MiFID II license for 28 European countries – the first crowdfunding platform to receive approval. Invesdor reports investors, both institutional and individual, from over 150 different countries. Invesdor currently offers a unique financing portfolio in the market, from equity to loans and bonds to IPOs.

Bitbond to Work with BitGo for Germany’s First Security Token Offering (Bitbond), Rated: A

Bitbond has launched Germany’s first Security Token Offering with a BaFin approved Prospectus and will be using BitGo’s Business Wallet. The STO has a hard cap of EUR 100 million (~USD 113 million) and will conclude in May. Thousands of investors have already joined to take advantage of early bird discounts.

The STO marks a significant milestone for the crypto asset industry, not only because it has an approved prospectus, but also because it offers tokenized debt with a predetermined maturity. Bitbond Token (BB1) holders will receive quarterly and annual payments for 10 years, after which Bitbond will buy back the token at its original value of EUR 1 per token.

India

Top 5 sectors that need upskilling: How to stay relevant in age of disruption? (Indian Express), Rated: A

The banking sector is witnessing a massive growth owing to the launch of connected products and services, business innovation and the rise of the middle class along with the emergence of new fintech areas of mobile payments, digital wallets and P2P lending. Technologies such as chatbots, blockchains and automation through robotics powered by AI are transforming the sector.

CRYPTO EXCHANGE COINDCX RAISES SEED FUNDING FROM BAIN CAPITAL VENTURES (Coin News Span), Rated: B

Bengaluru-based client leasing startup RentoMojo has raised $10 Mn serial B funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Renaud Laplanche.

Asia

Look out for 2019’s top 7 lending startups (e27), Rated: AAA

As of 2019, there are still 2.45 billion underbanked and unbanked people in the world. The more innovative lending companies there are, the faster this market will be covered and served.

October.eu (formerly Lendix) is an innovative, easy-to-use, and intuitive peer-to-peer platform for lending and investing.

The Dharma team works on a platform that lets businesses build lending products on the Ethereum blockchain.

The governing idea of Kabbage is that funding shouldn’t be complicated for businesses. So, the company makes an effort to provide entrepreneurs with up to US$250,000 in loans for which you can allegedly qualify for in just 10 minutes or at most, a day.

Founded in 2014, TurnKey Lender has already become the market’s leading intelligent all-in-one lending automation platform.

The name SoFi comes from social finance and it’s another great example of a successful peer-to-peer lending operation. Founded in 2011, the company is already a huge market player with US$30 billion worth of funded loans and 600 thousand members.

Affirm goes a different route than most alternative lenders. The idea behind it is enabling in-house financing for retail businesses. So, the store’s customers get an instant loan with zero to 30 per cent interest rates.

With quite a unique approach, Lendio offers small business an opportunity to get services and credit products from lenders with the best conditions. It’s a marketplace with more than 75 lenders on board.

Vietnam is the region’s fintech hub (The ASEAN Post), Rated: AAA

Vietnam’s strong economic growth in recent years has led to the flourishing of the nation’s digital economy. The country’s economy in 2017 was deemed to be one of the best performing in the region. Its economy saw a 6.8 percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP) – higher than the government’s initial target of 6.7 percent – making it one of the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam currently has 54 percent of its population on the internet and the number is expected to grow further in the coming years.

Data from Vietnam Briefing shows that 39,580 start-ups entered the Vietnamese market in just the first four months of 2017, a 14 percent increase from the first quarter of 2016. Within the start-up scene, the fintech sector has become the most attractive for investments, receiving US$129 million in 2016.

Travelstop Targets Fintech SMEs with Business Travel Management Platform (Fintech News), Rated: A

Co-founded by former Expedia employees, Singapore-based Travelstop is a modern, artificial intelligence (AI) powered SaaS platform that simplifies business travel, automates expense reporting for businesses in Asia, and offers insights to business owners.

The platform is quickly gaining traction from the region’s startups and fintech community, helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and high-growth organizations including Funding Societies, Fintech News Network, RedDoorz, S P Jain School of Global Management and Dot Property better to manage their business travels.

Asia has the largest share of mobile internet traffic, with 61% of its population using mobile devices to go online.

How Ovo Has Grown to be Indonesia’s Largest Digital Payments Platform (Entrepreneur), Rated: A

After online stores, Indonesia’s leading digital payments platform Ovo has been making strides into offline stores, increasing the number of merchants that accept the payment method.

OVO has reportedly acquired local peer-to-peer lending company Taralite, a move that will pave the way for OVO to branch out into the lending business which is seen to be a potential profit-generator for the company.

TurnKey Lender Opens a New Office in Kuala Lumpur (Digital Journal), Rated: A

TurnKey Lender, a provider of intelligent lending automation, decision management, and risk mitigation solutions, announces the opening of a new office in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Its main goal will be to physically represent TurnKey Lender and support the company’s operations in Asia.

With internet penetration at 85.7% in 2018, the country is perfectly positioned for the rapid growth of alternative lending initiatives in areas like peer-to-peer lending and in-house financing.

Golden Gate Ventures ties up with Hanwha to invest in Asian startups (SDF-KH), Rated: B

Golden Gate and Hanwha will focus on startups that are raising fund for ‘Series B’ stage.

Singapore-based Golden Gate Ventures confirmed on Tuesday that it has teamed up with South Korea-based Hanwha Asset Management to invest in Southeast Asian technology startups.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday March 21 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday March 14 2019, Weekly News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: FTC makes final decision on SoFi. OnDeck extends two revolving credit facilities. LendingPoint sees drop in debt management loans, increase for new purchases. LendInvest to float 500M GBP. Lufax hits $39.4B valuation. Klarna adds GooglePay as payment option. Today’s main analysis: Unemployment rate and GreenSky’s earnings. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Earnest vs. SoFi for student loan […]

The post Thursday March 14 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: FTC makes final decision on SoFi. OnDeck extends two revolving credit facilities. LendingPoint sees drop in debt management loans, increase for new purchases. LendInvest to float 500M GBP. Lufax hits $39.4B valuation. Klarna adds GooglePay as payment option.
Today’s main analysis: Unemployment rate and GreenSky’s earnings.
Today’s thought-provoking articles: Earnest vs. SoFi for student loan refinancing. Millennials don’t hate big banks. Fintechs vs. banks on lending. U.S. Amabassador warns Australia on China’s ‘payday loan diplomacy’.

United States

FTC makes final decision on SoFi case. Read the full FTC complaint against SoFi and the full decision and order.
OnDeck extends two revolving credit facilities. With Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.
Unemployment rate drops 3.8%, GreenSky’s earnings results. An excellent analysis from PeerIQ.
Earnest vs. SoFi on student loan refinancing. A great comparison.
LendingPoint borrowers use loans for debt management less, new purchases more.
What millennials really want from big banks. Excellent Forbes article discussing millennials’ banking expectations. They really don’t hate banks.
Green Dot targets social media influencers.
How online lenders attract, service the SMB borrower.
Small business owners are paying themselves last.
PayNet strategic insights.
Salt Financial ETF to pay investors.
Equifax allegedly deleted key data breach documents.
Alt lenders threaten HELOC providers.
Prodigy Network crowdfunds 13-story hotel in Chicago.
PeerStreet expands executive team.
CoreLogic intros employment verification and income solution.
And also integrates CondoSafe with Ellie Mae.
ArborCrowd makes new equity offer on 707-uni multifamily portfolio.

United Kingdom

European Union

Australia/New Zealand

Other

News Summary

United States

Deal Final in FTC’s Action Against Online Lender (Manatt), Rated: AAA

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finalized its deal with SoFi, an online lender that the agency had accused of making false statements about student loan refinancing.

According to the FTC, the California-based personal finance company misrepresented how much money student loan borrowers have saved or could save by refinancing.

Read the FTC complaint here.

Read the FTC decision and order here.

OnDeck Announces Extension of Two Revolving Credit Facilities With Credit Suisse & Deutsche Bank (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

OnDeck, a small business online lending platform, announced on Wednesday extensions to its existing credit facilities with Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank on improved terms. According to OnDeck, the amended facilities provide an aggregate of $360 million of committed funding capacity and are available to finance OnDeck’s term loans and revolving lines of credit. The scheduled maturity dates for the facilities were extended three years to March 2022.

Unemployment Rate Drops to 3.8%; GreenSky’s Strong Earnings (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

The unemployment rate dropped to a near five decades low of 3.8% even as nonfarm payrolls only rose by 20K. Average hourly earnings rose by 3.4%, above economists’ expectations.

Source: WSJ

Source: Deutsche Bank Research, WSJ

GreenSky’s Strong 4Q2018 Earnings

GreenSky’s 4Q revenue grew by 22% YoY to $109 Mn, although net income fell by nearly 43% YoY to $23 Mn. The stock rose by ~6% post earnings.

Transaction volume increased by 23% YoY to $1.3 Bn.
Loan servicing portfolio increased by 36% YoY to $7.3 Bn.
GSKY had aggregate commitments of $11.8 Bn from its nine bank partners, of which $4.8 Bn were unused.
30+ DQ rates rose slightly YoY from 145 bps to 148 bps.
GreenSky now has nearly 12 k home improvement merchant partners and nearly 3 k elective healthcare partners.

Source: GreenSky, PeerIQ

How to Decide Between Earnest and SoFi for Student Loan Refinancing (Credible), Rated: AAA

Earnest and SoFi are two of the best student loan refinancing companiesout there. They both offer fixed as well as variable rate loans, a 0.25% autopay rate discount, and certain unemployment protections to help in the event of involuntary job loss, but they also have their differences.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of both lenders to help you make an informed decision.

Source: Credible

The rate of borrowers using loans for debt management drops; growing proportion of borrowers use loans for new purchases (LendingPoint), Rated: AAA

It turns out that, over the past two years, the proportion of our borrowers who say they are earmarking their loans for debt consolidation has decreased markedly, from about 60% in 2017 to about 54% in 2018. The percent using loans to pay for new merchandise or services has grown during those two years. Home improvement jumped from 6% to 8%; loans for medical expenses rose from 2% to 7%.

In 2017, the percent of millennial consolidators was about 61%. In 2018, that dropped a full 10%, down to 51%, a bigger decrease than any other age cohort.

Source: LeningPoint

What Do Millennials Want From Banks? Non-Financial Products (Forbes), Rated: AAA

If they haven’t, then why are 56% of Millennials giving megabanks (the four largest US banks) their

Source: Cornerstone Advisors

The “Millennials hate banks” meme is a myth.

Millennials’ Access to Subscription Services
	Percentage of Millennials that…
	Don’t have the service but would like to	Have the service, and pay for it directly	Have the service, but don’t pay for it directly	Don’t have or want the service
Identity theft protection	31%	20%	29%	21%
Personal/family data storage	29%	20%	19%	31%
Child identity theft protection	27%	15%	16%	42%
Rx, vision, hearing discounts	26%	31%	25%	18%
Travel/trip insurance	26%	18%	19%	37%
Roadside assistance	19%	40%	26%	15%
Cell phone damage protection	18%	42%	20%	19%
Source: Cornerstone Advisors

Green Dot targets social media influencers in banking-as-service push (American Banker), Rated: A

A new affinity banking service developed by Green Dot proposes to tap one of the most potent — and controversial — sources of distribution in the digital economy: social media influencers.

The digital banking and payments provider is developing what it calls Bank OS, a simpler version of its enterprise banking-as-a-service platform already used by the likes of Intuit, Stash, Uber and Walmart. It would enable partners to develop their own financial products just as those brands do, including offering credit cards, debit cards with loyalty programs or even a mobile app.

How online lenders attract and service the evolving SMB borrower (Tearsheet), Rated: A

But while small businesses still struggle with cash flow, how they shop for loans and their level of financial education about their options are changing. On Tearsheet’s recent webinar with leaders at Kabbage, BlueVine, and Intuit’s QuickBooks Capital, we discussed the changing nature of the SMB borrower and how their firms have evolved to keep up.

Pay Yourself First? Last Is How Small Biz Often Works (Newsmax), Rated: A

Everyone knows the Golden Rule of business is to pay yourself first. But more than half of small business owners are going months without pay – if they are taking any at all.

About a quarter of these entrepreneurs go two to six months without pay, and another quarter have gone more than six months without salary, according to a recent survey from Kabbage (), a cash flow optimization platform.

PAYNET STRATEGIC INSIGHTS MARCH 2019 (PayNet), Rated: A

The PayNet Small Business Lending Index (SBLI) rebounded with a 17.2 point jump to 150.7 in January, climbing to its second-highest level ever. On an annual basis, the SBLI increased 4.9%. The SBLI 3-month moving average also rose in January and currently stands 1.5% above its year-ago level.

Source: PayNet

The PayNet Small Business Delinquency Index (SBDI) 31–90 Days Past Due edged up one basis point to 1.45% in January, and is up six basis points on an annual basis — its 33rd consecutive year-over-year increase. The SBDI 91–180 Days Past Due was unchanged at 0.38% but is three basis points above its year-ago level.

Less Than Zero? This Proposed ETF Would Pay Investors, But There’s A Catch (Benzinga), Rated: A

Salt Financial, which currently offers one ETF, has filed plans with regulators to launch a low volatility that would pay investors, but there’s a catch.

“During the first year, holders will receive 50 cents for every $1,000 in a new low-volatility stock ETF — until it grows to $100 million when the cash-back benefit will be capped and shared with all investors,” reports Bloomberg. “The rebate is until at least April 2020, when a $2.90 management fee could kick in.”

Equifax Deleted Key Data Breach-Related Docs, Senators Say (Law360), Rated: A

Equifax Inc. failed to preserve key internal discussions over its massive 2017 data breach, U.S. senators said Thursday at a hearing where elected officials grilled the credit reporting giant’s CEO and the…

Home Equity Line of Credit Providers Face Growing Threat from Alternative Lenders, J.D. Power Finds (JD Power), Rated: A

Despite record-high levels,[1]new home equity line of credit (HELOC) originations have been steadily declining[2] as a perfect storm of rising interest rates, new tax laws and growing competition from alternative lenders has crimped traditional HELOC growth. According to the J.D. Power 2019 U.S. Home Equity Line of Credit Satisfaction Study,released today, HELOC customers are more likely than ever to shop for alternative sources of funding and HELOC providers are falling short on digital offerings.

This week in Chicagoland real estate: One Chicago Square, Woodlawn and more (Chicago Agent Magazine), Rated: A

New York-based DDG, Chicago-based Marc Realty and Ruttenberg Gordon announced plans for a 13-story hotelwith 250 rooms in Fulton Market. The developers are raising $55 million to fund the project through Prodigy Network, a New York-based real estate crowdfunding platform. The hotel will be located at 1234 West Randolph Street and will be operated by New York-based Standard Hotels. It’s set to be completed within two years.

PeerStreet Expands Executive Leadership with Two Senior Hires in Finance Team (BusinessWire), Rated: B

PeerStreet has announced the hiring of two executives with extensive experience in the financial services and real estate sectors: Ellen Coleman and Bob Brown. Ms. Coleman joins as Executive Vice President of Finance, and Mr. Brown joins as Executive Vice President of Finance & Corporate Development.

CoreLogic : Introduces Verification of Employment and Income Solution to Expedite Borrower Verification Process (MarketScreener), Rated: A

CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released an enhanced Verification of Employment and Income(VOE/I) product. The comprehensive new VOE/I product takes time, touch and cost out of traditional employment and income verification through a three-step ‘waterfall workflow’ process, ensuring that every mortgage applicant can be verified.

The enhanced VOE/I product features a three-step ‘waterfall workflow’ that ensures each borrower’s employment and income is verified as efficiently as possible.

Step One: Instant verification via a direct integration to The Work Number (TWN)
Step Two: Automated verification leveraging dozens of third-party data sources
Step Three: Manual verification by a team of dedicated CoreLogic verification experts

CORELOGIC INTEGRATES CONDOSAFE WITH THE ELLIE MAE ENCOMPASS ALL-IN-ONE MORTGAGE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION (CoreLogic), Rated: B

CoreLogic today announced the integration of its CondoSafe product with the Ellie Mae Encompass^® all-in-one mortgage management solution. CondoSafeis a one-stop condo project review tool that enables lenders to have a single, consistent, standardized review process, allowing them to determine eligibility earlier in the process, resulting in quicker approvals.

ArborCrowd Announces New Equity Offering in 707-Unit Multifamily Portfolio (AP News), Rated: B

ArborCrowd, the first crowdfunding platform launched by a real estate institution, today announced a new offering that allows investors to acquire equity interests in the Sioux Falls Multifamily Portfolio, a collection of class-B apartment communities located in Sioux Falls, S.D. The properties exhibit strong upside potential due to Sioux Falls’ sound multifamily real estate fundamentals and notable lack of professionally managed workforce housing product.

The investment has a targeted internal rate of return (IRR) of 12 to 14 percent over a three- to five-year hold period. Tzadik has budgeted $5.2 million to perform a comprehensive capital improvement plan that will include upgrades to all renovated units, common areas and public spaces.

LendPro’s Female Leaders Celebrated on International Women’s Day (LendPro Email), Rated: B

As the financial technology (fintech) industry continues to grow, innovators are increasingly looking for leadership and expertise to grow their companies and stand out from competitors. LendPro, a Lending-As-A-Service (LaaS) fintech company, prides itself in hiring strong talent. Women make up 50% of staffing at LendPro’s Charlottesville corporate office, versus 37% female staffing at most fintech companies.

United Kingdom

Property finance hub Lendinvest plots £500m London float (Sky.com), Rated: AAA

The online property finance hub Lendinvest is plotting a £500m stock market flotation that will provide a fresh test of investors’ faith in a fast-growing but volatile area of the non-bank lending market.

Sky News has learnt that Lendinvest, which was set up in 2008 and has so far lent roughly £2bn to help buy, build or renovate British homes, has appointed Lazard, the investment bank, to advise on its strategic options.

Lending revolution: fintechs vs banks (Raconteur), Rated: AAA

Eight out of ten SME loan applications were approved by banks in the third quarter of 2018, according to the latest figures from trade association UK Finance. While this is a far cry from the days of the global financial crisis, when SME lending all but dried up in part due to regulatory pressures to shore up capital, smaller companies are still citing challenges in securing funding from traditional players, according to Stuart Chalmers, commercial banking lead for Accenture UK.

Alternative lenders understand the hunger for a seamless customer experience and have built credit journeys that align to business expectations

Almost 30,000 companies used non-traditional channels over the year, with peer-to-peer lending and equity-based crowdfunding now established investment vehicles for seed, startup, early-stage and fast-growth companies seeking capital. In fact, CCAF estimates that 29 per cent of all new loans issued in 2017 to small businesses with annual turnovers less than £2 million came from alternative finance.

Source: Raconteur

Burnham residents are the most thrill-seeking in the UK according to new study (Windsor Observer), Rated: A

It may come as somewhat of a surprise, but according to research from Zopa, Burnham has been revealed to be the most thrill-seeking town.

Peer-to-peer firms told to improve wind-down arrangements (Out-Law), Rated: A

In a letter to chief executives (4 page / 352KB PDF) sent last week, the FCA said a recent supervisory review of firms’ current arrangements against current requirements “strongly suggests” some P2P firms were falling short of the standards required by its rules.

Augmentum Capital signs up to Innovate Finance (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

AUGMENTUM Capital has joined Innovate Finance as its first investor member.

It is currently planning to issue extra ordinary shares in its investment trust as it looks to fund around £300m of potential opportunities in the sector.

PEER TO PEER LENDER RELAUNCHES PRODUCTS (Insider Media), Rated: A

A South West-based peer to peer lender is to re-launch its lending products aimed at individuals and businesses.

Folk2Folk is to offers 9 per cent interest rates for investors with a loan to value ratio of up to 60 per cent.

The business has so far brought £275m into rural businesses in Britain over the past six years.

Wonga compensation claims four times higher than expected (TechRound), Rated: A

It has been recently revealed that the number of compensation claims made against the failed payday lender Wonga, which filed for administration in August 2018, has ended up increasing four-fold. The initial figure given by the Financial Ombudsman Service in a Treasury Committee in January this year suggested that there were around 10,500 customers who had open complaints with the short-term credit, high-interest company.

Now, it turns out that the number of redress claims that have been made against Wonga is considerably higher, totalling over 40,000. It is potentially the case that these people will not end up getting their money back after having been mis-sold loans.

The IFISAs you can open for £100 or less (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

According to the most recent HMRC statistics, overall ISA savings fell from £79.8bn in 2015/16 to £61.5bn in 2016/17. Meanwhile, Bank of England statistics found that the amount of money that Brits were saving (both within and outside of the ISA wrapper) fell by £7bn in 2018 alone.

Abundance

Minimum investment: £5

Assetz Capital

Minimum investment: £1

Crowd2Fund

Minimum investment: £10

RateSetter

Minimum investment: £10

Octopus Choice

Minimum investment: £10

Environmental benefits of ISA investment (The Ecologist), Rated: A

Crowdfunding and peer to peer lending grew out of the banking crisis of 2008. According to the European Central Bank, the availability of bank loans to SMEs declined 23 percent immediately following the crash, causing a devastating impact on the economy.

Over 100 Finastra customers upgraded trade software in time to meet new SWIFT standards (RealWire), Rated: B

Over 100 Finastra customers were upgraded to the latest compliant versions of its transaction banking software, Fusion Trade Innovation, ahead of the new SWIFT standards deadline of 17 November 2018. The new ‘Standards MT Release’ included significant changes to category 7 messaging standards used in trade finance – the most significant set of changes to the SWIFT trade finance messaging interface in over 30 years.

China

China’s Lufax hits huge $ 39.4bn vaulation thanks to Primavera Capital-led Series C (Alt Assets), Rated: AAA

Chinese peer-to-peer lending business Lufax has confirmed it has reached an enormous $39.4bn valuation thanks to a Series C round led by private equity house Primavera Capital.

Chinese fintech unicorn Lufax in no rush to IPO (Technode), Rated: A

Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Lufax is not in a hurry to list on the stock markets, said an executive of its biggest shareholder, Ping An Insurance, during its earnings call, Chinese media reported (in Chinese) on Wednesday.

Ping An Insurance Group deputy CEO Jessica Tan said after Lufax’s latest round of funding, Ping An still holds approximately 41% of its shares.

European Union

Google Pay Added to Klarna’s Bank of Payment Options (WWD), Rated: AAA

Today, Klarna, the global payments provider “smoothing” out kinks in the checkout process for retailers, announced a partnership with GooglePay. Available for Klarna customers in Sweden, the intention is to make mobile payments “even easier and more secure.”

CreditEase Invests in wefox Group, the European Largest Insurtech Platform (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

CreditEase, a Beijing-based leading FinTech conglomerate in China, announced today that its direct investment arm, CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund (CEFIF), participated in wefox Group’s $125 million USD Series B, a fast-growing Berlin-based insurtech firm together with Mubadala’s newly created European Ventures Fund. The investment is the largest Series B round for a European insurtech and Goldman Sachs International is acting as the private placement adviser to wefox Group in connection with the transaction.

The investment will help spearhead the company’s expansion into the European broker market. It also paves the way for wefox Group to accelerate growth and create the world’s most innovative product and engineering team applying advanced data analytics to create an all-in-one insurance platform in which all interactions are personalized. The company, which was founded in 2014, has grown its revenue to around $40 million USD, while serving more than 1500 brokers and over 400,000 customers, making it Europe’s number one insurtech platform.

Luna Connect: A new digital disrupter in the lending landscape (Irish Times), Rated: A

Luna Connect is a new digital lending platform primarily aimed at those lending to SMEs. It is designed to fit into the rapidly evolving financial services ecosystem and its founder, Brian D’Arcy, drew the inspiration for his business from the disruption currently underway in the financial services sector.

The company’s target market are lenders offering loans of under €200,000, whose borrowers typically require a fast decision on their application and want a more transparent lending process. The initial focus will be on Ireland and the UK with Europe and the US to follow. Investment in the project to date has been around €120,000 which was self-funded with support from the NDRC and Enterprise Ireland through the competitive start fund.

Australia/New Zealand

New US ambassador warns of China’s ‘payday loan diplomacy’ (The Washington Post), Rated: AAA

The new U.S. ambassador to Australia said Wednesday that he’s concerned about the way China lends money to developing Pacific nations in what he describes as “payday loan diplomacy.”

China categorically rejects accusations that it uses loans, grants and other financial inducements to extend its diplomatic and political reach, saying it is merely acting in the best interests of both sides in such transactions.

New way to borrow takes Australia by storm (Mozo), Rated: A

As distrust of the nation’s big banks and mortgage brokers swells amongst the wreckage of the banking royal commission, online lenders are emerging as real challengers in the home loan, business loan and personal lending markets.

NAB’s UBank launches ‘green’ deposits to chase Millennials’ savings (Financial Review), Rated: A

The CEO of National Australia Bank subsidiary UBank, Lee Hatton, says future retail depositors will want more control over where banks lend their money, prompting it to launch a “green” term deposit targeting environmentally concerned Millennial customers.

How marketplace lending meets investor needs (Cuffelinks), Rated: A

However, it’s also true that today’s investors face a risk environment of unprecedented complexity. In 2018, the S&P/ASX200 declined by 6.8%. Residential property values are falling and bank deposit rates fail to match inflation. In the last year, the Australian media landscape was dominated by the findings of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, with its revelations of duplicitous lending practices, improper fees, and general misconduct that, by the banks’ own admission, fell far short of community expectations.

Financial Markets Authority executive steps down over employment matter (NZ Herald), Rated: B

Financial Markets Authority (FMA) executive Garth Stanish left the investment watchdog at the end of last month over an internal employment matter, a spokesman for the authority said.

Stanish was also a director of markets oversight, a group that includes oversight of NZX, crowd-funding/P2P lending platforms and frontline supervisors.

India

P2P startup PaisaDukan raises 1st round of investment from JITO (UNI India), Rated: AAA

Vivriti Capital raises second round of funding of Rs 110 Cr from Creation Investments (YourStory), Rated: A

Vivriti Capital, a Chennai-based lending platform for corporate entities, secured Rs 110 crore worth of equityin an additional round of funding from its existing investor Creation Investments.

This comes just within two months of the Series A funding closure in December 2018, in which the company raised Rs 200 crore from Creation Investments. With the current equity infusion, Vivriti’s overall capital stands at approximately Rs 320 crore.

MSME Lending fuelled by Digitisation (Free Press Journal), Rated: A

MSMEs play a major role in Economic development of India. There are around 63.4 million units and they contribute to 6.11% of the manufacturing GDP and 24.63% of the GDP from service activities and 33.4% of India’s manufacturing output. They have been able to provide employment to around 120 million persons and contribute around 45% of the overall exports from India. The sector grows at a rate faster than the large ones at more than 10% pa.

About 20% of the MSMEs are based out of rural areas.They provide employment to more than 130 million people and contribute to 45% of exports. MSMEs are also the largest employment generator every year. As of Sep18, the total credit in India was Rs 105.5 Lakh crores and MSMEs had borrowed Rs 24.7 cr. Large and Mid Caps borrowed Rs 44.4 cr. Year on Year the growth of overall commercial credit was at 13.5%.

Micro loans which are less than Rs1 cr grew 22.2% year on year and SME loans between Rs1 cr – Rs 2.5 cr grew at 18.3%.The growth was faster than the overall growth. Share of NBFCs in SME credit increased from 13% in Sep 15 to 17% in Sep 18. The number of NBFCs lending more than Rs 100 cr to MSMEs stood at 77 at the end of Sep 18.

Asia

Investment Task Force suspend operation of 168 illegal fintech firms (Antara News), Rated: AAA

The Investment Alert Task Force has suspended the operation of 168 entities allegedly running peer-to-peer lending services without a legal business license from the Financial Service Authority (OJK).

The task force has also suspended the operation of 47 illegal investment entities which has the potential to harm the public.

“Based on the monitoring on website and application in Google Playstore, the Investment Alert Task Force has stopped the operation of 168 entities that have violated OJK regulation no. 77/POJK.01/2016 on fintech peer-to-peer lending services, which has the potential to harm the public,” head of the task force Tongam L Tobing said in a statement here on Wednesday.

Fintech group to help develop P2P lending (The Jakarta Post), Rated: A

A group of financial technology (fintech) lenders wants to help develop a healthier lending industry and protect consumers by setting out a strict code of conduct for its members.The Indonesian Fintech Lenders Association (AFPI) will help stimulate the industry, which only gained government recognition three years ago, by providing risk management certification, public education campaigns and a compulsory code of conduct, which should be uploaded to the AFPI website soon.AFPI chairman Adrian Gunadi said the association had been established to ease the Indonesian Fintech Association’s (AFTECH) workload in dealing with fintech companies that provide lending services, including peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, crowdsourcing and digital credit cards.Such lenders account for 30 percent of all licensed fintech companies, whereas the remaining 70 percent are companies engaged in, among other thing…

Government moves to legalise P2P lending (Vietnam Vet), Rated: A

During a recent meeting with relevant ministries and agencies to discuss P2P lending, Hue instructed that during the pilot operation, P2P lending would be restricted to connecting lenders and borrowers as currently being run by most P2P lending companies in Viet Nam. P2P lending companies would not be allowed to mobilise capital, but act as intermediaries to connect lenders (investors) and borrowers.

The development of P2P lending will also create a new capital supply channel. Research conducted by Transparency Market Research showed that P2P lending would surge by 48.2 per cent annually in the 2016-24 period, while Morgan Stanley forecast the business model would reach a growth rate of 53.5 per cent globally by 2020.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday March 14 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday March 7 2019, Weekly News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: Funding Circle US small biz loan portfolio surpasses $2B. JPMorgan Chase to compete with Affirm, Klarna on POS financing. Funding Circle expands into Canada. Funding Circle financial highlights. Revolut fights new allegations. Dianrong lays off 2,000. Today’s main analysis: U.S. credit card debt hits record $870B IN 2018. International P2P lending volumes for February 2019. Today’s thought-provoking […]

The post Thursday March 7 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: Funding Circle US small biz loan portfolio surpasses $2B. JPMorgan Chase to compete with Affirm, Klarna on POS financing. Funding Circle expands into Canada. Funding Circle financial highlights. Revolut fights new allegations. Dianrong lays off 2,000.
Today’s main analysis: U.S. credit card debt hits record $870B IN 2018. International P2P lending volumes for February 2019.
Today’s thought-provoking articles: Renting vs. owning a home in 50 largest U.S. metro areas. How TrueAccord is making a business model out of debt collections. UK P2P lending tops 800M GBP. 2019 monster funding rounds.

United States

Funding Circle US small business loan portfolio passes $2 billion. Congratulations! This is a huge leap for the industry as it put Funding Circle in the same league with many banks.
JPMorgan Chase enters POS financing. Point-of-sale financing is going to be the largest credit category some day. It may be sooner than we all think. Walmart has already signed on with Affirm. With JPMorgan Chase getting in on the game, there is going to be a race to see who dominates this market. There is potential for this segment of lending to make credit cards obsolete.
Credit card debt hit record $870 billion in 2018. Are you ready to count the charge-offs? The next two years will likely see a surge in delinquent credit card debts.
Renting vs. owning in the 50 largest metro areas. A great study from LendingTree.
How TrueAccord is turning debt collections into a financial services business model. Interesting read and podcast.
Discover to use artificial intelligence for personal loans.
KBRA assigns preliminary ratings to Kabbage Asset Securitization LLC, Series 2019-1.
Beehive raises $4 million.
Loan officers doubt claims of loanDepot.
Company.com integrates SMB funding maretplace.
AI Foundry unveils artificial intelligence platform and mortgage automation solution.
How selfies can snuff out false identities.
Auto loan statistics.
Chime valued at $1.5 billion.
Podcast with Jason Gross of Petal. Lend Academy
FINRA approves Circle’s acquisition of SeedInvest.
Big Picture Loans accused of renting a tribe to get around payday lending laws.
How to invest in real estate without buying property.
Elevate appoints head of enterprise risk management.
Vemanti Group to launch digital security offering for eLoan.

United Kingdom

International

Other

News Summary

United States

Funding Circle US Small Business Loan Portfolio Surpasses Most Banks with $ 2 Billion Lent Through Platform (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Funding Circle, the global small business loans platform, today announced that investors have lent more than $2 billion through its platform to small businesses in the United States. With this milestone, Funding Circle now has more US small business loans outstanding than almost 98% of FDIC-insured banks¹.

Funding Circle now has more than $1 billion of small business loans in its portfolio, which means that if it were a bank it would be among the 50 largest small business commercial & industrial loan portfolios in the United States, according to the latest FDIC data available¹. However, unlike a bank, Funding Circle provides a single financial product. Its fully amortizing business loans, powered by sophisticated technology and proprietary credit models, enable business owners to access financing with speed and efficiency, allowing them to devote more time to delivering their product or service to the market and ultimately create more jobs and vitalize their communities.

JPMorgan Chase Enters A Hot Fintech Space: Point-Of-Sale (POS) Financing (Forbes), Rated: AAA

JPMorgan Chase announced that it is moving into the point-of-sale (POS) financing market.

POS financing certainly isn’t new. In 2016, merchants in nine different retail categories saw more than 160 million POS loan applications—only 53% of which were approved, however.

Source: Forbes

Filene Research Institute

Source: CORNERSTONE ADVISORS

Shopping at Discount Stores Could Help Get You a Loan (WSJ), Rated: A

Discount-store shoppers may soon get an unexpected benefit: better odds when applying for personal loans from Discover Financial Services.

Discover, best known for its credit cards, plans to use artificial intelligence to assess hundreds of unusual characteristics about personal-loan applicants in an attempt to get its rising losses under control.

U.S. Credit Card Debt Closed 2018 at a Record $ 870 Billion (Bloomberg), Rated: AAA

U.S. credit card debt hit $870 billion — the largest amount ever — as of December 2018, according to the data from the Federal Reserve. Credit card balances rose by $26 billion from the prior quarter.

Source: New York Federal Reserve

Nearly 480 million credit cards are now in circulation — up by more than 100 million since hitting bottom after the recession a decade ago.

At the end of last year, credit cards were the fourth-largest portion of consumer debt in the U.S. after mortgage, student loan and auto debt. But the quarterly increase in credit card debt was faster than the other categories. Overall debt reached a record $13.5 trillion.

Source: New York Federal Reserve

LendingTree Compares Renting and Owning a Home in the 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas in the U.S. (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

Louisville, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City are the metros where median rents are cheapest when compared to median mortgages. In these areas, median rent costs are an average of $310 cheaper than median mortgage costs.

Source: LendingTree

Miami and Orlando, Fla.; and Virginia are the metros where rent payments are the most expensive when compared to mortgage payments. Median mortgage payments are an average of $215 cheaper than median rent payments in these metros.

Four of the top 10 metros where monthly rents are higher than monthly mortgage payments are in Florida. According to a recent housing study from Harvard University, low wages and too few rental units are key factors that have caused Florida’s rental affordability crisis to become the worst in the nation.

Source: LendingTree

‘Stop pitting misery against misery’: How TrueAccord is turning debt collections into a financial service (Tearsheet), Rated: AAA

Ohad Samet has spent his career working on lending analytics — first, at a firm called FraudSciences, which got bought by eBay. He ran analytics at Analyzd, which was acquired by Klarna. As the chief risk officer at the pay later lender, he became aware of how antiquated the debt collections industry was. Call centers, dialing for dollars, it just hadn’t kept pace with the front end of the business.

So, in 2013, he left and with two co-founders started TrueAccord, which is essentially a nearly-automated marketing and sales campaign for debt collection. Based on consumer data and data from the lender, it can determine who to call, what time to call, what communications channel — phone, text, email, chat — and what message to use. It purports to be a much better experience for consumers.

KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Kabbage Asset Securitization LLC, Series 2019-1 (BusinessWire), Rated: A

Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) assigns preliminary ratings to five classes of notes (the “Notes”) issued by Kabbage Asset Securitization LLC, Series 2019-1 (“Kabbage 2019-1”).

This transaction is Kabbage, Inc.’s (“Kabbage” or the “Company”) third securitization and it is expected that the proceeds of the sale of the Notes will be used to refinance the Company’s existing $610 million outstanding Kabbage Asset Securitization LLC Series 2017-1 Notes and provide extra funding capacity for Kabbage.

Notes	Preliminary Rating	Initial Principal Balance
Class A	AA (sf)	$421,221,000
Class B	A (sf)	$59,715,000
Class C	BBB (sf)	$69,348,000
Class D	BB (sf)	$35,316,000
Class E	B (sf)	$24,400,000

Peer to Peer Lending Platform Beehive Raises $ 4 Million (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Beehive, a peer to peer lending platform servicing SMEs in the MENA region, has closed on $4 million Series B funding round, according to a release from the platform. This most recent funding brings the Fintech’s total raised to $15.5 million since platform launch.

Loan officers cast serious doubt on latest loanDepot, Chase mortgage promises (HousingWire), Rated: A

In recent LendingLife news, loanDepot announced its new digital mortgage, which it says can identify significant time and cost-savings for borrowers in seven minutes.

The lender claims its digital mortgage, mello smartloan, can now close a loan in just eight days. And, loanDepot is not alone in launching a new lending product promising big results. Chase Home Lending now claims it can close on a borrower’s mortgage in as little as three weeks.

Company.com Integrates SMB Funding Marketplace (PYMNTS) Rated: A

Small business financial services platform Company.com is integrating a solution into its offering through which small firms can access external financing.

Company.com said in a press release this week that it is rolling out its Business Funding Marketplace, which will integrate into its STAC Platform, to help small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) with their unique financing needs and match them with an appropriate financing offering.

AI Foundry Unveils Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence Platform and Mortgage Automation Solution (PR Newswire), Rated: A

AI Foundry, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform company, today announced the launch of its next-generation Cognitive Business Automation Platform along with a new Agile Mortgages solution. This patent-pending technology incorporates the latest in AI, machine learning and machine vision to deliver a higher level of problem solving and decision making for enterprises. The new Agile Mortgages solution, which is built on top of the platform, automates manual, labor-intensive mortgage processes, enabling lenders to dramatically accelerate the lending lifecycle.

Could A Selfie Put An End To False Identities? (Forbes), Rated: A

Earlier this year,

Auto Loan Statistics (LendingTree), Rated: A

Key facts

Americans originated a record 2.5 million auto loans in July 2018, the most recent month for which data is available.
Americans owed more than $1.14 trillion in auto loans as of September 2018, 23% more than 2013.
Outstanding auto loan balances are rising about 3.1% a year in dollar amounts.
Auto loans accounted for about 8% of outstanding consumer debt in 2018, including mortgages, about 2 percentage points higher than a decade earlier.
Gen Xers carry the highest auto loan balances with a median of $18,741 and are the most likely of other age groups to have a car loan.
The average new car loan originated by a finance company is $29,921.27, an increase of more than $5,000 from 10 years earlier.
Average monthly payments are rising, too:
- $530 for new vehicles, up 5% year over year
- $381 for used vehicles, up 4%
- $430 for a new vehicle lease, up 4%

For many Americans, car loans are their largest debt burden, a weight which threatens to become overwhelming as they stretch loan terms to buy increasingly expensive vehicles — new and used. To get the full picture of auto loan debt in the U.S., we looked at auto loan originations, prices and term lengths. Here are the numbers.

Online bank Chime now valued at $ 1.5 billion after new funding round (CNBC), Rated: A

Digital bank Chime has tripled its valuation, officially passing the $1 billion-mark this week.

The San Francisco-based company announced a $200 million Series D financing round that brings its new valuation to $1.5 billion. Investors were led by DST Global, which also participated in earlier fundraising rounds, and new investors Coatue, General Atlantic, Iconiq Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group, Chime said Tuesday.

Jason Gross of Petal (Lend Academy), Rated: A

In this podcast you will learn:

The personal experience that led to the founding of Petal.
Their core product and how it is different to what else is out there.
A profile of their typical customer.
How they are approaching underwriting.
The typical APRs and credit limits they offer on their card.
How they are protecting their company against fraud.
How Petal is getting the word out about their credit card.
The large waiting list they had when they launched last year.
The early signals they are seeing with credit performance.
How they are generating income.
The primary funding sources they use in providing the credit lines.
What they mean on their website when they say “a credit card with a conscience”.
Their biggest challenge as they grow their company today.
The goals the Petal team has for 2019.

FINRA Approves Circle’s Acquisition of SeedInvest, Continues Mission of Tokenization (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

FINRA has given their stamp of approval to the acquisition of SeedInvest by Circle. The crypto focused company announced the purchase of SeedInvest in October of 2018. The acquisition of a regulated securities crowdfunding platform by the blockchain based Circle represented a seminal turning point in the crypto industry.

Virginians say online lender uses tribal immunity to get around state laws (Pilot Online), Rated: A

Virginians are taking a lead attacking what they say is a legal loophole that has left thousands of people stuck with debt they can’t escape.

The case involves loans at interest rates approaching 650 percent from an online lender, Big Picture Loans, associated with a small Indian tribe on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Lula Williams of Richmond, the lead plaintiff in one case, still owes $1,100 on the $1,600 she borrowed from Big Picture Loans — debt that she’s already paid $1,930 to retire. One of her loan documents reports the annual percentage rate for her debt at 649.8 percent, calling for her to pay $6,200 on an $800 debt. Her first three installments on that loan, each for $400, would have yielded Big Picture a 50 percent profit on the loan after just three months, court records suggest.

How to Invest in Real Estate without Buying Property (Realty Biz News), Rated: B

Lastly if you love jumping on the latest trends, then jumping on one of these companies services that how recently cropped up will help you get involved in real estate investing. You are able to invest in commercial and residential real estate investments and receive cash flow distributions in return, and just like the other options on this list, someone else is doing the heavy lifting whilst you reap the rewards.

Whilst there is no one standout company that we can confidently recommend, since they all havent been around long enough for us to make a property judgement, Fundrise returned an average of 11.4% on the invested dollars in 2017 and a further 9.11% in 2019.

The best part is you don’t even need to be an accredited investor to open an account, meaning if you’re new to the market, then this is your chance to get in on something thats shiny and new and that could potentially give you a place to invest your cash and reap the rewards of owning physical property.

Elevate Appoints Kathleen Vanderkolk as Head of Enterprise Risk Management (BusinessWire), Rated: B

Elevate Credit, Inc. (NYSE: ELVT) (“Elevate” or the “Company”), a tech-enabled provider of innovative and responsible online credit solutions for non-prime consumers, today announced that it has promoted Kathleen Vanderkolk to Chief Risk Officer.

Vemanti Group Engages With Securitize And DSLG To Launch Digital Security Offering For eLoan, JSC (GlobeNewswire), Rated: B

Vemanti Group, Inc. (OTC PINK:VMNT), a technology-driven holding company, today announced that it has engaged with Securitize, Inc. (“Securitize”) and Digital Securities Law Group (“DSLG”) to launch a Digital Security Offering (“DSO”) to fund and propel the business objectives for eLoan, JSC (“eLoan”), its portfolio company. The Company recently announced that it has completed its investment in eLoan, a fintech company based in Vietnam.

The offering will be conducted by the Company on behalf of Fvndit, Inc. (“Fvndit” – formerly Directus Holdings, Inc.), eLoan’s US-based parent company, as the issuer. The issuance will be managed by Securitize’s platform and DS Protocol. Details of the offering will be announced at a later date.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle Announces Expansion to Canada (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Funding Circle, the leading small business loans platform in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands, today announced its plans to enter the Canadian market and expand access to fast, affordable and transparent financing for Canadian small businesses.

Funding Circle will establish operations in Canada in the second half of 2019 with an office located in Toronto. The business will be led by Tom Eilon, who previously led the commercial strategy for Funding Circle in the United Kingdom.

Funding Circle Holdings plc (Funding Circle), Rated: AAA

Financial Highlights:

Strong Group performance delivering IPO guidance whilst continuing our strategy of investing for growth
Revenue of £141.9 million (2017: £94.5 million). Year-on-year growth of 55%¹ (excluding property²) exceeding c.50% guidance stated at IPO
Segment adjusted EBITDA³ of £7.0 million (2017 loss: £3.9 million) with margin of 5% (2017: negative 4%)
Adjusted EBITDA⁴ loss of £28.5 million (2017 loss: £25.1 million) with margin improving to negative 20% (2017: negative 27%)
Basic loss per share of 18.2 pence (2017 loss: 14.0 pence)
Loss before tax £50.7 million (2017 loss: £36.3 million)
Free cash outflow⁵ of £42.0 million (2017 outflow: £35.3 million)
Cash of £333.0 million, £244.1 million higher than at the end of 2017 (£88.9 million), including IPO proceeds of £300.0 million, before expenses of £15.0 million

UK Peer to Peer Lending: Loans top £800 Million in Q4 as Industry Matures (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

The UK Peer-to-Peer Finance Association(P2PFA) has published fourth quarter numbers for member platforms. According to their data, cumulative lending now tops £9.5 billion with over £800 million originated during the period.

The P2PFA states that platforms facilitated loans worth nearly £3 billion during 2018.

In Q4, P2PFA platforms originnated £527 million to businesses and £282 million to almost a quarter-of-a-million consumers. Cumulative lending among P2PFA platforms has now exceeded £5.5 billion for business lending and £4 billion for consumer lending.

Revolut is fighting back after yet more allegations were made against the $ 1.7 billion fintech unicorn after a week from hell (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

The Financial Times on Tuesday alleged that the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) is examining a complaint from a customer, adding to Revolut’s issues after a difficult week for the fintech.

However, the allegations were denied by Revolut and the Financial Times article was subsequently taken down.

The FT, citing emails, reported on an incident in which £70,000 was incorrectly paid into a Revolut customer’s account.

Is the Innovative Finance Isa worth it? We look at the pros and cons (City A.M.), Rated: A

At barely three years old, the Innovative Finance Isa still has some proving to do. And for some savers, it’s a product that is deemed too risky. But how risky is it really?

Of course, the IFISA is merely a tax-free wrapper, so the risk actually depends on the underlying investments held within.

And while investments can vary wildly, most IFISAs are invested in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market, where lenders are grouped together to invest capital through an online platform which distributes funds to borrowers.

How savers can use an Innovative Finance Isa to reap the rewards from the property market (City A.M.), Rated: A

Investors can open one IFISA per tax year, and have an annual subscription allowance of £20,000, with substantial tax-free returns.

There are also several different opportunities available when it comes to property IFISAs, including buy-to-let and development.

Wealth management firm urges greater awareness in investments (Wealth Adviser), Rated: B

Last year, the National Trust was criticised for investing in a fund with holdings in fossil fuel companies, while the Church of England was shown to have ploughed funds into Wonga, despite having publicly criticised the payday lender.

Provident fights back in bitter £1.3bn bid battle as it accuses former boss of destroying shareholder value and failing to grasp modern technology (This is Money), Rated: B

A war of words has erupted between the doorstep lender Provident Financial and its former boss John van Kuffeler as he mounts a £1.3billion hostile takeover bid.

The Provvy has accused van Kuffeler of destroying shareholder value and failing to grasp modern technology.

China

Dianrong has laid off as many as 2,000 employees amid a regulatory crackdown (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

China-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Dianrong has laid off as many as 2,000 employees and will shut down 60 of its 90 brick-and-mortar outlets, which helped verify the identities and qualifications of users, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.

Additionally, the company has been accused of falling behind on wages and severance pay, per a Chinese media outlet cited by TechNode . The company reportedly started shrinking its business around 10 months ago, despite securinga $70 million funding round in January to expand its services, including SMB lending.

Source: Business Insider

European Union

How PSD2 Will Change Lending (PYMNTS), Rated: AAA

Merchants and customers are now transacting under PSD2 and GDPR in the European Union (EU) — regulations that allow a greater window into how customer data is being used. While these regulations are aimed at increasing consumer trust by allowing them more transparency, many consumers in the region are still adjusting.

French regulatory body, the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), has fined Googlethe equivalent of $56 million for noncompliance with GDPR within the region, alleging that the information services company was using EU customer data for advertising purposes without obtaining clear consent from those customers.

For third-party providers, such as P2P lending and investment provider Zopa, PSD2’s data transparency rules provide an opportunity to “level the playing field” when it comes to gaining that consumer trust.

International

10 Fintechs Have Already Raised Monster Rounds in 2019 (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

We came into 2019 after a strong year of fintech investments with about $40 billion invested globally according to CB Insights.

Acorns

$105 million round led by NBCUniversal and venture arm of its parent company Comcast. NBCUniversal is now their largest shareholder.

Better

$70 million Series C from American Express Ventures and the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP). The company originated $1.3B in mortgages in 2018.

Figure

The $65 million Series B round was led by RPM Ventures as CEO Mike Cagney continues to show his fundraising prowess. Their valuation is said to be $365 million today about double the valuation from last year. Read our coverage here.

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

The total volume for the reported marketplaces in the table adds up to 531 million Euro.

This month I added Bondster (use Bondster Promotion Code 5506 to get 1% cashback).

Source: P2P-Banking

Omidyar Network spins out its fintech investment arm as Flourish, with up to $ 300 million (TechCrunch), Rated: A

After twelve years spent investing in impact-oriented financial services startups around the globe, the Omidyar Network, which serves as the family investment office for eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, is spinning off its financial inclusion investment arm as Flourish Ventures.

Equipped with up to $300 million in capital for operations and investments, the new Flourish will continue to invest around the Network’s core mission of backing companies with a dual focus on making a social impact and achieving quality financial returns.

List of Multi-Crypto Wallets To Consider For Your Portfolio (Cryptomorrow), Rated: A

Everus

Everus is a multi crypto wallet that allows for payment of bills and for mobile top-ups in multiple crypto and management of multiple crypto. The wallet, which is part of an ecosystem featuring bill payment, marketplace, peer-to-peer lending and micro-finance; allows customers to send, receive, store and withdraw multiple cryptocurrencies (more than 50 currently).

Peer-to-peer lending will allow people to offer and accept microloans affordably, which will be more targeted to the un-banked.

Infinito Wallet

Other features to be added soon include crypto lending where users can lend crypto and earn profits, exchange integration to allow users to exchange crypto from the wallet, fiat gateway to let users purchase crypto with fiat, digital identity and KYC where users can register their digital identity and use it everywhere else without needing to create another one, news portal to furnish users with happenings in the crypto space, and App Square for browsing dApps.

Quppy Wallet

It links to other parts of the company’s product ecosystem including decentralized exchange to allow users to buy and sell crypto, a licensed crypto bank, Prepaid co-brand bank cards, a decentralized peer-to-peer lending for borrowers as well as merchants, individuals, corporate, financial and non-financial institutions as well as crypto-fiat payments for merchants and 100% legal fiat-crypto-fiat transactions regardless of region and legislation.

India

P2P lenders develop new ways to build trust (India Times), Rated: AAA

Monexo ensures less risk for lenders by keeping a lender’s contribution to a loan to only Rs 1,000. So if a Monexo customer lends Rs 1 lakh on the platform, it gets split across 100 loans.

Faircent also has a similar strategy. It does not allow lenders to lend more than 20% of a single borrower’s requirement. So for an average loan of Rs 1 lakh, there will be on average 43 lenders funding that. They also advice lenders not to lend beyond Rs 5,000-7,000 for one loan.

Scaling small businesses with alternative finance (India Times), Rated: A

Lack of access to finance is the most widely cited constraint by SMEs for growth and scaling up business. Generally commercial banks perceive SMEs fall in the category of high default risk due to limited collaterals, smaller in asset size and limited historical track record.

Asia

Tightened supervision needed for P2P lending services: Deputy PM (Nhan Dan), Rated: AAA

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has asked competent ministries and sector to enhance inspections, supervision and settlement of violations related to peer-to-peer (P2P) lending model which has been springing up in Vietnam in recent two years.

E-Money, P2P Lending The Hotspots (Fitch Solutions), Rated: A

The e-money and payments segment continues to show strong growth, and consolidation within the sector is positive to improve services and ease competitive pressures.
P2P lending is emerging as a bright spot, and regulation remains lax enough for lenders to thrive.
Cryptocurrencies show little potential for growth as the regulator remains apprehensive towards crypto-based assets.

FINTERRA Calls for All Thought Leaders and Regulators to Envision A Global Waqf Bank (Salaam Gateway), Rated: B

Malaysia has the potential to become the first nation in the world to set up a global “Waqf” bank using blockchain technology, expounded Hamid Rashid, the Founder of FINTERRA.

The platform is a blockchain-based solution to crowdfund Waqf charity, Islamic investments, and peer-to-peer lending.

Canada

Klarna And PayBright Partner To Give More Shoppers The Ability To Pay Over Time (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Today, Klarna, a global payment provider, announces a partnership with Canadian instant financing provider, PayBright. Klarna and PayBright are joining forces to give Klarna’s 100,000 global retailers the ability to turn on a consumer finance solution for their Canadian shoppers quickly and easily.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday March 7 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday February 28 2019, Weekly News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi to roll out crypto trading with Coinbase. Walmart now offers Affirm loans. Funding Circle fund ups the ante on buyback strategy. Orca launches IFISA. LendDenClub cross 1 million borrowers, lenders milestone. Today’s main analysis: 2019 securitization update. How marketplace lending is a growing and dynamic global market. (A MUST-READ) Today’s thought-provoking articles: The 2009 […]

The post Thursday February 28 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: SoFi to roll out crypto trading with Coinbase. Walmart now offers Affirm loans. Funding Circle fund ups the ante on buyback strategy. Orca launches IFISA. LendDenClub cross 1 million borrowers, lenders milestone.
Today’s main analysis: 2019 securitization update. How marketplace lending is a growing and dynamic global market. (A MUST-READ)
Today’s thought-provoking articles: The 2009 housing market compared to today. Personal loan interest rates for February 2019. Why Midwest BankCentre created a separate digital-only bank. Some bankers are worse off than in 2009. Dragon Victory International analysis.

United States

SoFi to offer crypto trading through Coinbase partnership. This is the most interesting news story of the week. The largest cryptocurrency exchange partnering with one of the largest marketplace lenders to offer cryptocurrency trading will be a huge feather in the cap for both companies.
Walmart now offers Affirm loans. We saw this one coming. In fact, I wonder why it took so long. Affirm snagging Walmart as a customer will catapult it to PayPal status fast.
More on Affirm’s, Walmart’s partnership.
Affirm CEO breaks it down.
2019 securitization update, Square charter status. Square is finally seeing some opposition to its banking aspirations. Excellent analysis from PeerIQ.
The housing market of 2009 compared to today. A LendingTree analysis showing the markets where median home values have increased the most and the least. California is hot. The Mid-Atlantic and Eastern states are not.
Personal loan interest rates for February 2019. A great breakdown from Nerdwallet.
Why a small bank launched a separate digital-only branch. I think we’re going to see more of this. As more consumers demand digital banking, and Millennials are all over it, more brick-and-mortar banks will see the opportunity to launch digital-only branches as separate entities. It’s actually a smart move.
SoFi to offer zero-fee ETFs.
FTC orders SoFi to stop misleading consumers.
Figure raises $65 million.
Gen Xers have the largest auto loan burden.
Elevate Credit posts earnings results.
Elevate’s CIO wins award.
Hunt Real Estate Capital buys RealtyMogul’s loan underwriting program.
Kabbage says it’s prepared for the coming recession.
Kabbage named one of the top workplaces among midsize companies in Atlanta.
CrowdStreet has new self-directed IRA offering.
Liquid P2P, Interest Radar partner.
Direct Lending Investments suspends investor withdrawals.
HSBC partners with Neptune Financial.
Venmo debuts rainbow-colored card.
Mastercard says digital identities will be very important in a few years.
Credit Karma wants to be known for more than free credit scores.
Brex launches credit card for e-commerce.
YieldStreet raises $62 million.
Guaranteed Rate listed as top loan originator.
Americans focus on debt management more than retirement savings.
Banking regulator challenging New York on fintech charters.
Blockchain can be used for P2P lending.
LoanStreet makes new hires.
White Oak Business Capital hires new head of markets.

United Kingdom

International

Some bankers are worse off than in 2009. A look at global IPOs.
Report on how marketplace lending is still a growing and dynamic market. A must-read from DBRS.
Enova expands worldwide credit access.
Blossom Capital gets $85 million from Robinhood, Funding Circle investors.
How lending can earn your Bitcoin online. I’d like to see a service where small lenders can lend fiat and earn Bitcoin.

Other

India: LenDenClub crosses 1 million borrower, lender milestone. Congratulations! Excellent achievement.
Mexico: PayPal to expand small business loans into country with new partnership. PayPal has begun its slow expansion internationally. Could it someday be a global powerhouse?
China: Analysis of Dragon Victory International. A very interesting look from Seeking Alpha.
Latin America: ID Finance Latam revenues climb 403%.
India: Why startups, investors see big potential in lending.
Ireland: Grid Finance suspends investments below 100,000 euro.
Brazil: N26 expands into Brazil.
China: Is the Chinese P2P lending boom over?
Singapore: Fintech investments rose to $365 million USD in 2018.
India: UDS ban will benefit P2P lending.
Australia: How should accountants talk about fintechs?
Singapore: Validus Capital raises $15 million for SME financing.
China: BHB raises $20 million using fake bios of founding team.
Africa: Fintechs inspire with mobile technology.
China: Futu Securities downsizes U.S. IPO.

News Summary

United States

Fintech startup SoFi — known for its online lending services — is partnering with major United States-based crypto exchange Coinbase to roll out crypto trading support, according to a CNBC report Feb. 26.

Millennial online lender SoFi to offer zero-fee ETFs, an unexpected rival for index fund giants Vanguard, iShares (CNBC), Rated: A

The race to zero-fee exchange-traded funds has found an unlikely competitor: Online lending and personal finance platform SoFi, which has filed for two index ETFs that will waive management fees for the first year. In making the move to zero-fee ETFs, the online lender is crashing an ETF party dominated by Vanguard and BlackRock‘s iShares.

FTC orders SoFi to stop misleading consumers (MPA Mag), Rated: B

The Federal Trade Commission has ordered online lender SoFi to stop lying about how much borrowers can save by refinancing with the company.

Digital lender founded by ex-SoFi CEO raises $ 65M to fuel expansion (American Banker), Rated: A

The new company founded by Mike Cagney, the former embattled chief executive of Social Finance, plans to announce a $65 million funding round on Wednesday, bolstering firm’s expansion into other financial services, including wealth management.

With the new venture, Cagney is using some of the strategies from his tenure at SoFi — like diversification into areas typically only occupied by traditional banks. However, the new company, Figure, is focusing on different customers, and it’s taking steps to avoid scandals similar to the ones that saw Cagney step down from the SoFi helm.

Walmart teams with Affirm to offer point-of-sale loans (American Banker), Rated: AAA

Walmart will offer its customers point-of-sale loans for the first time — both on its website and in nearly 4,000 U.S. stores — under a partnership with the Silicon Valley lender Affirm.

Under the deal, Walmart shoppers will be able to get Affirm loans of three, six or 12 months to finance purchases ranging from $150 to $2,000. The loans are already being offered in Walmart stores, and they will be available to Walmart’s online shoppers in the coming weeks.

Affirm’s latest partnership brings its alternative financing to Walmart’s US stores and website (TechCrunch), Rated: A

The companies announced this morning that Affirm’s financing options would be made available in more than 4,000 Walmart Supercenters across the U.S., and will roll out to Walmart.com in the weeks ahead.

The offering will go live across Walmart Supercenters nationwide, except in Iowa, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, and will be soon available on Walmart.com.

Loan app Affirm CEO breaks down new Walmart partnership (CNBC), Rated: A

Loan app Affirm CEO breaks down new Walmart partnership from CNBC.

ABS Vegas – 2019 Securitization Update; Square Charter Status (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

In regulatory news, Square’s ILC charter application has received opposition from 37 community groups. The groups are concerned about Square’s CRA activities and have asked the FDIC to bolster Square’s CRA requirements. Before this letter from community advocates, nearly all of the 15 letters the FDIC received were in favor of Square’s bid. Square is the furthest along the path to getting an ILC charter and its experience will determine whether other FinTechs follow its lead.

Structured Credit Investor magazine explores the challenges facing the maturing marketplace lending sector. Issuers need to distinguish between the borrower experience that they provide and manage liquidity. The article also makes the point that the sector is ripe for consolidation, although we haven’t seen any M&A yet.

2019 Securitization Update

The first two months of 2019 saw 5 securitization deals totaling $1.7 Bn in new issuance. The issuance volume represents a 23% drop over that seen in the first two months of 2018, as the market recovers from the volatility in equity and credit markets seen at the end of 2018. Total securitization issuance now stands at $46.2 Bn, with 147 deals issued to date.

Source: PeerIQ

The Housing Market’s 10 Year Challenge — Comparing The Housing Market of 2009 to Today (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

When the real estate bubble burst in late 2008, many Americans saw their home values fall drastically, but a lot has changed in the 10 years since — housing prices have rebounded from their lows during the Great Recession. And though prices are now starting to cool, in many cases, home values have even exceeded their 2006 highs.

On average, median home values have increased by nearly $50,000 across the 50 largest metros in the United States since 2009.

Metros where housing prices have recovered the most since 2009

San Jose, Calif.

Median home value 2009: $638,300
Median home value 2017: $957,700
Median home value change: $319,400
Median unemployment rate change: -6.4%
Median household income change: $32,991

San Francisco

Median home value 2009: $591,600
Median home value 2017: $849,500
Median home value change: $257,900
Median unemployment rate change: -5.4%
Median household income change: $27,889

Los Angeles

Median home value 2009: $463,600
Median home value 2017: $617,100
Median home value change: $153,500
Median unemployment rate change: -5.0%
Median household income change: $11,467

Source: LendingTree

Gen Xers Carry the Biggest Auto Loan Burden; Study Finds (One World Herald), Rated: A

According to the loan comparison website, the median balance of Gen Xers who have auto loans is $18,741 is higher than other age groups. It is 9% more than baby boomers’ $17,185 median balance. This is higher than millennials’ $16,200 and 37 percent more than the lowest median balance of $13,666 held by Gen Z.

Personal Loan Interest Rates for February 2019 (Nerdwallet), Rated: AAA

Personal loan interest rates, whether you’re considering a loan from a bank, credit union or online lender, generally range from about 6% to 36%. The actual rate you receive depends on factors such as your credit score and history, annual income, existing debt and where you get the loan.

Online lenders offer the lowest starting interest rates on personal loans to borrowers with good to excellent credit.

Source: Nerdwallet

LightStream and Marcus both require a minimum credit score of 660. LightStream accepts joint applications, and one applicant can have a credit score lower than its minimum. SoFi has a slightly higher credit score requirement and requires at least $45,000 in annual income.

Elevate Credit (ELVT) Posts Earnings Results, Meets Expectations (Fairfield Current), Rated: A

Elevate Credit (NYSE:ELVT) announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 11th. The company reported $0.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.09, Bloomberg Earnings reports. The business had revenue of $207.29 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $212.42 million. Elevate Credit had a return on equity of 15.72% and a net margin of 1.59%. Elevate Credit updated its FY 2019 guidance to $0.55-0.65 EPS.

Source: Fairfield Current

Hunt Real Estate Capital buys RealtyMogul’s proprietary loan underwriting program (Housing Wire), Rated: A

Hunt Real Estate Capital, which offers financing for all types of commercial real estate, will soon have a new underwriting system to help it originate those loans, as the company is buying a proprietary loan underwriting system from RealtyMogul.

Elevate’s Joan Kuehl Named Dallas ORBIE CIO of the Year (The Progress), Rated: B

Elevate Credit, Inc. (“Elevate”) today announced that Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer Joan Kuehl has been named the Large Enterprise CIO of the Year by the Dallas ORBIE CIO of the Year Awards. The award honors chief information officers who have demonstrated excellence in technology leadership.

A Recession Coming? Small Business Lending Platform Kabbage Says It’s Prepared (Forbes), Rated: A

The world is bracing for a recession, with the latest data showing in the U.S. expect it to occur by the end of 2021

If those predictions prove true, it will be the first major economic downturn for some of the nation’s leading fintechs. Born out of the ruins of the recession, these startups have enjoyed nearly a decade of success buoyed by strong economic growth, a bull run in the stock market and low unemployment.

Here’s more on the AJC Top Workplaces midsize companies (AJC.com), Rated: B

Kabbage has been named to the list for five consecutive years and this is its first year in the top five. The private financial technology company, founded in 2009, has 489 global employes and 367 at its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta. Flexibility at work and perks, such as a daily catered lunch and snacks, are among reasons employees appreciate working for Kabbage. Wellness benefits include fitness classes, health equipment onsite, biweekly meditation classes, CPR training, an annual flu shot clinic and sponsoring sports clubs. It also fully pays health benefits for individuals and provides annual bonuses and a 401(k) match. Through its sabbatical program, employees of five years can receive six weeks of paid time off and an additional $6,000. In 2018, Kabbage participated in the Atlanta PRIDE parade and also took a stand against gun violence after the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School. Workers in 2019 will build a Habitat for Humanity home as part of its Kabbage Kares program, which also has supported PAWS Atlanta, Easter Seals and the Epilepsy Foundation.

Diversifying a Self-Directed IRA Made Simple with New Offering from CrowdStreet (The Progress), Rated: A

CrowdStreet, an online marketplace for direct equity investment in commercial real estate (CRE), today launched a streamlined, investor-friendly approach to investing qualified retirement account funds into commercial real estate offerings. This new option makes it easier than ever for individuals to access CRE investments with their self-directed IRAs (SDIRA), thus reducing their investment exposure to a volatile stock market and achieving more independence in managing their investments.

Liquid P2P and Interest Radar Announce Strategic Partnership (Liquid P2P), Rated: A

Liquid P2P and Interest Radar are pleased to announce that they have entered into a strategic partnership. The two third-party investing services for online peer-lending giant Lending Club will combine strengths under a single platform to deliver a more comprehensive automated tool with a patent-pending liquidity solution.

Direct Lending Investments Suspends Investor Withdrawals (Lend Academy), Rated: A

Earlier this month Brendan Ross, the CEO of Direct Lending Investments, Inc., sent a letter to investors notifying them that they have suspended withdrawals and redemptions effective February 8, 2019. Lend Academy was able to obtain a copy of this investor letter, dated February 11, that provides some color into what happened. The reason given was the delinquency of a large holding, VOIP Guardian, a telecom receivables factoring company.

Fintech deal will provide access to midsize businesses in U.S. (American Banker), Rated: A

Add HSBC to the list of banks partnering with commercial online lenders.

The bank on Tuesday announced a partnership with Neptune Financial, a San Francisco online lender that focuses on businesses with $10 million to $100 million in assets. The bank estimates that, with the access it will get to Neptune customers, the deal represents a $1.5 trillion opportunity.

Venmo debuted a limited-edition rainbow-colored card (Business Insider), Rated: A

Venmo, the PayPal-owned peer-to-peer (P2P) giant, debuted a limited-edition rainbow-colored version of its physical card product. The card will function the same as regular Venmo cards, allowing customers to pay wherever Mastercard is accepted, split costs and tips, withdraw funds from select ATMs, and manage their Venmo balance, but it will only be available for as long as supplies last, according to Venmo.

Source: Business Insider

Why digital identities will be so important in the next few years, according to Mastercard’s vice chairman (CNBC), Rated: A

The pace with which we are moving toward the internet of things is “very rapid” but we “can’t have the internet of everyone without the inclusion of everyone,” according to the vice chairman of payments giant Mastercard.

“You have to start focusing on how does the human get involved, and that’s going to be through having a digital identity,” Ann Cairns told CNBC’s Karen Tso on Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Credit Karma’s Dana Marineau: ‘We want users to think of us as more than just free credit scores’ (Tearsheet), Rated: A

Today’s marketer on the hot seat is Dana Marineau, Credit Karma’s vice president of brand, creative and communications. People love Credit Karma for its free credit scores, but the company provides so many other free tools. Dana’s team is tasked with elevating the brand beyond just free credit scores, as a place to get help with financial decisions and achieve financial progress. She brings a 15 year experience at EA, working on many of the top sports games in the business.

Why this small bank created a separate, digital-first brand (American Banker), Rated: AAA

When Midwest BankCentre, a community bank in St. Louis, launched the digital-first Rising Bank in February, it joined the ranks of other financial companies —generally large players such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and MUFG Union Bank — that have created separate, digital-only brands. Unlike them, the $1.9 billion-asset Midwest hopes to keep a community bank feel at the internet-only unit.

The Future Is Plastic: Fintech Unicorn Brex Launches New Credit Card For E-Commerce Merchants (Forbes), Rated: A

Brex, a San Francisco credit card startup that reached a valuation of $1.1 billion late last year, 22 months after its founding, is launching its second product, a physical credit card for e-commerce companies. Its first card, targeted to venture-backed tech startups, has attracted more than 3,000 customers by providing higher spending limits and simplifying the application process.

YieldStreet raises $ 62M to democratise alternative investments in shipping, real estate and more (TechCrunch), Rated: A

YieldStreet — which provides a platform for making alternative investments in areas like real estate, marine/shipping, legal finance, commercial loans and other opportunities that in the past were only open to institutional investors — is today announcing that it has raised $62 million in a Series B round of funding.

Guaranteed Rate Leads Mortgage Executive Magazine’s List of Top Loan Originators in America (GlobeNewswire), Rated: A

For the seventh consecutive year, Guaranteed Rate has the most loan originators of any lender on Mortgage Executive Magazine’s annual list of the “Top 200 Mortgage Originators in America,” including the number one originator.

Guaranteed Rate led the way with 36 originators ranking within Mortgage Executive Magazine’s Top 200, including three of the top five. Shant Banosian of Boston, Mass., was named the nation’s 2018 Top Originator by funding $536 Million in total loan volume.

Americans Focus On Debt Management But Lose Focus On Retirement Savings (Forbes), Rated: A

Our minds are wired to prioritize the near-term over the long-term. We shouldn’t be surprised that a new survey by

U.S. banking regulator fights NY lawsuit over fintech charters (Reuters), Rated: A

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has asked a Manhattan federal court to dismiss a lawsuit by a New York financial regulator over its plan to issue banking charters to fintech companies, saying the lawsuit is premature.

Blockchain and data protection: the main concerns (JDSupra), Rated: A

Blockchain’s usage is no longer limited to digital crypto currencies, as blockchain databases may be deployed in innumerable circumstances and scenarios, including, for instance, within the financial services and insurance sectors for money transfer, peer-to-peer lending and transfer of securities, as well as automatic execution of contracts.

LoanStreet positions for growth with new hires (LoanStreet Email), Rated: B

After the launch of LoanStreet’s commercial lending product and the announcement of their $6.5 million funding round, LoanStreet – the first fully-integrated platform that streamlines the process of sharing, managing, and originating loans – has appointed three credit union industry veterans to support LoanStreet’s aggressive growth.

These new hires include Mike Doherty, Managing Director and Head of Credit Union Sales; Tony Harter, Business Development Director; and Joe Parvin, Business Development Director.

White Oak Business Capital Hires Carol Bader Apicella to Expand Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Markets (GlobeNewswire), Rated: B

White Oak Business Capital, Inc. (“WOBC”), an affiliate of White Oak Global Advisors, LLC, has announced that Carol Apicella has joined the firm as Senior Vice President and Senior Business Development Officer. Apicella will be responsible for expanding the firm’s markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle fund adds firepower for buyback strategy (AltFi), Rated: AAA

The portfolio, an investment trust, of loans originated by Funding Circle lowered its dividend expectations amid lower projected returns last year prompting a discount to its net asset value.

Following a move to a more than 10 per cent discount last year it started share buybacks in a bid to narrow its discount. It has now made additional capital available from its free cash flow to be deployed into share buybacks, the fund said yesterday.

Orca Innovative Finance ISA Launches, Enables Diversified P2P Investment (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Orca Money is finally launching its long-anticipated Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA). Orca’s spin on the savings vehicle allows investors to spread their money across multiple peer-to-peer lenders (P2P) thus providing a heightened degree of diversification. Additionally, Orca Money conducts due diligence on behalf of IFISA investors.

Currently, the Orca IFISA allows access to 5 P2P platforms: Lending Works, Assetz Capital, Landbay, Octopus Choice and Lending Crowd.

Experian, ClearScore scrap merger plans (Reuters), Rated: A

Experian Plc, the world’s biggest credit data firm, said on Wednesday that it had agreed with rival ClearScore to abandon their proposed merger, after Britain’s competition watchdog indicated that it may block the deal.

NatWest launches account aggregation as Open Banking takes hold (AltFi), Rated: A

It’s been a long time coming, but Open Banking is finally spreading through the traditional banking industry, this week with the launch of account aggregation for NatWest customers.

The RBS subsidiary becomes the UK’s 4th bank to let customers connect rival current accounts.

Will Open Banking boom in 2019? (AltFi), Rated: A

It has been over a year since the Open Banking UK initiative under the Competition and Markets Authority order and Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) was launched and has become one of the industry’s biggest technology and regulatory shake ups in recent years. It is no surprise that the initiative’s first year has seen a relatively low consumer uptake. This has been coupled with reports that consumers’ knowledge of the scheme appears to be markedly low.

Aave Launches Platform to Pay Bills Using Crypto (Finance Magnates), Rated: A

In an attempt to bring crypto closer to the mainstream, the London-based fintech startup has announced the launch of Aave Pay.

The app will allow its users to pay their utility bills using digital coins by converting crypto into fiat in real-time using bank transfer facility. The company is claiming that the platform can be used to business expenses as well including employee salaries, income taxes, and other commercial or corporate expenses.

Investing in crowdfunded development projects – what you need to know (Property Investor Today), Rated: A

You can invest in peer to peer development loans for the short term or in an Innovative Finance ISA for a longer commitment period, but with the potential to earn tax free returns.

By comparison, a peer to peer lending platform with its own development company will have much more control over its projects and be able to give you more detailed and trustworthy updates.

Failed Lender Reaching ‘From Beyond The Grave,’ MPs Warn (Law360), Rated: A

Failed payday lender Wonga is damaging the finances of thousands of customers “from beyond the grave” because they cannot seek redress for allegedly missold loans as the company was not covered…

International

Some Bankers Are Doing Even Worse Than in 2009 (The Washington Post), Rated: AAA

It may not feel like it, but some corners of banking are suffering as badly as they did during the depths of the financial crisis. Global volumes of initial public offerings and share placings in January and February have been nearly 60 percent lower than in the same period last year. The numbers are worse than the first two months of 2009. If activity doesn’t pick up soon, it would be worrying evidence of the fragility of investor sentiment.

The hope is that the lull is temporary, and technical. The government shutdown in Washington has gummed up U.S. IPOs. Uncertainty over the U.K.’s future relationship with Europe just drags on. And the December stock-market wobble probably killed off deals that were being planned for the window that traditionally opens between January and the start of the full-year earnings season in late February.

Marketplace Lending – A Growing and Dynamic Global Market (DBRS Email), Rated: AAA

I wanted to share with you a new joint report from our U.S. and European structured finance teams. The new report, attached to this email, analyzes the growth of the marketplace lending market around the globe.

The commentary includes the following topics:

— The evolution in finance, from traditional banking to FinTech.
— FinTech’s influence on marketplace lending around the globe.
— Growth hurdles.
— Securitization considerations.

See the full report here.

Bank on it: How Enova’s software expands credit access worldwide (Built in Chicago), Rated: A

Not all credit histories are created equal.

That’s the case for a large part of the world’s population who can’t get access to a loan from a traditional credit provider — like a bank — creating a world in which the hardest working people don’t always get access to the credit they need. Enova, however, believes it has a solution. The fintech company draws on the power of machine learning and data to offer products that expand access to credit for consumers and small businesses.

Blossom Capital scores $ 85m from Robinhood and Funding Circle backers (AltFi), Rated: A

Blossom Capital, which has already backed five startups including rental marketplace Fat Lama, today raised $85m which it will use to lead Series A rounds of between $5m and $10m in Europe.

Eight Simple Ways to Earn Bitcoin Online Legally (The Crypto Updates), Rated: B

Earn Bitcoins as the interest payments: If you have earned some Bitcoins already, you can put the Bitcoins to earn for you. Lend them out at particular interest rate. You can lend the Bitcoins directly to someone known at a greed interest rate and repayment period. You need to assess trustworthiness of borrower. Peer to peer Bitcoin lending is another way to let the earned Bitcoins earn for you. There are many peer-to-peer lending websites where the borrowers post the borrowing requests. Over these websites, you can act as a lender. It is also possible to fund the small portion of numbers of loans to reduce the risk.

European Union

Grid Finance suspends taking investments below € 100,000 (Irish Times), Rated: AAA

One of the largest providers of peer-to-peer loans in the State has shut down a key part of its business aimed at smaller investors, blaming an absence of regulation in the crowdfunding space.

Grid Finance, which is backed by Enterprise Ireland, wrote to holders of its “Brick” accounts – that facilitate the investment of up to €100,000 – in recent days stating that it would withdraw the offering from the marketplace.

China

Dragon Victory International: Exposure To The Chinese Crowdfunding Market At A Regulatory-Driven Discount (Seeking Alpha), Rated: AAA

In recent years as China winds down its industrial and manufacturing powerhouse growth, it’s looking to other developed nations to determine which platforms it should invest in and pave the way to sustained economic growth. As most other major developed nations have done over the past century, financial services and engineering have been a very profitable platform and companies in China are quick to launch their own services to capitalize on the triple-digit growth in online financial services exhibited since 2003.

Similar to Hexindai (HX), which I’ve previously covered as a leading online lender which is capitalizing on the middle class appetite for debt to finance their lives and vacations, Dragon Victory International Limited (LYL) is taking on the crowdfunding segment in the People’s Republic of China. Similar to countless other platforms around the world, the company’s services are around financing new companies and capitalizing entrepreneurs through public funding and they already have over 4.5M users who use their services, a number nearly doubling each year.

Source: Dragon Victory International F-1 filings

China Fintech Today: The P2P Boom Is Truly Over (SupChina), Rated: A

This year, the government has continued to lead a reorganization of the industry:

More companies will die: As of February 17, only 60 percent of online lending institutions had disclosed their operational information for January 2019, including five problematic platforms.
However, the current asset quality of the online lending industry has improved significantly according the data from firms that did report.
As of the end of January 2019, the accumulated amount of the online P2P online loan industry was about 7.78 trillion yuan ($1.16 trillion). The total loan amount in January was 91.4 billion yuan ($13.61 billion), down 55.1 percent year-on-year and down 1.3 percent from the previous month.
Further consolidation of industry players is certain. Some experts quoted in media reports predict that the scale of future online loans will continue to shrink because of regulation.
Some listed companies, such as Aoma Electric and Panda Financial Companies, have abandoned their P2P businesses.
Aoma Electric issued a letter of concern to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on February 14, attributing the decision to the broader economic slowdown, and a high number of overdue loans.
Panda Gold Control in 2018 was also dragged down by its P2P business, and expects a net loss of 41.16 million ($6.13 million) to 57.63 million yuan ($8.58 million) in 2018. Faced with the uncertainty of the P2P sector, Panda Gold Control chose to divest.

A Crypto Project That Raised $ 20 Million Is Caught Faking Its Founding Team (CoinDesk), Rated: A

Launched on Dec. 2, BHB claims to offer an ethereum-based solution for peer-to-peer lending, but by Jan. 18, local media reports were already accusing the project of operating an illegal pyramid scheme. Now, CoinDesk is able to reveal inconsistencies in the information provided about its founding team that further suggest something may be amiss at the China-based project.

However, the image of Bobby White used in BHB’s marketing materials is identical to that of an economics professor at China’s Tsinghua University named Alexander White. Meanwhile, the image of Gregory Moss is the same as one used by a philosophy professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, who is also named Gregory Moss.

Tencent-backed brokerage firm downsizes US IPO amid weak market demand (Technode), Rated: A

Tencent-backed online brokerage firm Futu Securities has set the terms for its US initial public offering (IPO) to raise up to $130 million, which will value the company at more than $1 billion. The company previously set its target at as high as $300 million when it filed for the US listing in December.

Chinese tech behemoth, Tencent, owns over 38% of the company, has shown interest in purchasing up to 25% of the new shares issued.

Australia

How should accountants talk to clients about fintechs? (In the Black), Rated: A

Like the ombudsman’s office, ASIC has also made information available to educate consumers and advisers, including on its MoneySmart Borrowing Basics and Peer-to-Peer Lending sites.

Is any flexibility possible, Shiel wonders, with a peer-to-peer lending model in which the borrower likely doesn’t know who is providing the funds?

India

LenDenClub crosses 1,00,000 borrowers and lenders milestone (News Barons), Rated: AAA

LenDenClub, one of India’s fastest growing peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, recently crossed an important landmark with more than 1,00,000 borrowers and lenders on its platform. The breakdown of borrowers to lenders is 83,300 and 16700, respectively. The company crossed this milestone by keeping up with latest market trends, and saw an increase in the use of its product InstaMoney, which was launched in June 2018.

Why Do Fintech Startups and Investors See a Huge Potential in Lending? (Entrepreneur), Rated: AAA

Today, thanks to the ongoing digitization, borrowing has become as easy as it can get in India. For contrast, all it takes now is the touch of a few buttons, answers to a few verification-related questions, and anyone can receive a loan in a matter of hours or days, if not minutes. And all of this is without any collateral and while enjoying the comfort of your home. Now, compare this with taking a day off to go to the bank, doing extensive paperwork, visiting frequently to check the progress of your loan application, and ultimately, getting your application rejected because of the loan officer’s misjudgement. All while wasting two months of time in the constant to and fro and taking multiple days off from your office.

It is beyond doubt that the advent of fintech startups has altered the game of lending in India. It has become both simpler and convenient to borrow using their revolutionary approaches driven by state-of-the-art technologies. Currently, more than 1,500 fintech startups (of all shapes and sizes) are catering to the Indian market, and more than half of these startups have been launched over the last 3 years. This gives us a clear picture of how lucrative the sector is becoming for our startup ecosystem. But what is essentially fuelling this trend? Let’s find out.

Banning of UDS to benefit P2P Lending Industry (Inventiva), Rated: A

The latest ordinance of the Banning of Unregulated Deposits (UDS) 2019, was passed by the government to provide a comprehensive mechanism to ban UDS as well as to protect the interest of depositors. This is in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s guidelines on the NBFC-P2P sector, issued in October 2017 to regulate the unorganized lending business in the country.

Asia

Singapore fintech investments rose two-fold to US$ 365m in 2018 (SBR.com.sg), Rated: AAA

US$102.2m of the total funds raised went to lending fintech companies such as the homegrown Funding Societies.

Fintech investments in Singapore more than doubled to US$365m in 2018 from US$180m in 2017, putting the country amongst the top five fintech markets by funds raised last year in Asia Pacific, behind China, India, Australia and Japan, according to Accenture’s analysis of CB Insights data. The number of deals in the country rose to 71 from 61 in 2017, making it the third busiest market in the region, behind only China and India.

Source:

Validus Capital raises $ 15m for SME financing (Fintech Futures), Rated: A

Validus Capital, a Singapore-based SME financing platform, has raised SGD 20.5 million ($15.2 million) in a Series B funding round, led by FMO, a Dutch public-private development bank.

Latin America

PayPal expands its small business loans initiative to Mexico (Leaprate), Rated: AAA

Online payment giant PayPal launched its Working Capital initiative in 2013 as an alternative method for business to access working capital much faster than through traditional means. Many small and medium-sized business (SMB) clients embraced the program and since then the company has advanced more than $6 billion in loans to over 170,000 businesses in the UK, US, Germany and Australia.

PayPal also recently revealed that it has partnered with Konfio, a Mexican online lender that utilizes unconventional data sources to facilitate fast credit assessments, in a deal that will allow PayPal to extend its Business loan and working capital programs to Mexican businesses.

ID Finance eyes ‘pivotal moment’ for Latam fintech as revenue in region climbs 403% (Fintech Finance), Rated: A

ID Finance, the fintech company operating in Europe and Latin America, saw revenue of $49m in 2018. This represents growth of 236% for the business, which was formally separated from its operations in Russia and CIS region last year.

The company is enjoying particularly strong growth in Latam, one of the world’s fastest growing markets for fintech adoption thanks to high mobile penetration and a sizeable underbanked population – according to the World Bank 61% of Mexico’s population is excluded from the traditional banking system, while 40% of Brazil’s 207m population are blacklisted. The company now has 141 employees in Latam and saw revenue growth of 403% in the region last year.

Challenger bank N26 expands to Brazil (Fintech Futures), Rated: A

Germany-based mobile challenger bank N26 is powering on yet again as it has revealed its plans to expand to Brazil.

Africa

How FinTech Companies Inspire Africa With Mobile Technology (PYMNTS), Rated: AAA

With the potential for rapid growth and job creation, FinTech firms in Africa have caught the attention of global investors. According to the London Stock Exchange Group’s 2019 “Companies to Inspire Africa” report, which highlights these firms, the FinTech sector has the second highest growth rate representation of technology and telecoms as well as financial services. As it stands, companies in this space represent more than a quarter of 360 featured firms from 32 different countries. Pan-African payments firm Cellulant is among the companies that appeared in the first and second editions of the report.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday February 28 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday February 21 2019, Weekly News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi launches SoFi Invest. LendingClub forecasts bigger-than-expected Q1 loss. RateSetter ISA exceeds first-year expectations. Zopa report reveals 1 in 3 brits don’t understand Cash ISA Rate. October surpasses 100M GBP in loan repayments. Today’s main analysis: LendingClub 2018 results and 2019 guidance. Today’s thought-provoking articles: The highest seriously delinquent auto loans ever. Personal loans could […]

The post Thursday February 21 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: SoFi launches SoFi Invest. LendingClub forecasts bigger-than-expected Q1 loss. RateSetter ISA exceeds first-year expectations. Zopa report reveals 1 in 3 brits don’t understand Cash ISA Rate. October surpasses 100M GBP in loan repayments.
Today’s main analysis: LendingClub 2018 results and 2019 guidance.
Today’s thought-provoking articles: The highest seriously delinquent auto loans ever. Personal loans could increase credit scores for most borrowers. Fintechs drive personal loan growth. How IncredibleBank launched a digital bank. Challenger banks for gig workers. China’s massive P2P lending shakeout.

United States

SoFi launches SoFi Invest. We knew this was coming. SoFi is no longer just a lender. They are now a brokerage.
SoFi offers no-fee brokerage for stock, ETF trades.
LendingClub forecasts bigger-than-expected Q1 loss. Best-case scenario: A loss of $10 million. Possibly up to $20 million.
LendingClub 2018 results and 2019 guidance. See the charts. Q4 loan originations were down $2.87 billion from previous quarter, up 18% for the year. What caused the sharp downturn?
Brismo, LendingClub partner on metrics.
The highest number of seriously delinquent auto delinquencies ever.
Personal loans could increase credit scores for most borrowers. A LendingTree study.
Fintechs are driving personal loan growth. Based on TransUnion data.
How IncredibleBank launched its own digital bank. A fantastic read.
The challenger banks catering to gig workers. It’s not just Joust.
LoanStreet combines automation with networking for financial institutions.
LendIt partners with Oracle on small business lending webinar.
Millennials prefer technology for banking services.
Banks to invest in legacy systems to combat challenger banks.
Atlantic Capital Bank partners with Self Lender.
Impact of intelligent technologies on finance industry.
Consolidated Analytics hires CFO.

United Kingdom

European Union

October surpasses 100 million euro in loan repayment. Congratulations. Huge milestone.
Machine learning is now a part of Europe’s consumer loans business.
Klarna tells fashion e-commerce firms how to find true fans.

International

Other

China’s P2P lending industry gets hit with major shakeout. This isn’t really new news, but there are some new developments as the shakeout continues.
Vietnam: Tima is one of the country’s top-funded fintechs.
Australia: Non-bank lenders are driving households to risky payday loans.
Is China’s economic stress test caused in part by P2P lending?
Pakistan: Are short-term loans worth it?

News Summary

United States

SoFi launches SoFi Invest and eyes additional lending products (Business Insider), Rated: AAA

US-based online personal money management startup Social Finance (SoFi) has launched an investment product, dubbed SoFi Invest, offering both active and automated investing options at no fees, while it plans to offer additional lending products, perBloomberg, citing a company letter to investors.

SoFi Invest is already live, but the company aims to further grow and develop its related offerings this year.

Source: Business Insider Intelligence

SoFi Now Offering No-Fee Brokerage for Stock and ETF Trades (Think Advisor), Rated: A

According to Bloomberg, which obtained a copy of a letter CEO Anthony Noto wrote investors in the fourth quarter, SoFi Invest had “released an alpha version” of its new brokerage platform inviting employees and select members to “buy and sell individual stocks and ETFs with the tap of a button.” That brokerage platform is now available to anyone using the app, for no fee.

Investors can currently trade only individual stocks and ETFs on the platform; individual bonds and mutual funds are expected to be added in the future.

LendingClub forecasts bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss (WSAU), Rated: AAA

Online lender LendingClub Corp forecast a bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss on Tuesday, and revenue that missed Wall Street estimates, sending its shares down 5 percent in after-market trading.

For the first quarter, the company expects net revenue between $162 million and $172 million, below analysts’ estimates of $181.2 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

LendingClub also forecast a first-quarter loss between $20 million and $15 million, compared to Wall Street estimates of a loss of $5.14 million.

LendingClub Reports 2018 Results and Guidance for 2019 (Lend Academy), Rated: AAA

Earnings season is in full swing and today LendingClub announced their results for the 2018 year. The numbers were quite strong in most areas with the company originating $10.9 billion in new loans in 2018, up 21% year over year and a new high water work in yearly originations. For Q4 loan originations were $2.87 billion down slightly from the previous quarter but up 18% year over year.

Source: LendingClub

They lost $128 million in 2018 with a $13 million loss in Q4.

Source: LendingClub

Brismo partners with LendingClub to create ‘industry standard’ performance metrics (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Brismo, the leading international provider of lending performance data, has today announced that standardized performance metrics are available representing the performance of loans made available through LendingClub*.

Lending Performance Analytics

Brismo’s analysis includes a complete historic track record in a format that is free from distortions relating to inconsistent facilitation growth rates or default profiles.

Functions available include:

Gross facilitation, net lending, change in outstanding principal
Outbound lending rates and loan term
Late payments including transition matrices, defaults, recoveries, recovery performance, and net loss
Historic PDs and LGDs
Net return, loss coverage and risk adjusted return
Cohort analysis including return projections
All analysis can be segmented by facilitator, risk band, asset type etc.

Highest Auto Delinquencies (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

The Fed’s latest report on Household Debt and Credit showed that total household debt increased by $32 Bn (0.2%) to $13.54 Tn in 4Q2018, marking the 18^th consecutive quarter of growth. Total debt is now $869 Bn higher than its previous peak, although it remains below its peak on a per-capita basis.

The report also showed that more than 7 Mn auto loans are delinquent for more than 90 days. This is the highest number of seriously delinquent auto loans ever and is driven mainly by subprime borrowers. Over 8% of subprime borrowers are seriously delinquent on their auto loans, but this percentage is still well below its peak of 9.7% seen in 2010.

Source: PeerIQ

In FinTech financing news, Nav a small-business lending marketplace, raised $45 Mn from GS Principal Strategic Investments among others. Nav will use the funds to expand its platform and to support more funding partners.

CommonBond, an online student loan refinancer, has raised a $750 Mn credit line from GS, Citi among others. CommonBond will use this credit facility to expand its lending operations.

Personal Loans May Increase Credit Scores of Most Borrowers (LendingTree), Rated: AAA

Americans are increasingly turning to personal loans as another option for their ongoing debt and credit needs. There are many uses for personal loans, and the most prominent are to consolidate existing debt and pay down credit cards, which often carry higher interest rates.

Key findings

About 62% of borrowers see their credit scores go up the month after they take out a personal loan.
After 12 months, around 45% of borrowers still have higher scores than they did in the month of loan origination.
People with lower scores are more likely to see a credit score bump: 68% of those who started with scores under 620 saw their scores increase in one month, 71% had higher scores after three and six months, and 58% had higher scores after a year.
People with scores under 620 saw a 20 point, or 3.4%, boost after one month. They also saw a 10 point, or 1.8%, boost after 12 months, on average.
On the other end of the spectrum, borrowers who started with higher scores are less likely to see a credit score bump. 57% of people with scores of 750 or higher see their scores increase after a month, and about 39% have higher scores after a year.

FinTechs Continue to Drive Personal Loan Growth (GlobeNewswire), Rated: AAA

The FinTech revolution has propelled unsecured personal loans to another record-breaking quarter. TransUnion’s (NYSE: TRU) Q4 2018 Industry Insights Reportfound that personal loan balances increased $21 billion in the last year to close 2018 at a record high of $138 billion. Much of this growth was driven by online loans originated by FinTechs.

FinTech loans now comprise 38% of all unsecured personal loan balances, the largest market share compared to banks, credit unions and traditional finance companies. Five years ago, FinTechs accounted for just 5% of outstanding balances. As a result of FinTech entry to the market, bank balance share decreased to 28% from 40% in 2013, while credit union share has declined from 31% to 21% during this time.

TransUnion also found that FinTechs are competitive with banks, with both lenders issuing loans averaging in the $10,000 range, compared to $5,300 for credit unions. Across all risk tiers and lender types, the average unsecured personal loan debt per borrower was $8,402 as of Q4 2018.

Source: TransUnion

Personal loan originations increased 22% during Q3 2018, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of 20%+ annual origination increases. While the subprime risk tier grew the fastest, prime and above originations (those with a VantageScore 3.0 of 661 or higher) represented 36% of all originations. More than 19 million consumers now have a personal loan product, an increase of two million from a year earlier in Q4 2017 and the highest level ever observed.

Source: TransUnion

LoanStreet’s New Commercial Lending Solution Combines Automation and Networking for Financial Institutions (PR Newswire), Rated: A

LoanStreet Inc., the first fully integrated platform that streamlines the process of sharing, managing and originating loans, now offers a new, powerful commercial loan origination and administration solution for any size financial institution, loan or deal volume. LoanStreet uniquely combines the power of networking financial institutions together with world-class lending technology that automates administrative tasks to drive growth, diversify risk, and enable lenders to better serve their customers.

Leading Small Business Lending into a Digital and Data Driven Age (LendIt), Rated: A

Small business lending contributed to 24% of the loans originated by US Banks in 2018, accounting for 600 billion last year. Small business lending by large banks remains in legacy mode with deeply entrenched manual processes, a siloed experience and a lack of customization to help meet the unique needs of small business owners.

How a $ 1.3 Billion Institution Launched Its Own Digital Bank (The Financial Brand), Rated: AAA

When IncredibleBank, the online banking division of Wisconsin-based River Valley Bank, made the list of “Top 10 Online Banks” at GoBankingRates.com, it found itself in good company, right alongside Ally Bank, CIT Bank, Discover Bank, and Synchrony.

While not the only community bank on the list, it’s a significant accomplishment for an institution with only $1.3 billion in assets. And equally noteworthy, IncredibleBank is the only digital-first bank offering loans for luxury RVs. These motor coaches — the ones the size of a tour bus with slide-outs that turn them into 1,200 square foot homes — run upwards of $2 million.

The challenger banks catering to gig-economy workers (American Banker), Rated: AAA

Qwil

Reinsch’s startup, Qwil, focuses on providing working capital for the freelancer who has trouble, like he did, getting paid on time.

Source: American Banker

Qwil’s underwriting technology assesses the payor’s likelihood of paying. It captures information about the approval status of the invoice: Is it definitively approved, is it likely to be approved or is it simply booked and not approved? It conducts identity verification and fraud checks on each freelancer. Qwil charges a flat fee for the advance, such as 1% of the amount. No interest rate or late fees are charged. And it never goes after the freelancer or small- business person to collect.

Oxygen

Online lenders like OnDeck, Kabbage, Fundbox and Bluevine all look at accounting software data and bank account data to analyze the cash flow of and qualify small business applicants. But the freelancer graphic designer working in a Starbucks or contract copy writer can’t get this type of loan, Ahmed said.

Oxygen’s banking and lending services are bundled into a membership with a flat monthly fee of $29.99.

Ahmed wouldn’t say how many users Oxygen has. The company, which started in a Y Combinator incubator, has been in production since September has been growing users at an 80% monthly rate.

Cogni

Cogni will offer a checking account and debit card, as well as up to 12% cash back at restaurants and retailers. It will provide “curated financial and lifestyle services” in an app designed for millennials, freelancers and side hustlers.

Joust

This month, Joust started a partnership with the Freelancers Union, which has 425,000 members. In a survey, the union found that 71% of its members have trouble getting paid. It also announced an Android version of its app (it had only iOS before).

For a 1% fee it offers a guarantee the payment will be made within 30 days. For a 6% fee it will instantly fund the invoice. Users can also take out PayArmour loans when they are out of work. Eventually Joust plans to provide gap financing for those in-between times.

When Considering Banks, New Survey Finds That Millennials Prefer Technology To Human Touch (Marqeta Email), Rated: A

Millennials are unattached to traditional banks, with only 17% of them expressing firm commitment to their current banking provider, according to new survey data from Marqeta, whose advanced payments infrastructure and open-API platform has pioneered a new standard for modern card issuing. In this research, Millennials (18-34 year olds) were 50% less likely than Baby Boomers (50-65 years old) to say that they couldn’t ever imagine wanting to change their banks.

Marqeta’s research found:

Only 1-in-6 Millennials said they couldn’t imagine ever wanting to change from their current bank.
58% of Millennials would consider banking with Amazon, Facebook or Google if these tech giants enter the banking space.
48% of Millennials said they’d consider moving to an independent digital-only bank.

Millennials Are Digital Banking Early Adopters

More than half of Americans aged 18-34 (53%) have used mobile wallets to complete a purchase in-store or on their mobile phone. That’s higher than Americans aged 35-50 (39%) and more than double those aged 51-65 (22%).

It’s also noteworthy that:

More than half of Millennials (52%) said they were comfortable using TouchID and FaceID to authorize mobile wallet payments — almost double the number of Baby Boomers (29%) who said the same.
More than twice as many Millennials (57%) than Baby Boomers (27%) said that they have used peer-to-peer banking apps like Square Cash or Venmo.
Millennials (49%) were twice as likely as Baby Boomers (20%) to pay someone back using a peer-to-peer banking app than a physical currency like cash or check.

Banking Apps Are More Valuable Than Tellers to Millennials

When asked about what the most important service their bank provided was, Millennials reflected much different attitudes than older Americans: Millennials were twice as likely as Baby Boomers to list a mobile app as most important (27% v 14 %), while Baby Boomers were twice as likely to list in person presence (20% v 11%).

Millennials are also abandoning old-fashioned payment methods like checks en masse, with almost half (48%) saying that they couldn’t remember the last time they wrote a check for something other than utilities and rent.

Banks Set To Invest In Legacy Systems To Combat Challenger Bank Threat (Fintech Finance), Rated: A

More than three-quarters (80%) of bankers believe challenger banks are an increased threat to their business, while almost one-third (30%) believe they will be the single most disruptive threat in 2019. The survey, commissioned by fintech provider Fraedom, found that in response the challenger bank threat, bankers expect their organisations to invest heavily in updating legacy systems (44%) and new technology (26%) in 2019.

With investing in new technology high on the agenda for commercial banks, the survey found that over half (53%) of respondents believe AI and Machine Learning will be the technologies to have the biggest impact on commercial banking in 2019.

Atlantic Capital Bank Launches Fintech Partnership with Self Lender (Nasdaq), Rated: A

Atlantic Capital (NASDAQ:ACBI) announces its partnership with Self Lender, a leading Fintech company offering consumers a way to build their credit while saving money. Atlantic Capital provides innovative financial technology companies a banking partner that has significant operational expertise and processing scale to meet the demands of a rapidly growing national client base. The Self Lender and Atlantic Capital partnership helps efficiently deliver the credit builder account to thousands of consumers across the United States.

Impact of Intelligent Technologies on the Finance Industry (CIO Applications), Rated: A

Source: CIO Applications

Consolidated Analytics Taps Industry Finance Leader Mike Jones as Chief Financial Officer to Facilitate Aggressive Growth and Transformation (PR Newswire), Rated: B

Consolidated Analytics, a one-stop provider of property valuation, asset management, due diligence, fulfillment and advisory services for the real estate finance industry, today announced the appointment of Mike Jones as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). In this role, Jones will be responsible for developing and implementing financial strategies that will support the company’s overarching M&A integration strategy and drive corporate transformation initiatives.

United Kingdom

RateSetter Reported ISA Exceeded Expectation in First Year By Attracting £175 Million of Subscriptions (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

UK-based peer-to-peer lender RateSetter recently announced its ISA has exceeded expectations in its first year, having attracted £175 million of subscriptions, and currently accounts for one-fifth of the platform’s £830 million funds under management. RateSetter unveiled its ISA in February 2018. It allows investments in peer-to-peer loans to be included in a tax-free ISA wrapper up to an investor’s £20,000 annual ISA allowance.

Zopa’s Latest Report Reveals 1 in 3 Brits in the Dark on Cash ISA Rate (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

According to Zopa, the research revealed that 1 in 3 British savers (30%) had no idea what interest they’re earning on their Cash ISA and there is a vast difference of knowledge by age with an alarming 42% of people aged between 25 to 44 being in the dark over the rate of interest they were earning on their Cash ISA, in contrast to 21% of over 55s. The research then noted that Generation Z’s were only slightly more aware than Millennials with 39% not knowing their rate of interest.

Is your money safe in an IFISA? (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

THE INNOVATIVE Finance ISA (IFISA) is starting to take off after a slow start – in the last tax year, subscriptions rose more than 700 per cent – but potential investors may still be unsure about the risks involved.

Money put into peer-to-peer loans – with or without the IFISA wrapper – is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

Revolut Launches New Business Mobile App (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

Digital bank Revolut announced on Tuesday the launch of its new business mobile app. This news comes nearly one year after Revolut debuted its Revolut for Business. Revolut reported that through the mobile app, users may do the following:

Track corporate card spending in real-time
View card details and PIN on the go
Freeze or unfreeze card if it’s misplaced
Receive instant spending notifications after every card payment

Should bank-style stress tests for P2P lenders reassure investors? (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

Trade body the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) requires its platform members to carry out bank-style stress tests on their loan portfolios, but how much confidence should P2P investors have in these models if the cycle turns?

P2PFA member Funding Circle has claimed its loanbook would hold up in a recession, after subjecting itself to the toughest Bank of England stress tests. The P2P business lender has said it could still deliver a three to five per cent return to investors in a downturn.

Leasing Foundation to host asset finance technology debates (Verdict), Rated: B

The newly formed Innovation Initiative from the Leasing Foundation is holding a series of breakfast debates this year to explore the asset finance industry’s relationship to technology.

The first event will feature James Alexander, co-founder of P2P lending company Zopa, as keynote speaker and will take place on 13 March from 8am to 10am at Metro Bank in Holborn, London.

Strabane firm funding 55 new homes with £7m from peer-to-peer lender (Belfast Telegraph), Rated: B

The N&R Devine Group is in the process of building the properties, which will go on the market at prices between £105,000 and £189,000.

Twenty of the homes will be built in Cookstown, 25 in Coalisland and the remainder in Sion Mills.

The Strabane-based builder secured the funding for the developments from peer-to-peer lender Assetz Capital.

China

China’s online P2P lending industry is undergoing a massive shake out (technode), Rated: AAA

China’s peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry is in turmoil. In recent months, authorities have ramped up regulatory oversight of the world’s largest P2P lending industry. Investors are losing confidence at their stakes and pulling their funds, diminishing operators’ liquidity; many of them are facing insolvency.

This week, Chinese police froze RMB 10 billion worth of assets owned by over 380 lenders in a large-scale investigation spanning 16 countries. Dubbed Operation Fox Hunt, the investigation has led to the arrest of 62 suspects implicated in P2P fraud since last June.

The total value of the loans managed by online crowdlenders has fallen to RMB 1 trillion. Prior to the clampdown, in 2015, the total P2P loan amount was RMB 1.25 trillion, according to Chinese media (in Chinese).

Source: wdzj.com

China’s Recession-Proof Economy Heads to a Stress Test (Bloomberg), Rated: A

The reason for the slowdown isn’t clear. Uncertainty over trade with the U.S. — including tariffs, but also export controls and investment restrictions –— could be a factor, especially as other countries show signs of wariness toward Chinese technology companies. Bad investments in real estate and infrastructure could be coming back to bite. A crash in the peer-to-peer lending industry might be contributing.

Source: Bloomberg

European Union

European Marketplace Lender October Surpasses €100 Million in Loan Repayment (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

October, the European lending marketplace formerly known as Lendix, announced on Wednesday it has surpassed €100 million in loan repayment.

The online lender reported that since its launch more than €250 million has been lent to European companies and nearly 40% of this amount has already been paid into the accounts of both individual and institutional lenders through monthly repayments. October then revealed that the lenders have already supported 570 projects for an average amount of €460,000.

Machine learning: Part of Europe’s consumer loans business (AltFi), Rated: A

Machine learning technologies are widely used to establish consumer credit scores in Europe, a new report confirmed.

Around 70 per cent of financial institutions across the continent say they already use these data technologies to build consumer score cards, which dictate lending, said a survey called, Credit Risk Management 2019 – How Do You Stack Up?

The average coverage rate of non-performing loans in Europe was 46 per cent in 2018, according to the survey.

5 Fashion E-commerce Trends Helping Retailers Build a Cult Following (Klarna), Rated: A

How can you get consumers as psyched about your brand as you are? Get inspired by these five fashion e-commerce trends that are powering more meaningful engagement.

International

UK-based GBG Acquires IDology in $ 300 Million All-Cash Deal (Finovate), Rated: AAA

Identity verification and fraud prevention specialist IDology has been acquired by U.K.-based identity data intelligence firm, GBG, for $300 million (£233 million) in cash.

The deal will give GBG broader reach into the North American market; in a statement, the company said 99% of IDology’s revenues come from the United States.

Are Peer-to-Peer Loans (P2P Loans) the Best Option for a Small Business? (ForexTV), Rated: A

One of the biggest issues that every entrepreneur will have to face at some point is finding financial backing. Money is going to be essential for your business launch, and there are a variety of methods for obtaining that much-needed financial support. One of the most popular solutions is Peer-to-Peer lending (P2P). This is a useful way of getting the money you need without going through the traditional route of obtaining interest only bank loans. Those banks loans can be slow and expensive, so does P2P offer a viable alternative option? Here’s the rundown of everything you need to know about P2P loans.

Australia

Debt-stressed home owners and renters are increasingly turning to alternative lenders offering so-called “payday” loans and consumer leases, as falling property prices plunge more households into negative equity and banks crack down on credit.

Asia

5 of Vietnam’s Top Funded Fintechs (Fintech News), Rated: AAA

Fintech development is accelerating in Vietnam with companies in the sector attracting US$117 million last year, the maximum funding in Vietnamese startups in 2018. Fintech surpassed e-commerce at US$104 million and other sectors, according to funding data by local accelerator Topica Founder Institute, showcasing the eagerness of investors to take part in Vietnam’s fintech opportunity.

Source: topicafi via Facebook

Tima – US$3M

Founded in 2015, Tima is a consumer financial marketplace and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform. The company has signed partnerships with financial institutions, including VietinBank and Nam A Bank, and claims to have disbursed about US$1.7 billion in loans to 2.8 million borrowers and over 30,000 lenders on its platform.

Tima claims to have raised a US$3 million Series B funding round in October at a near US$20 million valuation and recently began the process of raising a Series C investment round after hiring former LendingClub COO John Donovan to its board of directors.

Short Term Loans: For Your Quick Financial Concerns (US Updates), Rated: A

In such a case, availing instant Short Term loans from an online lender may help you in different ways.

No fear of bad credit scores – These loans are available irrespective of credit score status. The Short Term poor credit loans are in possible reach of the bad credit borrowers. You do not have to face rejections due to bad credits.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday February 21 2019, Weekly News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday December 20 2018, Daily News Digest

News Comments Today’s main news: OnDeck to enter equipment financing. SoFi releases video to destigmatize debt. RateSetter sees 47% revenue growth. Funding Circle fund expects lower returns. 360 Finance financials. Today’s main analysis: U.S. yield curve inverts. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Why did OnDeck file suit in Arlington? Fewer Americans rely on cash. More than half of Americans can’t cover a $1,000 […]

The post Thursday December 20 2018, Daily News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

News Comments

Today’s main news: OnDeck to enter equipment financing. SoFi releases video to destigmatize debt. RateSetter sees 47% revenue growth. Funding Circle fund expects lower returns. 360 Finance financials.
Today’s main analysis: U.S. yield curve inverts.
Today’s thought-provoking articles: Why did OnDeck file suit in Arlington? Fewer Americans rely on cash. More than half of Americans can’t cover a $1,000 emergency. How to apply for a virtual banking license in Hong Kong. HELP debt in Australia. Can ASEAN P2P lenders avoid Chinese pitfalls?

United States

OnDeck to enter equipment financing market. OnDeck continues its comeback campaign by innovating and expanding its business. You can’t keep a good company down.
Why did OnDeck file their lawsuit in Arlington? An interesting analysis.
SoFi marketing campaign seeks to destigmatize debt. Is debt stigmatized? I thought the credit agencies did that years ago.
US Yield Curve inverts. Very interesting PeerIQ analysis.
Fewer Americans rely on cash. Still, in this day of maximum credit card usage and digital payments, more than half of Americans still make some purchases with cash. I would hazard a guess to say it’s mostly older Americans and, most definitely, the underbanked.
Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh most popular cities for millennial homebuyers.
When people fall behind on bills.
Argon Credit trustee sues former managers, owners for fraud.
Roostify offers enhanced ADA compliance to lenders.
Radius Bank goes mobile for micro-businesses.
Entegra Bank picks Velocity Solutions for small business digital lending.
LoanStreet adds Workers Credit Union to loan participation platform.
Lending Express appoints chief product officer, promotes chief operating officer from within.

United Kingdom

RateSetter grows revenue in 2017-18 by 47%. Congratulations. Awesome growth rate.
Funding Circle fund expects lower returns.
Orca opens IFISA waiting list.
Transferwise interview.
BLEND Network completes 10 million GBP investment round.
N26 Metal available in the UK.
Ex-Googler wants to help banks be more like Monzo.
Onfido sees 342% sales growth in 2018.
Megan Caywood leaves Starling Bank for Barclays.

China/Hong Kong

Southeast Asia

Other

News Summary

United States

OnDeck (ONDK) to Enter Equipment Financing Market (StreetInsider), Rated: AAA

OnDeck announced today that it will begin offering equipment finance loans to select U.S. small businesses next year, bringing its heralded technology and digital lending expertise to what has traditionally been a slow-moving, opaque, and complicated process.

Who’s On Deck? And why are they in Arlington? We explain. (Biz Journals), Rated: AAA

At 2 p.m. on a Friday in mid-October, it’s judgment day for 13 small companies from across the country.

The plaintiff is On Deck Capital Inc., a publicly traded online small business lender based in New York that has sued each of the 13 companies for not repaying loans. Its choice of setting: the Arlington General District Courthouse.

New SoFi Campaign Aims To Destigmatize Debt and Financial Insecurity In Powerful “Money Talks” Video (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

SoFi today launched a campaign showcasing some of its members’ most intimate stories around their personal struggles with money. Produced in collaboration with director Tatia Pilieva, the filmmaker most notably known for her sensational short film ‘First Kiss,’ the video captures twelve SoFi members, strangers to each other, meeting for the first time to have open-ended, unfiltered conversations about their lives, their money, and their views for their futures.

The video, along with more about the members featured in the video, are now live at

US Yield Curve Inverts; Spreads Widening on New FinTech Deals (PeerIQ), Rated: AAA

Core CPI rose by 2.2% keeping the Fed on track to raise interest rates next week for the fourth time this year. The market-implied probability of a rate hike next week is ~77%, although the rate hike path in 2019 remains uncertain. The US yield curve saw its first post-crisis flatteningwhich we will look at in greater detail below.

US Yield Curve Inverts for the First Time Post-Crisis

The US yield-curve saw its first inversion post-crisis as the spreads between the yields on 3-year and 5-year Treasuries fell to -1 bps. The spread between the yields on 3-month and 10-year treasuries has been an accurate predictor of past recessions. As the chart below shows, there have been 6 recessions since 1970 after the 3-month – 10-year curve inverted. Currently, the 3-month – 10-year curve is 49 bps away from inversion, but markets are watching every part of the yield curve closely.

Source: Federal Reserve, PeerIQ

Spreads are Widening on New FinTech Deals

LendingClub and CommonBond are out with new securitizations. KBRA has rated the tranches on LendingClub’s latest $272 Mn deal CLUB 2018-P3 A-, BBB, and BB. The $300 Mn collateral pool consists of 17,825 Prime loans with an average balance of $16.8 k, a weighted average coupon of 14.58%, and a weighted average remaining term of 48 months. The weighted average FICO score of the borrowers is 703. The deal has an initial O/C of 9.2% and an excess spread of 9.1%. Both the O/C and excess spread are the lowest for LC’s 2018 prime deals. This deal priced 27-50bps wider than LC’s prior deal in September due to market volatility and widening structured products spreads, according to DebtWire.

More Americans are making no weekly purchases with cash (Pew Research), Rated: AAA

Americans are becoming less reliant on physical currency. Roughly three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) say they make no purchases using cash during a typical week, up slightly from 24% in 2015. And the share who say that all or almost all of their weekly purchases are made using cash has modestly decreased, from 24% in 2015 to 18% today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that comes as some businesses experiment with becoming cashless establishments.

Read the full report here.

LendingTree Survey Finds More Than Half of Americans Can’t Cover a $ 1,000 Emergency with Savings (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Key points

Only 48 percent of Americans say they could handle a $1,000 emergency expense using cash or savings in their bank accounts. Tapping savings was the most common strategy for handling an emergency, followed by borrowing from friends or family.
Six in 10 Americans have had an emergency in the past year that cost them $1,000 or more.
One-third of Americans are currently in debt from an emergency expense they couldn’t cover.
Of Americans who had to go into debt to cover a past emergency, a third still owe $5,000 or more for this expense and about 18 percent have emergency debt balances of $10,000 or more.

The majority of Americans would have to turn to other options to pay for an emergency:

16 percent would borrow from family or friends
9 percent would sell something
9 percent would use a credit card
7 percent would work more
6 percent would get a loan or paycheck advance

Read the full report here.

LendingTree Study Finds Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh Are Most Popular Cities for Millennial Homebuyers (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Key findings

Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh are the metros where millennials are making up the largest percentage of purchase requests. In Salt Lake City, a majority of the total purchase requests in the area, 51 percent, come from millennials. In Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, 48 percent come from millennials.
In Tampa, Fla., Las Vegas and Miami, millennials are making the least purchase requests. Only 30 percent of purchase requests came from people under 35 in Tampa. That number was only slightly higher in Las Vegas and Miami, where 31 percent and 32 percent of purchase requests came from those under 35.
San Francisco, San Jose, Calif. and New York are where millennials wait the longest to buy homes. The average age for these three areas was 29.6 years old. This compares with an average of 28.7 years old across the remaining 47 largest metros in the U.S.
Salt Lake City, Louisville, Ky. and Cincinnati are the metros with the lowest average age of buyers under 35. In each of these areas, the average age for potential millennial homebuyers is around 28 years old.
San Jose, Calif., San Francisco and New York are the places where millennials had the highest average credit scores. In each of these areas, the average millennial homebuyer had a credit score higher than 704. By comparison, the average credit score for millennial homebuyers across the 50 largest MSAs in the country was 656.
Memphis, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala. and New Orleans are where millennials had the lowest average credit scores. Credit scores in these three areas were 622, 629 and 634 respectively.

Read the full report here.

When Do People Fall Behind On Their Bills? (LendingTree), Rated: A

Many people live paycheck to paycheck, relying on the next deposit that will hit their account to cover their living expenses, bills and debt payments. Despite many people having no or little savings on which to fall back, the vast majority of Americans (95%) in the largest 100 metros manage to pay their bills on time.

More Americans fell behind on their bills in December than at any other time during the 12-month period we reviewed. This timing coincides with spending for the holiday season, suggesting that some consumers stretched past their financial limits to celebrate this festive time.
Americans played a bit of catch-up on their holiday debt in January but fell slightly behind again in February. Year-end bonuses possibly helped some consumers pay immediate bills but didn’t resolve over-extension from holiday debt.
Many people caught up with their bills in April — right around tax refund time, a sign that many people rely on their refunds to get them current and caught up on payments. (Tax refunds in 2018 were delayed for millions of taxpayers due to extra scrutiny for people claiming certain common credits.)
The jump in people current with their bills continued through September. This continued trend suggests that the tax returns, and possibly improving economic conditions over the summer of 2018, helped people manage their existing debts going forward.

Argon Credit Trustee Sues Former Managers, Owners for Fraud (PR Newswire), Rated: A

In the first complaint filed on December 14, 2018 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago, Argon’s trustee Eugene Craneasserts that, “During the course of the Debtors’ limited business operations spanning approximately two years, Argon Credit’s officers and members of its board of managers repeatedly breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty and care to the Debtors and to the Debtors’ creditors by:

(i) scheming to funnel assets away from the Debtors and their creditors,

(ii) transferring assets to insiders;

(iii) double-pledging assets to the Debtors’ secured lender and an insider’s lender;

(iv) knowingly submitting false or misleading financial information to the Debtors’ secured lender, including a false accounts receivable report;

(v) paying themselves exorbitant “commissions” without disclosure to or approval of the Debtors’ board of managers,

(vi) using company funds to pay for personal expenses unrelated to the Debtors’ business operations; and,

(vii) authorizing the Debtors to enter into purported loans with investors which were really contributions of equity and authorizing equity distributions to those investors at a time when the Debtors were insolvent.”

In the second complaint filed against Joseph Canfora’s Margon LLC, James Uihlein’s Little Owl Argon LLC, Mark Triffler’sTriffler Trust, and Barry Edmonson’s Cardinal Trust, Crane’s complaint contends,

“This action arises out of a series of transactions between Argon Credit and the Defendants by which the Defendants purportedly loaned funds to Argon Credit and Argon Credit made supposed principal and interest payments to the Defendants totaling more than $2.5 million on account of those purported loans. However, Argon Credit and the Defendants also entered into simultaneous subscription agreements by which the Defendants received equity in Argon Credit for no additional consideration and which was commensurate with the amount of their purported loans. In reality, these supposed loans were disguised equity contributions and Argon Credit’s principal and interest payments to Defendants were actually equity distributions.”

The Bankruptcy Court filings can be found here and here.

Roostify Offers Enhanced ADA Compliance to Lenders for a Better Consumer Lending Experience (Roostify Email), Rated: A

Some of the design elements incorporated into the platform that support those with disabilities include:

The mortgage application allows users to navigate the system using only using their keyboard;
Text and images can be resized without the user losing any information or their place in the application;
Text and images offer sufficient contrast between foreground and background color combinations for those with visual limitations;
Navigational aids exist throughout the application from beginning to end.

Radius Bank Goes Mobile For Micro-Businesses (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Virtual bank Radius Bank — which services small businesses (SMBs), micro-firms and consumers — is rolling out a revamped digital banking platform and a mobile banking app, the company said on Monday (Dec. 17). Resulting from its partnership with FinTech firm Narmi, the upgrades target the customer experience, according to Radius CEO and President Mike Butler.

Entegra Bank Chooses Velocity Solutions to Power Its Small Business Digital Lending (deBanked), Rated: A

Velocity Solutions announced today that its Akouba digital lending platform was selected by Entegra Bank to power the bank’s digital lending for its small and medium-sized business customers. Akouba provides community and regional banks with origination and underwriting services.

LoanStreet Signs Up Workers Credit Union to Use Fintech Loan Participation Platform (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: B

LoanStreet, a Fintech “loan participation platform,” has signed up Massachusetts-based Workers Credit Union to its growing network.

Lending Express Appoints Former Maple Founder Ofer Ariel to Chief Product Officer; Promotes Daniel Katz to Chief Operating Officer (PR Newswire), Rated: B

Lending Express, the technology company dedicated to increasing access to funding for small businesses, today announced the promotions of Ofer Ariel and Daniel Katz to Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer, respectively. This announcement follows a period of impressive growth for the company, and is indicative of its commitment to provide best-in-class service to both its customers and partners.

United Kingdom

RateSetter Announces 2017-18 Revenue Growth of 47% (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

UK based peer-to-peer lender RateSetter announced last week the results of its 2017-2018 financial year, which ended on March 31, 2018. The lending platform reported that revenues were up by 47% (which was £34.3 million) from the previous year (£23.4 million). The company noted that the year-end, there were 44,441 active investors on the platform with loans under management of £700 million.

Funding Circle fund expecting lower returns (AltFi), Rated: AAA

A hit from its European Investment Bank transaction as well as higher UK loss rates have prompted a fall in expected returns for the Funding Circle SME Income fund.

The £332m Funding Circle SME Income Fund saw a fall in its net asset value (NAV) of 1.4 per cent in November as the investment trust’s board said it expected returns for the full year would be lower than previously anticipated owing to a higher expected rate of defaults among certain loan pools.

Orca opens waiting list ahead of 2019 IFISA launch (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

ORCA has opened a waiting list for investors interested in its self-select portfolio and Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA), with plans to launch both products in the first quarter of 2019.

The peer-to-peer lending analysis and investment platform, which first revealed its plans to launch a tax wrapper to Peer2Peer Finance News in October, said the Orca ISA will allow investors to hold multiple P2P loans from different providers in one tax wrapper.

It will offer interest of up to 6.5 per cent.

Transferwise – the power of partnerships (Fintech Futures), Rated: A

Cross-border payments were ripe for disruption and doing more than most to shake up things is peer-to-peer (P2P) specialist, Transferwise. Its number of partnerships with banks is multiplying while, in parallel, it is adding settlement options, most recently for direct access to the euro payment infrastructure through a euro settlement account with the Bank of Lithuania.

At present, with one notable exception, the partner banks that have been announced are challenger or other low-end players. However, it now claims over four million people around the world using its service to transfer over £3 billion each month. In the UK, global head of partnerships, Stuart Gregory, says its share of consumer international transfers is around 15%, putting in on or close to a par with some of the largest UK banks.

P2P property lending platform completes £10m investment round (AltFi), Rated: A

Peer-to-peer property lending platform BLEND Network has completed a £10m late-seed round of investing.

N26 Metal Now Available in the UK (coverageR), Rated: A

N26, the provider of mobile banking services which launched in the UK last month with a free account, is now offering N26 Metal – its first premium membership for UK customers.

This ex-Googler wants to help high street banks be more like Monzo (Yahoo! Finance), Rated: A

The head of innovation at one of Britain’s big high street banks told me earlier this year that he has a mantra when approaching a new problem: “What would Monzo do?”

Traditional banks are struggling to keep pace as Monzo pushes the boundaries. The startup sends smartphone push alerts when you spend money, knows when you’re abroad, lets you freeze your debit card if lost, and offers chatbot customer service — all through the app.

Onfido Sees 342 Pct Sales Growth In 2018 (PYMNTS), Rated: A

Onfido, the global identity verification company, announced Tuesday (Dec. 18) that it achieved 342 percent sales growth in 2018 compared with 2017 and that it has a four-year growth rate of 3,857 percent.

Starling Bank’s Megan Caywood jumps to Barclays’ ship (Fintech Futures), Rated: B

Megan Caywood, Starling Bank’s chief platform officer, is joining Barclays, as she handed in her notice a couple of weeks ago, according to TechCrunch.

China/Hong Kong

How a Chinese anti-virus software maker builds a fintech firm to wrestle with giants (TechCrunch), Rated: AAA

360 Finance, an online consumer loan platform that spun off from China’s anti-virus service giant 360 Group, has joined a raft of Chinese fintech companies to go public in the U.S. over the last two years.

The company priced its initial public offering at $16.50 per share last Friday, raising $51 million by selling 3.1 million American depositary shares.

Source: TechCrunch

You’ve applied for a Virtual Bank license, what’s next? (Hubbis), Rated: AAA

Hong Kong is preparing for the arrival of virtual banks (VB) — pure digital players that offer banking services solely through digital channels without bricks-and-mortar branches. In an exclusive article from Synpulse we discover the challenges associated with virtual banking.

What is your differentiating proposition?

With HKMA’s recent announcement of receiving 29 applications for VB, competition is expected to be intense.

Focus on Customer Needs

Basic banking services are about fulfilling three main needs of the customer:

How do I pay or get paid?
How can I borrow?
How do I grow or protect my savings?

Capitalize on strong partnerships

FinTechs have traditionally excelled in one particular area (e.g.p2p lending, remittance and FX conversion).

Avoid a Pure Discount Model

VBs can leverage their lower operating costs to provide lower fees, higher deposit rates or other price incentives to attract customers. However, without a clear differentiating proposition, a pure low-cost play will not be sustainable.

Jiayin, a Top Player in P2P Lending Business, Files for $ 57.5 Million IPO on Nasdaq (Capital Watch), Rated: A

A leading individual financial marketplace, Jiayin Group Inc., is seeking to raise up to $57.5 million in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in New York.

ByteDance registers fintech trademarks (Technode), Rated: A

In July, Jinri Toutiao launched a fintech product named Safe Lending. Up to 20,000 users were permitted to borrow up to RMB 200,000 (around $30,000) per person per day. The company claimed the Bank of Nanjing was one of its loan partners.

The product became the subject of investigations by the media in September. ByteDance later shuttered the online money lending service, while thousands of Chinese P2P lending companies shut down in the second half of the year.

PINTEC Partners with China National Investment & Guaranty Corporation to Develop Digital Lending Technologies (Markets Insider), Rated: B

Pintec Technology Holdings Ltd. (“PINTEC”) (NASDAQ: PT) today signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China National Investment & Guaranty Corporation (“I&G”), a leading enterprise in China’s guarantee industry. The two sides will jointly develop the next generation digital lending technologies and nurture a dynamic credit financing ecosystem for small and micro-sized enterprises in China.

European Union

Online Lender Creditshelf Partners with CrossLend to Offer First Digital Securitization of Loans (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Germany based Fintech creditshelf Aktiengesellschaft, an SME financing platform, is launching a new partnership with CrossLend to offer the first digital securitization of SME loans in Germany.

A Visit to Crowdestor in Riga (P2P Banking), Rated: A

On invitation of Crowdestor I travelled to Riga and met the founders of Crowdestor Janis Timma and Gunars Udris. Crowdestor is a Latvian p2p lending platform for SME loans. They launched a year ago. Loans are typically for terms of up to 18 months and interest rates are quite high – the current loan offer by a transportation company seeking expansion capital carries 17% interest rate. The Crowdestor website is available in English, German and Portuguese language. Currently most investors on the platform are Germans, followed by Spanish investors.

Funding Options: From Fintech Petting Zoos To SME Lending Sanctuaries (Forbes), Rated: A

Both financial institutions and fintech startups have made serving SMEs a priority in 2018. However, despite business current accounts like Mettle being created this year, online comparison marketplace Funding Options has helped millions of firms across Europe, especially those that cannot get traditional bank lending because they are early-stage, high-growth or in difficulty, since its launch in 2012.

International

Finastra announces Eric Duffaut as President and Global Head of Field Operations (RealWire), Rated: A

Finastra has appointed Eric Duffaut as President and Global Head of Field Operations. Based at Finastra’s London Headquarters, Duffaut will take responsibility for the company’s entire go-to-market organization including global sales, services and consultancy, as well as overseeing the Finastra partner ecosystem.

Token of Ethos.io, a leading cryptocurrency wallet provider and Blockchain Financial Services (BFS) platform, has been officially listed on Nitrogen Network, a new decentralized peer-to-peer crypto lending network.

Nitrogen Network enables market participants to lend and borrow cryptocurrencies on their own terms, all while maintaining control of their holdings and private keys. This supports effective portfolio management and a diverse range of investment views across a wide variety of crypto assets.

Australia

As banks rein in lending in the wake of the banking royal commission which revealed “irresponsible lending is endemic in Australia”, those who might have easily secured a home loan a few years ago now face much more stringent criteria.

Banks are looking more carefully at expenses and debts which, for 2.7 million Australians, will include a HELP (formerly HECS) debt.

India

NBFC Vivriti Capital secures Rs 200 Cr from Creation Investments in Series-A equity funding (Your Story), Rated: AAA

Vivriti Capital, a Chennai-based lending platform for corporate entities, has raised Series A equity funding of Rs 200 crores from Creation Investments, an investment management company focused on financial services.

Crowdfunding – A Brief Overview Of The Regulatory Framework (Mondaq), Rated: A

3. Peer-to-Peer Lending or Debt Crowdfunding: Peer-to-Peer Lending (P2P lending) is a form of crowdfunding used to raise loans which are re-paid along with interest. It can be defined as the use of an online platform that matches lenders with borrowers in order to provide unsecured loans. The borrower can either be an individual or a legal person requiring a loan. The interest rate may be set by the platform or by mutual agreement between the borrower and the lender. Fees are paid to the platform by both the lender as well as the borrower.²

4. Equity Crowdfunding:

The SEBI Consultation Paper furnishes proposals for a regulatory framework governing procedure of Security based Crowdfunding methods for Start-ups and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The Directions define a “Non-banking financial company – Peer to Peer Lending Platform”⁴(NBFC-P2P) as a non-banking institution which carries on the business of a Peer-to-Peer Lending Platform. Peer-to- Peer Lending Platform⁵ has been defined as an intermediary providing the services of loan facilitation via online medium or otherwise, to the participants⁶(a person who has entered into an arrangement with an NBFC-P2P to lend on it or to avail of loan facilitation services provided by it). Non-banking institutions other than companies have been prohibited from undertaking the business of Peer-to-Peer Lending platform.⁷ The Directions provide the scope of activities, prudential norms (the aggregate loans taken by a borrower at any point of time, across all P2Ps, is subject to a cap of Rs.10,00,000/-), operational guidelines, inter alia other regulations.

Southeast Asia

Why the ASEAN P2P lending market will avoid the Chinese pitfalls (ASEAN Today), Rated: AAA

To say that 2018 was a rough year for peer-to-peer (P2P) lending businesses in China would be a gross understatement. It was nothing short of a bloodbath, mirroring in many ways the US sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008-09.

China, despite its economic power, shares the following crucial features with smaller markets in South and Southeast Asia:

A large percentage of small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and individuals without access to traditional banking services
High mobile penetration among the population
Easy access to investor funds, both domestic as well as international

The Southeast Asian approach to P2P lending regulation is more proactive than the Chinese model

In the heydays of P2P platforms in China, the authorities pursued more of a “wait and watch” approach. In marked contrast, the regulatory bodies of Southeast Asian economies have adopted more pro-active steps to regulation.

Korea’s digital banks have two speeds: fast and faster (Asia Money), Rated: A

The average internet speed in South Korea is 26.7 megabits per second, faster than anywhere else in the world, according to French virtual private network developer Le VPN.

No Korean bank has ever been in the mix for this much-coveted prize. Nor did a single Korean firm appear in the latest Forbes rankings of the world’s 50 most innovative fintech companies. Indeed, it’s hard to identify a single well-known and home-grown fintech brand. There’s no Korean answer to, say, China’s Ant Financial, or Singapore-based ride-sharing-to-food-delivery service Grab.

OJK Pledges to Announce Names of Illegal Fintech Firm (Tempo), Rated: A

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) committed to monitoring legal and registered financial technology (fintech) companies of peer-to-peer lending or online loan as an effort to maintain the security for consumers.

Eurasia

Russia Is A Top Five Leader Of Digital Banking In Europe (Forbes), Rated: AAA

Because of the lack of legacy IT infrastructure within banks in Russia, the country has been listed in the top five leaders of digital banking in Europe, according to a new Deloitte and ID Finance report.

Latin America

Vitacon innovates again and launches an investment opportunity starting at USD250 with return of up to 12,8% per year (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Vitacon, a leading construction company that is revolutionizing the way people live in São Paulo, is launching one more investment opportunity for people seeking new options for earning income and diversifying their portfolios. The company, which for the past nine years has been incentivizing the shared economy in its residential developments, is launching the possibility for any investor to invest directly USD250 in a CD, a fixed income security issued by Banco Topázio, with a 24-month maturity, which allows for annual yields of up to 12.8%.

This new method, P2P Lending, is similar to one introduced in 2015, when Vitacon launched the first real estate crowdfunding, which surpassed expectations and created an international benchmark in the field, raising 28% above what was expected for the construction of the VN Cardoso de Melo building in a very prime location of São Paulo, scheduled for delivery next year.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

The post Thursday December 20 2018, Daily News Digest appeared first on Lending Times.

Thursday October 18 2018, Daily News Digest

Major US Banks Active Mobile Banking Users

News Comments Today’s main news: Upgrade to debut ABS bond. KBRA assigns preliminary ratings to Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1. Funding Circle launches free iPad incentive. China’s P2P lending is in trouble. Today’s main analysis: State laws put installment loan borrowers at risk. (A MUST-READ) Today’s thought-provoking articles: SoFi’s data science head on machine learning and non-traditional lending. LendingClub’s Bill Walsh says […]

News Comments

Today’s main news: Upgrade to debut ABS bond. KBRA assigns preliminary ratings to Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1. Funding Circle launches free iPad incentive. China’s P2P lending is in trouble.
Today’s main analysis: State laws put installment loan borrowers at risk. (A MUST-READ)
Today’s thought-provoking articles: SoFi’s data science head on machine learning and non-traditional lending. LendingClub’s Bill Walsh says marketing is a data problem. Is mobile banking reaching a saturation point in the U.S.? Advantages of P2B lending platforms for SMEs.

United States

Upgrade to debut ABS bond. Securitization is becoming the new milestone to target. When a company reaches this milestone, they have made a significant achievement for an alternative lender. But how long will it be that way?
KBRA assigns preliminary ratings to Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1. Good ratings all around.
SoFi’s data science head discusses machine learning and alternative lending. An excellent interview.
Marketing, at its core, is a data problem. Podcast with LendingClub’s Bill Walsh.
Mobile banking is reaching a saturation point. Maybe, if you’re only counting the big banks. But I’d like to see a true challenger bank with a viable mobile app achieve popularity. Mobile banking just doesn’t seem as popular in the U.S. as it does in Europe.
State laws put installment loan borrowers at risk. A must-read report from PEW Trust.
Zelle boosts P2P transactions 138% in Q3.
Risks proliferate for digital banks.
Outside Financial launches for auto loans.
CrowdStreet offers one-click investment for commercial real estate.
Credible.com unveils consumer-centric mortgage marketplace.
Talking about regulation.
The life and times of Dealstruck.
AFR Wholesale partners with Floify.
iintoo launches principal-protection product for retail real estate investors.
TRANSACT Tech San Francisco.
Finicity partners with Freddie Mac.

United Kingdom

International

Other

News Summary

United States

Online lender Upgrade prepares debut ABS bond (International Financing Review) Rated: AAA

Upgrade, an online lending company started by former LendingClub founder Renaud Laplanche, is looking to sell a debut asset-backed bond deal, four people with knowledge of the deal told IFR on Wednesday.

KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1 (Business Wire) Rated: AAA

Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) assigns preliminary ratings to four classes of notes issued by Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1 (“UPGR 2018-1”). This is a $286.390 million consumer loan ABS transaction that is expected to close October 30, 2018.

This transaction represents the first ABS securitization collateralized by unsecured consumer loans originated through the online marketplace lending platform operated by Upgrade, Inc. (“Upgrade”) and the first from the Upgrade Receivables Trust (“UPGR”) shelf. Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1 (“UPGR 2018-1” or the “Issuer”) will issue four classes of notes totaling $286.390 million. The proceeds from the sale of the notes will be used to purchase the loans and related rights from Upgrade Receivables Depositor LLC (the “Depositor”), who purchased the loans from the unaffiliated transferors, to fund the reserve account and to pay transaction expenses. The Depositor will in turn sell the loans to the Issuer.

Preliminary Ratings Assigned: Upgrade Receivables Trust 2018-1

Class	Preliminary Rating	Expected Initial Class Principal
A	A (sf)	$187,308,000
B	BBB (sf)	$32,569,000
C	BB (sf)	$28,440,000
D	B (sf)	$38,073,000

SoFi’s data science head: Opening the funnel to non-traditional borrowers with machine learning (Thomson Reuters) Rated: AAA

ANSWERS: What are some of the issues in machine learning that you are working to solve for right now?

WU: I think where machine learning plays the biggest role is in datasets that have extremely high numbers of dimensions, very low signal ratios and very sparsely populated values. For example, people in lending use data from the bureau. There are millions and millions of rows, there are thousands and thousands of columns. Each specific field has very little to no signal and each person has very few things that are actually populated. Those are opportunities where machine learning, particularly deep learning, has an extremely high potential.

ANSWERS: How can machine learning assist with lending decisions, and how does one keep bias from creeping into that?

WU: When making a decision on creditworthiness, machine learning can help lenders look at metrics beyond FICO and income. Whether it’s adding more information to traditional metrics versus determining creditworthiness of applicants without a full credit history, machine learning can drive tighter risk management while assessing borrower’s creditworthiness where traditional models cannot.

LendingClub’s Bill Walsh: ‘At its core, marketing is a data problem’ (Tearsheet) Rated: AAA

Today’s marketer on the hot seat is Bill Walsh, LendingClub’s general manager and head of marketing for personal loans. Bill brings an engineer’s approach to marketing. The MIT grad began his tenure at Lending Club in an operations role, where rigorous problem solving was used to solve some of the biggest problems in the business. Now that he’s leading marketing on the consumer side, he brings a similar approach.

We talk about how LendingClub defines marketing and approaches channels. We pay particular attention to a recent TV campaign you might have seen over the summer of 2018. Measuring and responding to the signal is core to LendingClub’s approach and in the course of this four week broadcast campaign, Bill’s team iterated twice. This puts ad agencies on notice — this is the new data-driven fintech marketing world.

Mobile banking is reaching a saturation point in the US (Business Insider) Rated: AAA

JPMorgan Chase counted32.5 million active mobile banking customers in Q3 2018 — an 11% year-over-year (YoY) increase from 29.3 million in Q3 2017.

That’s up from the 31.7 million active mobile customers in Q2 2018, but is also a slight deceleration from the 12% YoY growth in Q3 2017— following several quarters of decelerating growth: Chase has been adding around 800,000 mobile users on a quarterly basis.

Wells Fargo counts 29 million total active digital customers — 22.5 million of which use mobile banking. This marks an 8% annual increase in mobile banking customers, but a 4% YoY increase in total digital customers, demonstrating that most of its new customers are coming from mobile channels.

Source: Business Insider

State Laws Put Installment Loan Borrowers at Risk (PEW) Rated: AAA

Pew’s analysis found that although these lenders’ prices are lower than those charged by payday lenders and the monthly payments are usually affordable, major weaknesses in state laws lead to practices that obscure the true cost of borrowing and put customers at financial risk. Among the key findings:

Monthly payments are usually affordable, with approximately 85 percent of loans having installments that consume 5 percent or less of borrowers’ monthly income.Previous research shows that monthly payments of this size that are amortized—that is, the amount owed is reduced—fit into typical borrowers’ budgets and create a pathway out of debt.
Prices are far lower than those for payday and auto title loans. For example, borrowing $500 for several months from a consumer finance company typically is three to four times less expensive than using credit from payday, auto title, or similar lenders.
Installment lending can enable both lenders and borrowers to benefit. If borrowers repay as scheduled, they can get out of debt within a manageable period and at a reasonable cost, and lenders can earn a profit. This differs dramatically from the payday and auto title loan markets, in which lender profitability hinges on unaffordable payments that drive frequent reborrowing. However, to realize this potential, states would need to address substantial weaknesses in laws that lead to problems in installment loan markets.
State laws allow two harmful practices in the installment lending market: the sale of ancillary products, particularly credit insurance but also some club memberships (see Key Terms below), and the charging of origination or acquisition fees. Some costs, such as nonrefundable origination fees, are paid every time consumers refinance loans, raising the cost of credit for customers who repay early or refinance.

Source: PEW

Read the full report here.

Bank Of America’s Zelle Boosts P2P Transactions 138 Pct In Q3 (PYMNTS) Rated: A

Bank of America cut expenses and reduced its provision for credit losses as the financial institution also beat analysts’ revenue and earnings expectations. Bank of America, in reporting its latest financials on Monday, also said that Zelle P2P payment transactions increased 138 percent year over year.

Revenue increased about 4 percent year over year, hitting $22.8 billion, higher than analyst expectations of $22.67 billion. The financial institution reported earnings per share of 66 cents, which represents a 43 percent year-over-year increase and is above analyst expectationsof 62 cents. Net income grew 32 percent to $7.2 billion.

Bank of America said its provision for credit losses decreased $118 million during the third quarter of 2018, to $716 million. “The net reserve release was $216 million, driven by continued improvement in consumer real estate and energy portfolios,” the bank said in its Q3 financial report.

As digital banks proliferate, so do risks (American Banker) Rated: A

Facing intense deposit competition from online-only banks such as Ally Financial and Goldman Sachs’ Marcus, many traditional banks are looking to turbocharge their deposit gathering by launching — or considering launching — digital banks of their own.

PNC Financial Services Group is the latest big bank to join the fray, recently rolling out a digital-only bank in markets where it lacks a brick-and-mortar presence. Like JPMorgan Chase, Citizens Financial Group and a number of other regional and community banks, PNC is counting on its digital bank to attract low-cost deposits to fuel loan growth while also helping it reach new demographic groups.

Early results have been promising — PNC CEO William Demchak said Friday that he’s been “pleasantly surprised” by the response in the Kansas City, Mo., market — but with the space becoming so crowded, industry watchers are beginning to question if the U.S. marketplace can reasonably support so many new digital banks.

Source: American Banker

Outside Financial Launches to Help Consumers Save up to $ 3,000 on Auto Loan Packages (PR Newswire) Rated: A

Outside Financial, an independent auto loan marketplace, launched its consumer-first platform today to bring transparency to auto finance. The company is the first to offer full auto loan packages outside of the dealership, which can save customers $1,000 to $3,000, along with time and hassle. Outside Financial also arranges refinances for existing borrowers.

In 2017, Americans racked up $568.6 billion in auto loans¹, yet 60 percent of buyers don’t know they can bring their own financing to the dealership. The company’s new Outside Financial (OF) Markup Index* reveals that, on average, new car buyers are charged $1,717 in hidden markups when arranging their loans through a dealer.

Individual Investors Can Now One-Click Invest in Commercial Real Estate with CrowdStreet’s “Blended Portfolio” Offering (Benzinga) Rated: A

CrowdStreet, which operates the largest and most diversified online marketplace for direct equity investment in U.S. commercial real estate, is now raising $25 million for the company’s first CrowdStreet Blended Portfolio investment offering. To provide individual investors and registered investment advisors another way to diversify their investments with commercial real estate, the company plans a series of diversified and specialty portfolio investment options that will collectively raise and invest up to $170 million.

The first CrowdStreet Blended Portfolio’s proceeds will be deployed across 30-50 pre-vetted projects on the CrowdStreet marketplace, representing a broad range of commercial and multifamily asset types, risk profiles and geographies.

Credible.com Unveils First Truly Consumer-Centric Mortgage Marketplace (Business Wire) Rated: A

Credible.com, the leading online loan marketplace, announces the launch of its first-of-its-kind mortgage marketplace. Credible.com is the only mortgage marketplace that provides actual rates from top lenders in 3 minutes (without affecting a borrower’s credit score), and a streamlined digital origination process. The platform is designed to save borrowers frustration, time and money.

The Credible.com mortgage marketplace builds on the success of the company’s marketplaces for student loans, student loan refinancing, and personal loans, which have facilitated more than $1.6 billion in loans to date. The first product offered through the mortgage marketplace is mortgage refinancing, which went live today in 20 states that collectively represent 65 percent of mortgage originations.

Talking Regulation at the Online Lending Policy Summit (Lend Academy) Rated: A

The big topic of the day was the OCC’s Special Purpose National Bank Charter also known as the Fintech Charter. The topic was laid out for the audience by the first keynote speaker, Grovetta Gardineer, the Senior Deputy Comptroller for Compliance and Community Affairs at the OCC. She talked about the history of the OCC going back to 1863, with the National Banking Act, when the dollar supplanted state currencies as the sole currency of the United States, a revolutionary idea back then. Ms. Gardineer reaffirmed the authority of the OCC to introduce a national fintech charter and talked about how companies should proceed if they are interested. While she would not comment on specifics she did say that the OCC is currently having preliminary conversations with fintech companies but no formal application has been received yet.

The new head of the CFPB’s Office of Innovation, Paul Watkins, talked about the importance of the regulatory sandbox concept. He was one of the architects of the Arizona fintech sandbox and he is bringing that knowledge with him to Washington. He talked about the two main tools to help facilitate innovation at the CFPB: their trial disclosure program and the no action letter.

How Dealstruck Arrived, “Disrupted,” and Died – A Cautionary Online Lending Tale (deBanked) Rated: A

A self-described member of the “lucky sperm club,” a not-even 30-years-old Senturia went on to successfully raise $30 million of investor capital to fund his business, enough to fuel his rise and price-shame his competitors for years. But it wouldn’t last, as he detailed in book, Unwound, about the behind-the-scenes chaos that ravaged Dealstruck until the company closed for good in late 2016.

AFR Wholesale announces partnership with Floify (Housingwire) Rated: B

AFR Wholesale and Floify shook hands on a partnership, and AFR will now use Floify’s point-of-sale technology.

AFR’s goal in partnering with Floify, a 2018 HW Tech100 winner, is to reduce origination time and increase broker productivity. According to the release, Floify’s POS platform can save up to 15 hours of processing time per loan.

This is only one of an ever-increasing number of companies partnering with software companies or developing their own tech solutions in hopes of increasing productivity and getting some breathing room in the margin department in this tough mortgage market.

iintoo Launches Principal-Protection Product for Retail Investors Supported by Insurance Provided by Everest (iintoo Email) Rated: B

Online Real Estate Investment Management Company iintoo Investments Ltd. (“iintoo”) launched Epiic (Equity Protection Investment Community), the first-of-its-kind real estate investment product that provides principal protection for private accredited investors. Supported by insurance provided by an affiliate of Everest Re Group, Ltd. (NYSE:RE), a leading international reinsurance and insurance organization with operations that span the globe, and a social community pool, Epiic offers two layers of protection for investors’ principal.

iintoo opens up access to real estate investments that were once exclusive to professional funders and high-net-worth individuals. Starting at $25,000, accredited investors can invest in ownership shares in projected high yield, premium real estate projects. Each project undergoes a rigorous due-diligence and approval process provided by iintoo. In order to assess the risk factors in real estate investing, iintoo also conducted a thorough analysis of the real estate market in the United States, taking into consideration all sectors in all 50 states over the past 30 years.

TRANSACT Tech San Francisco to Examine the Impact of Software Providers on the Payments Industry (PR Newswire) Rated: B

The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) will bring together executives from leading banking, payments and FinTech companies on November 1, 2018 for TRANSACT Tech San Francisco at the Wells Fargo Connections Center. The event will explore how software services are changing the way key ecosystems players – processors, banks and hardware manufactures – serve merchants and channel partners.

The day-long conference will kick-off with a fireside chat with Secil Watson, Executive Vice President and Head of Digital Solutions for Business at Wells Fargo. “Customer expectations are changing rapidly, and pace of change in technology is accelerating.” said Watson. “Yet we still have cash and checks. What can we learn from today’s customer experiences to build a better payments ecosystem for tomorrow?

Finicity Partners with Freddie Mac to Provide Industry-Leading Automated Income and Asset Assessment Solution (Finicity Corp) Rated: B

Finicity, a leading provider of real-time financial data aggregation and insights, announced today it has been selected as a third-party service provider for the new Freddie MacLoan AdvisorSM automated income and asset assessment capabilities, which provide a faster, easier way for lenders to verify loan application data upfront. Finicity’s digital verification reports greatly improve efficiency and accuracy, while also providing a simpler, more pleasant borrower experience.

Freddie Mac announced its new income and asset assessment capabilities at the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Convention & Expo earlier today. Finicity’s verification reports are integrated within Freddie Mac Loan Product Advisor®, the cornerstone of Loan Advisor Suite. When the capability goes live later this quarter, asset verification will be generally available and income verification will be available as a limited release.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle launches ‘free iPad’ incentive (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: AAA

LISTED peer-to-peer platform Funding Circle is enticing new investors by offering a free iPads. But there’s a catch – they have to add at least £30,000 to their Funding Circle accounts before 16 November.

The P2P platform is also offering a number of other cashback and ‘giftback’ incentives to lenders who invest lower amounts of money.

Investors who add £20,000 to their Funding Circle accounts will receive £200 in John Lewis vouchers, while those adding £15,000 will get an Amazon Echo.

LendInvest Update: Accelerates BTL Production Application Volume Thanks to Rate Reductions (Crowdfund Insider) Rated: A

UK-based online lender LendInvest announced last week it has reduced rates and product fees across its Buy-to-Let product range. According to LendInvest, the pay rate for its five year fixed rate product has dropped to 3.60%, with the ICR calculation at a pay rate of 3.60%. Meanwhile, product fees for all BTL mortgages on standard property and HMO cases have been reduced to 1%, with borrowers who prioritize leverage in mind.

The lending platform also reported that for a limited time, valuation fees have been reduced to £100 for all standard property cases. LendInvest will now cover the borrower’s legal fee scale costs for standard property, standard conveyance cases, where dual representation is selected.

You think it’s going to be easy challenging the big banks? Think again (The Times) Rated: A

here has never been a more opportune moment for the pack of digital upstarts looking to topple the institutions that dominate the financial industry. Rarely does a week go by when a big bank does not suffer an IT meltdown, spewing sensitive data into the ether or freezing customers out of their accounts.

A decade after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, public distaste for the high street banks remains at elevated levels. Two thirds of Britons do not trust big banks to act in the best interests of society, according to a recent YouGov poll. The advent of smartphones, meanwhile, has fundamentally altered consumers’ expectations of their relationship with service providers.

Amex brings SME financing to UK with ezbob (Banking Tech) Rated: A

American Express (Amex) has partnered with online financing platform ezbob to offer UK SMEs competitive access to finance.

Through this partnership, eligible Amex business clients will receive a referral to apply for up to £300,000 in finance from ezbob at a fixed annual interest rate from 3%.

Carlos Carriedo, senior vice-president of global commercial services at Amex, says: “We know agility is crucial for smaller businesses to help retain a competitive advantage but accessing the finance needed to react swiftly to changing customer demands, or seize an opportunity, can be a challenge.”

Amex customers taking out a loan with ezbob will also benefit from a 40,000 Membership Reward points offer, the company adds.

Connect for Intermediaries announces new panel (Mortage Strategy) Rated: A

Connect for Intermediaries has announced the launch of a new unsecured lending panel.

Comprising Funding Circle, iwoca, Whitoak and Fleximise, the panel will be open to all of Connect’s AR members, and Connect will be able to obtain terms on behalf of other brokers as referrals.

Loans from £5,000 to £250,000 for up to five years will be available from 1.5 per cent.

Connect sales director Kevin Thomson says: “We have seen an increased demand for unsecured loans for trading businesses, as increasingly, brokers are coming to us with business clients who are looking to ease cashflow or expand their businesses.

P2P Lending Investment Returns Outstrip Many Market Competitors (CL News) Rated: A

P2P lending arrived in the UK back in 2010 with the launch of Funding Circle. The idea was simple. In the wake of the financial crisis, banks were – and still are – paying abysmally low rates of interest to savers. P2P platforms allowed savers to collectively lend money to businesses and individuals, usually over relatively short periods of time. By cutting out the middleman (or to be more precise, banks and other traditional lenders), P2P lenders were able to offer competitive rates to borrowers and superior returns to investors.

The market has evolved over the years. AltFi – which provides specialist news for the alternative investment industry along with a range of analytics services – says the market is growing rapidly. For instance, in 2015, P2P lending platforms brokered around £1.1bn in loans. In the first half of 2018 alone, the figure was £3bn. Separate figures from the Peer to Peer Finance Association reveal that its members have, to date, originated loans to a value of £9bn.

11:FS Foundry’s launch brings digital to banks (Banking Tech) Rated: A

Consultancy firm 11:FS has launched 11:FS Foundry, an approach to delivering digital banking services through a modular core banking architecture. It kicks off with the partnership with DNB, Norway’s financial services group, which has also become an investment partner.

DNB has invested £3 million for a 5% stake in 11:FS Foundry. This investment represents the long-term commitment between 11:FS and DNB to change how banks deliver digital banking services, the two companies say.

Watchdog warns payday lenders over customer complaints (Financial Times) Rated: A

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority encouraged payday lenders to proactively compensate past customers; the industry has come under a lot of heat in recent months after a surge of complaints; companies say a lot of these complaints are bogus and a pushed by professional claims management companies (CMCs)

Wonga was forced to shut down a few months ago after they saw a significant rise in complaints, complaints now cost companies more than $725 per complaint after the first 25 complaints; the rise in complaints has come after new rules were put in place in 2015 where high cost lenders we ordered to drop fees and adhere to stricter standards; a new survey by Kantar TNS showed that 60 percent of payday loan customers still pay more than anticipated.

Fintech offers fresh ways to finance an MBA (Financial Times) Rated: A

According to David Simpson, admissions director at London Business School, MBA students spend just as much time trying to find funding as they do trying to find the right program; while struggling to find his own financing Prodigy Finance CEO Cameron Stevens though there had to be a better way so he started Prodigy with two former classmates.

The company is now growing fast by offering a service few others do, while also collecting credit records from across the globe; “You have talented people who have proved their potential in receiving offers to business school,” says Mr Stevens to the FT. “The only barrier for them is funding, because the banks are still incredibly localised, as they were in the 1500s.”

Arbuthnot Banking Group PLC Third Quarter Trading Update (Arbuthnot Group) Rated: A

Customer Lending balances are 28% higher than at the same time in the prior year and originations of new loans are 18% higher. However, as previously stated, the Group remains committed to maintaining its discipline in both credit underwriting decisions and return on capital when extending credit.

The newly launched Asset Based Lending division continues to develop ahead of the original business plan and has a strong pipeline of new opportunities. The Specialist Finance division has now completed the hiring of its core team of six employees and is currently setting up its operations based in Manchester. It is expected that it will write its first deals toward the end of the fourth quarter or early 2019.

OakNorth appoints form PRA director to board (Finextra) Rated: B

OakNorth – the bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs – today announces the appointment of Martin Stewart, the former Director of Banks, Building Societies & Credit Unions at the Bank of England, as an Independent Adviser on its advisory board.

Stewart joined the Bank of England in April 2013 and spent five and a half years there. In addition to supervising UK banks, building societies, credit unions and new entrants into UK banking, he was a Member of the PRA’s Executive Team responsible for PRA regulatory policy. His regulatory experience also includes spending three years at the FSA between 2010-2013, where he was a member of the leadership team that defined and implemented the UK’s post financial crisis prudential regulatory regime that now underpins the work of the Prudential Regulation Authority. In addition to this, he has almost two decades’ board-level experience having been Managing Director of a group of European subsidiary companies of the IFG Group PLC for almost four years, and as Chairman of the International Credit Union Regulators’ Network for the last six years.

China

China’s P2P Lending Sector Is in Serious Trouble (Money Makers) Rated: AAA

P2P lending has been lucrative in China with little constraining regulation. The industry is worth as much as $120 billion and has been high-risk, but high return.

Chinese regulators have been clamping down on debt and financial risk, the number of loan defaults is rising, capital investments are running out of the sector, and Chinese citizens are losing money. And getting pretty angry about it.

In July 2018, 114 P2P lending platforms in China were shut down or had funds suspended, without warning, by China’s regulators over liquidity concerns. Since June 2018, 243 online P2P lending platforms have gone bust.

Several Chinese Peer-to-Peer Lending Companies Have Submitted Self-Inspection Reports (Capital Watch) Rated: A

With hundreds of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms having collapsed at the beginning of this year, different district-level financial bureaus recently rolled out a tougher reform on all P2P platforms’ risk compliance to ease a growing panic among investors.

This industry reform involves three major steps. First, all platforms have to complete a P2P Compliance Self-Inspection Report and submit it to the bureau by the end of October. Then, companies will be inspected by its local Internet Finance Industry Association, a non-state association. This will be followed by verification of inspection results by district-level Municipal Bureau of Financial Work with field inspection and a possible final check by higher-level government organizations.

New York-listed Hexindai Inc. (Nasdaq: HX) and PPDAI Group Inc. (NYSE: PPDF) both announced that they have completed and submitted the report.

European Union

A risky investment (Euro Weekly News) Rated: AAA

MANY UK nationals living part of the year in Spain, or visiting often, might spend months here but still retain tax residency in their home country.

This means those looking for investment opportunities can still take advantage of UK tax efficient products such as Finance ISAs – ones which use peer-to-peer lending to offer high rates of return. They may be nothing new but one legal justice firm has upped the ante offering returns of up to 8 per cent a year.

International

Advantages of P2B platforms in lending to SMEs (Lendit Conference Blog) Rated: AAA

In the EU and Australia, SMEs comprise 99.8% of all the firms and employ about 67% of the workforce. To tell the truth, SMEs might be rightfully called the economy, not just the backbone of it. A few other facts that follow are paradoxical. 2 years ago, International Finance Corporation (under World Bank) presented statistics that the gap for underfinanced SMEs around the world stood at 2.6 trillion $. One might expect, the situation got better in recent years with the global economy picking up and showing better and better numbers. On the contrary, most recent statistics from the same institution shows that the gap has widened to 5.2 trillion $.

P2P platforms make lending process global

P2B platforms can connect a business on one side of the world with an investor from another side of the world, and with a third party providing a service from yet another part of the world. All applications for loans can be made online, processed, assessed and the decision made within a matter of a few hours. Compare it to a similar process with the banks and the difference, that of speed and efficiency becomes clear. As an asset (loan) is put on the platform, investors can start investing within a matter of seconds. In such a way, a local business, somewhere in Eastern Europe can get funds from someone (or institutional investors) in UK or Germany and be able to use the collected amount for business operations within a couple of days.

4 developments that will shape the future of fintech (Business Matters) Rated: A

Within the past decade, we’ve seen the landscape of fintech move from a few disruptive start-ups to an industry that’s changing the landscape of business altogether. Consumers are becoming more and more accepting of technology as part of their day-to-day finance, a factor that has stretched the services sector and levelled the playing field with traditional institutions.

For instance, there has been a monumental shift in the way that consumers are managing their money. PwC’s Global Fintech Survey 2017 found that 84% of incumbent financial services providers believed their customers were already making payments with fintech companies, 68% thought customers were conducting fund transfers, and 60% said their clients were using fintech for their personal finances.

Quona Capital leads $ 5 million round for Brazilian small business lender BizCapital (Impact Alpha) Rated: A

Brazilian fintech firm BizCapital launched operations in January to help Brazil’s small business owners secure capital necessary for the day-to-day and growth needs of their businesses. Quona Capital, a financial tech investment firm that spun out of Accion, has led the company’s R$20 million ($5 million) investment round. Two existing investors, Monashees and Chromo Invest, both based in Brazil, also participated.

Roughly 70% of Brazil’s micro and small business owners are shut out of mainstream bank lending and instead resort to taking personal loans, which can carry interest rates as high as 200%. BizCapital offers short-term loans for up to R$150,000 ($40,000) at annual rates in the mid-double digits. The company hasn’t disclosed the size of its loan book but says it’s received more than 100,000 credit requests and serves customers in all 26 Brazilian states.

Australia

Global corporate lending platform, Trade Ledger has warned the Federal Government of substantial weaknesses in its proposed Open Banking implementation plan, when compared to the global best-practice model.

These primarily include the lack of an independent implementation and governance organisation, and limited consumer and small to medium-sized enterprise representation in the development of industry standards.

According to Trade Ledger, these omissions “risk a scaremongering campaign around data security that could stall progress and reduce the scope of the changes, leaving the door open for overseas financial markets to take over our local markets in the new era of Open Banking”.

India

UIDAI Asks Non-Banking Fintech Companies To Stop Aadhaar-Based Services (Inc 42) Rated: AAA

After getting telecom companies to submit their exit plans from Aadhaar-based services, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the Aadhaar regulatory body, has now asked digital payment companies to stop offering any sort of Aadhaar-based service on their platforms.

In a letter, the UIDAI also directed digital payment companies to submit confirmation of closure of Aadhaar-related authentication and their alternative plans to exit from the Aadhaar-based ecosystem.

According to reports, the UIDAI has sent the letter only to non-banking companies such as PayPoint, Eko India Financial Services, and Oxigen Services, among others.

Citing unnamed sources, an ET report stated that banks and payment companies such as Paytm, which have obtained banking licences, have not received the notice.

Africa

Kenya Moves to Regulate Fintech-Fueled Lending Craze (The New York Times) Rated: AAA

Kenya built a reputation as a pioneer of financial inclusion through its early adoption of a mobile money system that enables people to transfer cash and make payments on cellphones without a bank account.

Now, a proliferation of lenders are using the same technology to extend credit to the banked and unbanked alike, saddling borrowers with high interest rates and leaving regulators scrambling to keep up.

This week, the finance ministry published a draft bill on financial regulation which covers digital lenders for the first time. A key aim is to ensure that providers treat retail customers fairly, it said.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor

Tuesday September 4 2018, Daily News Digest

Marketplace lenders have fared substantially worse on the stock market than other fintechs

News Comments Today’s main news: Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates back Wagestream. Funding Circle plans 300M GBP IPO. P2P lenders take in 300M GBP in second year of IFISA. Hong Kong receives 29 bids for virtual bank licenses. Today’s main analysis: Does fintech has a vicious funding circle? Today’s thought-provoking articles: Samir Desai discusses Funding Circle’s IPO as plan to […]

News Comments

Today’s main news: Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates back Wagestream. Funding Circle plans 300M GBP IPO. P2P lenders take in 300M GBP in second year of IFISA. Hong Kong receives 29 bids for virtual bank licenses.
Today’s main analysis: Does fintech has a vicious funding circle?
Today’s thought-provoking articles: Samir Desai discusses Funding Circle’s IPO as plan to conquer America. Q3 lending earnings insights. Sub-prime lenders shrug off Wonga’s political cloud. China’s fintech giants have the clout to dominate.

United States

Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos back UK-based Wagestream. This makes sense, but I wonder if they may be thinking that their own employees will be the ones to take advantage of what Wagestream has to offer.
Samir Desai on Funding Circle’s IPO as a path to conquer America. This is an excellent article with a lot of detail and critical perspective. It discusses more than Funding Circle and UK lending. There is also much to say about international competition, including China, U.S., Asia, and the rest of Europe. A great read.
Does fintech have a vicious funding circle? This is a great quetion, and an excellent exploration into its answer.
Q3 2018 Lending Earnings Insights. From PeerIQ.
Scratch intros loan servicing platform that align interests of lenders and borrowers.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle to raise 300 milliong GBP in London IPO. This is an important IPO. Not just for Funding Circle, but for the online lending industry as a whole. Could it take Funding Circle beyond Europe?
Funding Circle’s IPO will be open to existing investors.
Don’t be blinded by Funding Circle’s wizardry.
Funding Circle to host cryptocurrency event to promote women in fintech.
Sub-prime lenders shrug off Wonga’s political cloud. After Wonga’s collapse, will there be another online lender to step up and take over the market?
Kreos Capital is first in line for Wonga payout.
P2P lenders record taking in 300 million GBP in IFISA’s second year.
Cash ISA accounts are at an 18-year low.
County Down Developments gets 250,000 GBP credit facility from Blend Network.
Casper offered Klarna credit without permission.

China/Hong Kong

Fintech giants have the clout to dominate. And with the continued crackdown on smaller firms, they are the likely beneficiaries of the clamp down.
Hong Kong Monetary Authority gets 29 bids for virtual bank licenses.
Airwallex to seek virtual bank license.
Banks expect stable earnings growth.
State banks to boost lending.

Other

News Summary

United States

As Wonga Collapses, Zuckerberg, Bezos & Gates Back A Fairer Alternative To Payday Loans (Forbes), Rated: AAA

Samir Desai On Funding Circle’s $ 2 Billion IPO And His Plan To Conquer America (Forbes) Rated: AAA

Funding Circle has already facilitated over £5 billion ($6.37 billion) in loans since launching in 2010, mostly from its home U.K. market.

Funding Circle facilitated over £1 billion in loans to small businesses during the first six months of 2018 alone.

It’s now on track to become London’s biggest fintech IPO since global payments giant WorldPay’s bumper £4.8 billion ($6.1 billion) listing in 2015.

Source: Funding Circle

In the U.K. just 5% of businesses say Funding Circle when asked where they would go for finance, according to the company’s data, and 95% continue to chose their banks.

The Risk of a Vicious Funding Circle in Fintech (Bloomberg) Rated: AAA

There are fintechs, and then there are fintechs. Cheerleaders point to payments startups like Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc., whose stock has soared 242 percent in a year, as evidence of a Silicon-Valley-style revolution in the making. But there are sob stories, too: loan platforms LendingClub Corp. and On Deck Capital Inc. are still trading well below their IPO prices. Promises of break-neck expansion often crash into the reality of regulated finance.

Source: Bloomberg

Lending Earnings Insights (2018 Q3) (PeerIQ) Rated: AAA

We remain in the late stages of the credit cycle. The US consumer has benefitted from record low unemployment, rising incomes and home prices, and a lower tax rate. The supply of credit and competition to offer loans is increasing. Lenders are optimistic about consumer spending and debt levels, and are reserving for potentially higher losses in the future.

We see divergent credit performance across FinTech asset classes. Enova (Subprime) and OnDeck (Small Biz) are seeing near cycle-low charge-offs, while LendingClub (Prime) is seeing higher delinquencies on newer vintages. LendingClub also increased its charge-off estimates across loan grades by ~40 bps QoQ.

Card issuers are increasing loan loss reserves at a higher rate than loan growth, indicating expectations of higher losses going forward. Loan loss provisions are increasing at roughly twice the rate of loan growth across card issuers, but overall reserve levels are still low.

Scratch Introduces First Loan Servicing Platform To Align Financial Interests of Lenders and Borrowers (Scratch Email) Rated: A

Scratch, a new financial technology company started in 2015 to transform the antiquated business of getting America’s $13 trillion household debt repaid, introduced the first loan servicing platform to align the financial interests of lenders and borrowers.

The Scratch loan servicing platform empowers borrowers with a simple web application for understanding, managing and paying back their loans while providing lenders accurate, real-time portfolio insights. And, by automating the back-office complexities of loan management, Scratch can devote more resources to giving borrowers the attention and guidance they deserve.

Loan Servicing Crisis Persists

U.S. household debt composed of mortgages, student loans, auto loans, credit cards, home equity lines of credit, and other consumer loans, is at an all-time high and growing daily.

Today, household debt is at a high of $13 trillion and 8 out of 10 Americans carry some type of debt, including mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and auto loans. And everyone who has a loan has a loan servicer.

United Kingdom

Funding Circle plans to raise £300m in London IPO (Financial Times), Rated: AA

Funding Circle has announced plans to become the first of Britain’s new generation of financial technology companies to go public, in a deal expected to raise £300m and value the peer-to-peer lender at more than £1.5bn.

The initial public offering of Britain’s biggest peer-to-peer lender will provide a significant test of investor appetite for the breed of fintechs that have sprung up in the past decade to challenge high-street banks. Funding Circle has arranged £5bn of loans to small companies in the UK, the US, Germany and the Netherlands since its launch in 2010 by connecting businesses looking to borrow money with retail and institutional investors willing to lend them money.

However, the company’s prospective value of more than £1.5bn is above the current value of US-listed peers OnDeck and Lending Club, which have both suffered tumbling share prices since their lPOs.

Funding Circle IPO will be open to platform’s existing investors (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: A

FUNDING Circle has said it expects its existing investors will be able to become shareholders in the company after it goes public.

Funding Circle said that its initial public offering (IPO), if it goes ahead, would aim to raise around £300m, with at least 25 per cent of the company’s issued share capital to be placed on a free float.

In a blog post on its website, also on Monday, the P2P lender said that its customers would have the opportunity to apply to participate in the IPO and become a shareholder in Funding Circle via an intermediaries offer.

Don’t be blinded by the wizardry of tech darling Funding Circle (London Evening Standard) Rated: A

Given that Funding Circle’s flotation comes just days after the collapse of that other trailblazing fintech, Wonga, it’s hard not to compare the two.

Both were launched to fill the gaps in the lending market where traditional banks feared to tread. Both used tech wizardry to check they were lending to the right people at the right price. Both brilliantly deployed digital technology to make their services simple and fast to use.

Hopefully, for future investors, the similarities end there.

Funding Circle to host cryptocurrency event to promote women in fintech (Peer2Peer Finance) Rated: B

FUNDING Circle is to host a panel event focusing on cryptocurrency, described by the organisers as “one of the most interesting but least understood areas of fintech.”

The event is being held in connection with FinTechWomen, a London-based meet-up group, and is sponsored by Funding Circle.

UK sub-prime lenders shrug off political cloud (Nasdaq), Rated: AAA

UK sub-prime investors are shrugging off Wonga’s cloud. Customer complaints and a regulatory clampdown forced the payday lender to stop making loans. The likes of Amigo Holdings and Non-Standard Finance have different models, and regulators’ blessing. Yet, with Wonga out of the picture, they too risk becoming the focus of public ire.

Investors love it. Amigo’s return on equity will be around 40 percent this year, using Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, while it and Non-Standard Finance should grow revenue on average by more than 20 percent each year up to 2021, analysts reckon. NSF, which has a more diversified business including unguaranteed loans, is valued at over 17 times forward earnings. Amigo’s shares were priced at 12 times forward earnings even after a selloff promoted by disappointing results on Thursday. The consumer finance sector on average trades at less than 11 times forward earnings, according to Eikon.

Hedge fund Kreos Capital is first in line for Wonga payout deal after lending the collapsed payday loan company around £34m (This is Money) Rated: A

A Mayfair hedge fund is at the front of the queue to be paid by collapsed Wonga as fears grow that thousands of its hard-up customers will get nothing.

Kreos Capital lent Wonga about £34million two years ago and is understood to be still owed around £10million by the payday loan company.

Under the arrangement, it is thought to be in line to collect that sum ahead of other creditors.

P2P lenders record £300m intake in second year of the IFISA (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

ALMOST £300m was invested across Innovative Finance ISAs (IFISA) in the previous tax year, HMRC data reveals.

The latest ISA statistics from the taxman shows £290m of subscriptions in IFISA for the 2017/2018 tax year across 31,000 accounts.

P2P lenders saved £9,355 on average.

Zopa revealed it received more than £150m in its IFISA during the previous tax year.

The data shows that savers subscribed to 10.8 million Isa accounts during the 2017-18 tax year, down from 11.1 million in the previous tax year. This represents a fall of 10%.

P2P marketing clampdown ‘may restrict IFISA takeup’ (P2P Finance News), Rated: A

Stuart Law, who heads up the business P2P lender, warned that the strong take-up of the IFISA could be hampered by the FCA’s proposed marketing restrictions for the sector.

Under the proposed changes, platforms would be restricted to marketing to those who are certified as sophisticated or high-net-worth investors or those that certify that they will not invest more than 10 per cent of their net portfolio in P2P agreements.

Northern Irish housebuilder secures £250,000 from P2P platform (Development Finance Today), Rated: A

County Down Developments has received a £250,000 facility from Blend Network for the development of four luxury apartments in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

The loan from Blend Network came after the housebuilder was turned down for a loan by Barclays.

Mattress start-up Casper offered credit in UK without permission (Financial Times), Rated: B

A US online mattress start-up backed by rapper 50 Cent has been forced to stop offering credit to UK customers, after it emerged it had been doing so without permission from the regulator.

Casper, a five-year-old company that is on a major European expansion drive, was allowing UK customers to buy on credit from Swedish bank Klarna.

China/Hong Kong

China’s Fintech Giants Have The Money And Means To Dominate Despite The Wider Slowdown (Forbes), Rated: AAA

China has experienced a fintech explosion in recent years, with top companies dominating the industry. It’s not an accident that

HKMA Receives 29 Bids for First Round of Virtual Bank Licences (Regulation Asia) Rated: AAA

Standard Chartered, WeLab, Zhong An Bank and HKT among several banking, technology and telecom firms applying for virtual banking licenses.

Twenty-nine financial and technology firms, including Standard Chartered and WeLab have submitted applications to obtain Hong Kong’s first online-only banking licenses.

Tencent-backed Airwallex to join push for Hong Kong virtual bank license (SCMP) Rated: A

The company shifted its headquarters to Hong Kong from Melbourne earlier this month as it prepares to submit a virtual banking license application, along with partners, ahead of Friday’s deadline.

Airwallex co-founder and chief executive Jack Zhang said the company will team up with a traditional bank and other local partners as part of the application process, although he declined to reveal their identities.

Another reason for the relocation to Hong Kong is proximity to major clients, including Tencent, online travel operator Ctrip, e-commerce JD.com as well as traditional lender Bank of East Asia.

Stable earnings growth expected by mainland banks, but bad-loan worries linger (SCMP), Rated: A

And Beijing’s crackdown on the peer-to-peer lending sector – the shadow banking system that saw rampant illicit and risky behaviour continue in the first half of this year – has helped increase demand for corporate lending levels too.

The country’s big four banks – Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of Chinaand Bank of China – reported profit rises of between 5.2 and 7.9 per cent in the three months ending June.

China’s state banks to boost lending as Beijing fans economy (Nikkei), Rated: A

First-half earnings showed the lenders rallying after several years of low growth. Collective net profit rose 5.7% year on year to 532.1 billion yuan ($77.9 billion), while the lenders’ average ratio of bad debt fell 0.06 percentage point in six months to 1.52% at the end of June.

European Union

INSTANTOR OPENS UP BANK API – PROVIDING UNIQUE ACCESS TO HALF A BILLION PEOPLE (Fintech Finance), Rated: B

Today Instantor, the Swedish fintech company making financial decisions easy, announces, WDSK, The World Domination Starter Kit. The WDSK is an initiative to support start-ups and scale-ups to develop next-generation products by giving them access to Instantor´s Bank API with no associated costs for new Instantor customers. By using Instantors bank API, developers will have access to transactional data from over 300 banks in 25 countries, with the potential to reach half a billion people. Instantor´s bank API has an unrivaled reach, and the WDSK initiative includes access to several markets outside new Open Banking legislation. The authentication and the end user’s interaction with banks are handled by Instantor, and the data can be accessed once the end user has given their consent.

International

Robo-advice not dead: GlobalData (Financial Standard) Rated: A

The analyst suggested robo-adviser may be ahead of their time, given high net-worth demand for robo-advice is on the rise among the next generation of investors.

“While robo-advice is here to stay, it will take time to cement itself. The digitally-savvy next generation will embrace an automated service and big banks should capitalize on this. However, a big brand is not enough to justify much higher fees,” Woldemichael said.

To succeed, incumbents will have to provide a level of service, and prices, that are genuinely competitive with those offered by startups.”

Australia

Collapse of UK payday lender Wonga sounds warning for Aussie fintech vigilance (Australian Financial Review) Rated:AAA

The collapse of Wonga, one of Britain’s most high-profile fintech lenders, provides salient lessons for Australia, which considers the UK a template for financial technology policy and where tighter laws to protect vulnerable customers from payday lenders appear to have stalled.

Wonga, built around a slick app allowing customers to get expensive loans via their mobile phone, was “notorious for its extortionate interest rates and was a toxic symbol of Britain’s household debt crisis”, said The Guardian last week.

The payday lender “failed because it was too greedy and at times crossed the ethical line”, it said, quoting prominent UK financial columnist Martin Lewis, who described Wonga’s loans as “the crack cocaine of debt – unneeded, unwanted, unhelpful, destructive and addictive”.

Micro lender makes big difference (Latrobe Valley Express) Rated: A

Her heartfelt story was told at Good Money’s one-year anniversary last week during what Carol described as a “life-changing event” after borrowing money to buy essential appliances like a new fridge and washing machine.

The low to no-interest lender was set up in July last year in partnership with Good Shepherd Microfinance and the National Australia Bank, following a $2.3 million investment from the state government.

More than 2900 people made enquiries in the hub’s first year, and the store has provided more than 500 no and low-interest loans for household appliances, car-related expenses, household furniture and costs such as medical and education expenses.

India

China’s FinUp, existing investors back digital lending startup SlicePay (VC Circle) Rated: AAA

SlicePay, a digital lending platform which caters to college students and young professionals, has raised an undisclosed amount in an extended Series A round of funding led by Chinese firm FinUp Finance Technology Group.

The company said in a statement that existing investors Blume Ventures, Japan’s Das Capital, and Russia’s Simile Ventures had also participated in the round.

A person close to the development who did not wish to be named pegged the deal at $14.9 million (around Rs 105 crore at current exchange rates).

Asia

Southeast Asia’s startups suffer from Series B funding crunch, says Kredivo’s Gar (Deal Street Asia), Rated: AAA

Having recently raised what is estimated to be the largest Series B funding round for a fintech firm in Southeast Asia, Indonesia-focused lending platform Kredivo says the process was far from smooth sailing.

The company was forced to look beyond the region to raise the majority of its fund, as it found that there were simply very few investors in the region that specialized in doing Series B investments.

MENA

Tel Aviv Climbs on List of Top 10 Undergraduate Programs for Entrepreneurs (CTech) Rated: B

Tel Aviv University is among the top ten global undergraduate programs in terms of producing venture capital-backed entrepreneurs, according to a report published last week by Seattle-based market research company Pitchbook. Pitchbook ranked Tel Aviv in eighth place, up from ninth last year, above Yale, Princeton, and Brown.

Two other Israeli universities made the top 50 list: the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology came in at 14, while the Hebrew University of Jerusalem placed at 35.

Authors:

George Popescu

Allen Taylor