The Summit seeks to create opportunity for responsible industry participants to share insights, propose standards and provide regulators and policymakers with consensus viewpoints on the regulation of online lending. The Online Lending Policy Summit will include participants from across the Online Lending Industry, including: online lenders, academics, lawyers, banks, consumer advocates, servicers and regulatory agencies, […]
The Summit seeks to create opportunity for responsible industry participants to share insights, propose standards and provide regulators and policymakers with consensus viewpoints on the regulation of online lending. The Online Lending Policy Summit will include participants from across the Online Lending Industry, including: online lenders, academics, lawyers, banks, consumer advocates, servicers and regulatory agencies, amongst others.
Speakers include:
U.S. Congressman Gregory Meeks
U.S. Congressman Trey Hollingsworth
Paul Watkins, Director of the Office of Innovation, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Maria T. Vullo, Superintendent, New York State Department of Financial Services
Joanne Barefoot, CEO, Barefoot Innovation Group & Cofounder, Hummingbird Regtech
Frank Borcher, MD, General Counsel & Secretary, Marlette Funding LLC
Gordon Watson, Partner, Victory Park Capital Advisors
Peter Renton, Founder, Lend Academy
Michael Koenitzer, Director of Business Development, Global Debt Registry
News Comments Today’s main news: Upgrade gets $62M injection from CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund. Elevate Credit issues earnings results. Wonga on the brink of collapse. Today’s main analysis: Calculating spreads for valuation, competition, and opportunity in unsecured lending (A MUST-READ). Today’s thought-provoking articles: Lenders who shunned personal loans are now competing for them. The sophisticated algorithms behind P2P […]
CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund (CEFIF), the U.S.-based Fintech Fund of the Chinese fintech CreditEase, recently led $62 million Series C round investment for consumer credit platform, Upgrade.
Competition – and Opportunity – in Unsecured Lending
Competition for personal loans is heating up. Mailings soliciting personal loan borrowers exceeded credit card mailings in six of the last seven months, even though the credit card industry is almost 6 times larger. Goldman Sach’s Marcus has been one of the new competitors having originated nearly $4 Bn in personal loans since their launch – approximately a $2 Bn annual run-rate – smaller than Lending Club and others, and likely tempering their ambitions due to late-cycle credit conditions. Marcus recently launched in the UK with personal loans and savings accounts.
Source: PeerIQ and TransUnionSource: PeerIQ and TransUnion
Valuation Framework
The price of a loan is the present value of the loan’s future cashflows (after accounting for losses and prepayments), discounted by an appropriate discount rate:
Source: PeerIQ
Calculating the Spread at Origination
The SATO is a zero-volatility spread over the benchmark swap curve that equates the present value of the cashflows to the market-observed price. Since the benchmark is considered a risk-free rate, SATO is effectively a credit spread due to the uncertainty of future cash flows.
Elevate Credit (NYSE:ELVT) announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 30th. The company reported $0.07 EPS for the quarter, topping the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.05 by $0.02, MarketWatch Earningsreports. Elevate Credit had a return on equity of 12.68% and a net margin of 0.14%. The business had revenue of $184.38 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $186.46 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.08 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.5% on a year-over-year basis. Elevate Credit updated its FY18 guidance to $0.55-0.90 EPS.
Lenders are stepping up offers of consumer loans with few strings attached, often to individuals with poor credit histories they all but ignored in the years after the financial crisis.
The offers promise a way to help pay down other debts or fund home renovations or vacations, fueling concerns that customers could overextend themselves. “Take control of your finances,” says one mass mailing. “Your dream can come true,” says another.
American ExpressCo. , Goldman Sachs GroupInc.,GS -0.52% LendingClubCorp.LC -1.54%and Social Finance Inc. are among those behind an onslaught of unsolicited mailings offering unsecured loans, known as personal loans, as large as $100,000. In the first half of this year, lenders mailed a record 1.26 billion solicitations for these loans, according to market-research firm Competiscan. The second quarter marked the first period that lenders mailed out more offers for personal loans than credit cards, a much bigger market, according to research firm Mintel Comperemedia.
One of the companies that has capitalized on growing consumer interest in P2P is LendingClub Inc. The company has issued $38 billion in loans since its founding in 2007, and the firm has built a sophisticated technology platform on which to evaluate risk and put investors and borrowers together.
LendingMatch is essentially the firm’s secret sauce. The system relies on algorithms that can weigh a number of key factors, including an investor’s risk tolerance and the borrower’s credit score, to determine a suitable match. Other factors include geography, education and connectedness within social networks.
It’s no surprise FinTech lenders are disrupting the mortgage industry In 2017, the top lender in the United States was Quicken Loans with $25.1 billion. The second largest loan issuer was Wells Fargo. FinTech lenders process mortgage applications faster (10 days as opposed to 50 days). They also have lower default rates — 25% lower (source). FinTech lenders also tend to be more agile and flexible when it comes to adapting to changing financial circumstances.
What is the size of the U.S. Housing Market?
If you combine mortgage debt and housing equity you get a total value of $25.1 trillion, which is nearly $2.5 trillion more than its previous peak in 2006.
Jeffrey Meiler founded Marlette Funding in 2013. The CEO calls himself the company’s “first employee.”
Five years later, there’s more than 300 of those. Its quick growth, and Meiler’s drive in heading the Fairfax-based lender known for its brand Best Egg resulted in a Top Workplaces award for leadership at the mid-size company level.
Marlette Funding as a whole placed second overall among mid-size companies as the best place to work.
The opportunity for alternative credit and small dollar loans remains high with a market size that approaches $40 billion annually. To help these lenders better segment risk in an increasingly competitive market, TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) introduced today the CreditVision Link Short-Term Risk Score.
This new predictive risk scoring model, tailor-made for alternative lenders, combines traditional and alternative data to offer a holistic picture of consumers. Information about the benefits of this new risk score will be highlighted during TransUnion’s webinar, Alternative Loan Insights with TransUnion Risk Scores, scheduled for 1 p.m. CDT on August 30.
Unity Bank, whose holding company is based in Augusta Wisconsin, and which has branches in Minnesota, has selected Finastra’s Total Lending solution to streamline its commercial lending and consumer lending processes, including its agricultural lending business.
Britain’s biggest payday lender, Wonga, is teetering on the brink of collapse following a surge of customer compensation claims in recent weeks that could cause it to call in administrators.
The short-term loan provider has reportedly lined up accountancy firm Grant Thornton to handle a potential administration of the company should its board believe it is unable to avoid falling into insolvency. The report from Sky News said Wonga could appoint Grant Thornton as soon as this week.
Just a little over a week after launching its latest equity crowdfunding round on Seedrs, Short-term peer-to-peer lending platform Welendus has successfully secured its initial £850,000 funding target. Founded in 2015, Welendus seeks to redefine the short-term lending market by launching a peer-to-peer short-term lending platform to help customers with short-term financial needs.
This announcement was in addition to the P2P lender reporting a surging interest from business owners and developers in the last two months, which saw it fund over £60m to SMEs.
In order to fulfil the influx of enquiries, Assetz Capital has appointed six more regional relationship directors in 2018, bringing the total to 26, and has also hired four senior relationship managers across the UK.
VICTORY Park Capital Specialty Lending (VSL) is expecting to recommence payment of performance fees to its investment manager in the coming months, after an improvement in net asset value (NAV) returns.
In its latest monthly report, released on Friday, the alternative finance-focused fund reported a total NAV return of 1.15 per cent in July.
In May, VSL posted a record NAV return of 1.03 per cent – the highest figure since its fruition in March 2015 – and has now posted NAV returns above one per cent for three consecutive months.
At the same time that China is putting pressure on the crypto industry, peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency lending continues to gain in popularity. According to local media outlet Sohu, more and more crypto lending platforms are popping up, but their livelihood could ultimately be cut short because of tightened regulations in the country.
One source close to the activity is a crypto veteran, Zhang Le. He told the media outlet, “At present, most of the market only recognizes two major currencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum. This business is currently earning interest.” Another individual, Xu Lizhen, pointed out that those lending crypto are generally long-term holders who have no interest in trading on the markets. He added, “This is just the need. When the currency is low, people who are speculating in the currency will definitely not be willing to sell the coins. Once they are short of money, they must find such platforms. The demand has formed this market.”
Crowdfunding giant Indiegogo has expanded its cryptocurrency operations to make room for security tokens. This comes less than a year after the company started offering tokens on its platform last December.
According to Crowdfund Insider, Indiegogo’s first security token offering (STO) is already available on the platform. The STO is from a luxurious ski resort, St. Regis Aspen Resort in Aspen, Colorado. According to reports, Indiegogo will only allow accredited investors to purchase the resort’s Aspen Coins, which will be offered by a real estate investment trust (REIT) called Aspen Digital.
With smart contracts, ownership can be attested and linked to the terms of a specific contract. Smart contracts are kept on the blockchain and performed automatically as a part of the transaction. For instance, the XDC blockchain is constructed upon Quorum. The power smart contract functionality which exists in the Ethereum protocol is accessible easily via Quorum. XinFin created a smart contract manager which enables for interoperability between the public blockchains and XDC blockchain. The platform included punitive smart contracts which link to the QuorumChain consensus smart contracts to guarantee those who stake at XDCs to operate network infrastructure remain truthful.
A transaction management company that specializes in blockchain technology believes that Mindanao will be a good place to implement this kind of technology by connecting large business companies to micro entrepreneurs to create one economic force.
Statistics shows that one of the reasons why a typical farmer refuses to open a bank account is because they only wear slippers. “It sounds absurd but is the truth. Most of the indigenous people in this region doesn’t have their own identities so they have the tendency to change their names if they want to. They are prone to abuses because of this,” she said.
According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the fintech space has witnessed an explosive growth in the recent years and digital lending industry is expected to touch $1 trillion over the next five years.
Here is a comprehensive list of top 10 P2P lending startups in India:
Hiring activity in the non-banking financial companies (NBFC) sector is likely to expand by up to 35-40 per cent in the next 12 months driven by rising innovation and growth, according to industry experts.
The ability of NBFCs to tap ‘unbanked’ customer base at a time when the banks are facing headwinds in coming out of the NPA mess is driving the growth in the sector, they explained.
Experts see increased hiring in tier-II cities for roles in sales, collection underwriting and risk.
Datasigns Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs fintech lending platform Shubh Loans, has raised $4.2 million in an investment led by venture capital firm Saama Capital, said Monish Anand, founder of Shubh Loans. Shubh Loans’ existing investors—SRI Capital, Beenext and Pravega Ventures—also participated in the round. The fintech startup had raised $1.6 million from these investors in September 2017.
The main partnership, with its growing customer base, has seen the Pi Pay app downloaded 270,000 times in the last year with close to US$100 million in transactions processed through the app.
Partnerships with merchants mean Pi Pay can be used in over 2,100 locations across Cambodia, with new partners being added every day.
Partnerships with overseas fintech giants like Alipay and WeChat have opened up new possibilities for Pi Pay merchants to service the growing number of Chinese visitors to the Kingdom.
The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has issued a regulation on financial technology (fintech), which is more comprehensive than a prevailing regulation that only regulates peer-to-peer lending.
The regulation, issued on Aug. 15, consists of 45 articles that cover innovation in digital technology for the financial sector, kontan.co.id reported on Friday.
The regulation covers a number of issues such as transaction settlement that relates to investment, while for fund-raising, the regulation covers equity crowdfunding, virtual exchange, smart contract and alternative due diligence.
Kenya-based financier Lendable has secured a Sh45 million convertible grant from Dutch Development Bank (FMO) that will go into funding alternative lenders set up across the region.
Lendable, a fintech platform for unconventional lenders, operates in microfinance and other pay-as-you go services including energy.
News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi partners with Ladder to offer life insurance. LendingClub has a new chief lending officer. BlueVine offers credit to QuickBook customers. Tencent, Alipay lose $1B due to payment rules. CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund ranked 3rd globally. Today’s main analysis: PeerIQ Marketplace Lending Loan Performance Monitor, May 2018. Today’s thought-provoking articles: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo mobile […]
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo mobile banking trends. This indicates that mobile banking is on the rise, but it makes me wonder why we don’t see more growth in the specialty digital banks that have started in the U.S. in the last few years.
Where home price inequality is highest. Very interesting to see that the concentration of home price inequality is in the Mid-Atlantic and the south. It’s lowest in the western states.
Social Finance (SoFi) today began offering life insurance to customers through a partnership with Ladder, a Palo Alto, California, startup. Customers who sign up for the co-branded service will be eligible for fully underwritten term life coverage worth up to $8 million. Most will get a policy quote instantly, sidestepping the hassle of a doctor’s appointment.
SoFi previously offered life insurance to its 500,000-plus members through Protective. But the customer experience was relatively traditional, and the value of connecting the service to SoFi was unclear. With Ladder, SoFi customers will be able to increase or decrease their coverage over time, as their needs change. SoFi, with its knowledge of customers’ overall finances, will be well-positioned to recommend such adjustments
The San Francisco online lender said in a press release Monday that it had hired Ronnie Momen to oversee its credit strategy, including credit data use, analytics and innovative products. Momen will report directly to Steve Allocca, LendingClub’s president.
Momen previously was chief credit officer at the fintech company GreenSky. He was also chief credit officer for consumer unsecured products at Wells Fargo, where he was in charge of building risk capabilities for the company’s card and private-label products.
Redesigned MPL Loan Performance Monitor tracks the delinquency rates, cumulative losses, cumulative prepays and transition matrices using public marketplace lending data that comprises unsecured consumer loans originated by Marketplace Lenders.
Show delinquencies (%), cumulative losses (%) and cumulative prepays (%) on this data set, broken out by annual vintages from 2013 – 2017. We further break the performance out by original loan terms of 36 and 60-months.
The right-hand axes show the outstanding loan balances broken out by either vintages or loan terms, which allows analysis of performance metrics in conjunction with the pool factor.
Overall, we notice that delinquencies and cumulative losses on newer vintages are higher while cumulative prepayments are lower than those seen on older vintages at the corresponding loan age.
OnDeck announced today that it will report financial results for the second quarter of 2018 on Tuesday, August 7, at approximately 7:00 a.m. ET. The company will host a conference call to discuss the results at 8:00 a.m. ET that same day.
The conference call will be webcast live on the company’s Investor Relations website and it can also be accessed toll free by dialing (866) 393-4306 for calls within the U.S., or by dialing (734) 385-2616 for international calls. The Conference ID # is 7156659.
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo announced their Q2 2018 earnings on Friday, which echo the trend of ongoing but decelerating growth in mobile banking as the market matures.
JPMorgan Chase counts 31.7 million active mobile customers, up 12% from 28.4 million in Q2 2017. That marks a slowdown in growth, both from the 13% annual growth it posted last quarter and from the 15% it posted in Q2 2017.
Wells Fargo counts 28.9 million total active digital users, 22 million of whom use mobile banking. That demonstrates slow annual growth of just 4% year-over-year (YoY) from its 27.9 million total active digital customers in Q2 2017, as well as a slight uptick from 28.8 million users in Q1 2018, which could indicate recovery of active users in the wake of the bank’s fake account scandal.
Source: Business Insider
This slowdown is likely because of saturation in the digital banking market. Eighty-three percent of consumers use mobile banking, making it nearly ubiquitous, according to Business Insider Intelligence’s Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Report (enterprise only). That saturation, not a decline in interest, is causing firms to add digital customers at a slower rate; they’re seeing customers new to banks rather than those new to mobile offerings.
LendingTree today released a study on where home price inequality is highest.
Key Findings:
Detroit, Birmingham, Ala. and Indianapolis have the highest home price inequality in the nation, with a level of inequality twice that of the most equal markets.
Salt Lake City, Portland, Ore. and Denver have the least home price inequality. The 95th percentile of home values is 3x the value of the 5th percentile in these markets, compared with over 10x the value in the most unequal markets.
High home prices don’t necessarily mean high inequality. The San Jose and San Francisco metros, with the highest values for the 95th percentile of homes ($2.7 million and $2.3 million respectively) ranked No. 41 and No. 33 out of 50 for inequality.
The metros with the most inequality tended to have very low prices for the 5th percentile of home values.Of the 10 most unequal markets, none had a 5th percentile home value of $100,000 or more, and averaged $48,500. The most equal markets had a $242,100 average value for the 5th percentile of homes.
The World Bank lists the income GINI for the U.S. at 0.415 in 2016. Only our top ranked city, Detroit at 0.446, was above this level. So income inequality is greater than home value inequality, a phenomenon also reflected in the fact that wealthier households don’t need to spend as high a portion of their earnings on housing.
More than 1 million people waited to get access to a cryptocurrency trading platform on Robinhood. (The company did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment.) And over 100,000 people have signed up in the last year for the waiting list for Petal, a no-fee credit card that has not yet launched, the company said. SoFi Money, a bank account through the lender SoFi, would not disclose an official number on its waiting list, but said it was “multiple tens of thousands.”
Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) assigns preliminary ratings to three classes of notes issued by Marlette Funding Trust 2018-3 (MFT 2018-3). This is a $402.31 million consumer loan ABS transaction.
This transaction represents the eighth securitization collateralized by unsecured consumer loans originated by Cross River Bank, under the Marlette Best Egg Platform and sold to Marlette Funding, LLC (“Marlette”) or its affiliate.
Intuit essentially runs two different partner platforms: one open and one closed. Intuit’s closed platform generally consists of one to three, hand-picked partners in a few categories. For a handful of lucky lenders, Intuit offers the QuickBooks Financing Platform.
Limited in number, these integration partners were offered early access to the growing QuickBooks community of business owners. In 2016, Intuit tapped BlueVine, a business lender known for its factoring product, to offer credit to QuickBooks customers.
Investment trusts raised £230m in June, 65 per cent less than the £654m raised in May and 81 per cent less than the amount raised in June 2017.
Twelve investment companies have come to market in the year to date, raising £1.1bn — 40 per cent less than the £1.7bn raised at the same point in 2017, when nine new trusts listed, but raised far more.
PEER-TO-PEER lending has been cited by the Treasury as an example of fintech’s ability to reduce risk in the financial sector by reducing concentration.
The government released a response on Tuesday to the 2017 fiscal risks report, which outlines the actions it is taking to address the 57 risks outlined by the UK’s fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The response noted “the comparatively large and highly concentrated UK banking system” as a financial risk to the UK.
Progressive regulation, government support, access to talent, to funding and to sophisticated capital markets infrastructure – these are the strengths most commonly cited in explaining London’s emergence as a global fintech hub. But there’s another, less-vaunted reason that is becoming increasingly important.
In part as a result of the factors listed above, London boasts perhaps the world’s most active digital banking sector. Between Monzo,Revolut, Starling, Tandem, Atom, Loot,Curve and Tide – to name but a few – it’s already a very competitive market, featuring at least a few billion dollar businesses and spanning several million customers.
Take peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, for example. By connecting those with money to invest with those looking to borrow, it allows you to target what could amount to a healthy, inflation-beating return, with less of the ups and downs of the stock market. And transaction costs are often minimal, too, with many platforms totally free to use.
Property-backed P2P lending in particular has proven popular because the loans are secured on bricks and mortar. It means, should the borrower be unable to repay the loan, the property can be sold to help pay the debt, ultimately reducing the risk to the investor.
The new bank, based in Leeds in the north of England, is the creation of five founders – all with plenty of experience with the old order and one challenger bank in particular.
Nancy Butler (commercial director) has worked at Atom, Santander and RBS. Craig Iley (chairman) did a stint at Atom; while Jonathan Thompson (CEO) has experience at Santander.
Jon Hogan (director) worked at Atom. In addition, Richard Baker (MD savings) was employed at Atom and Metro.
On its website the bank says it is “aiming to transform the way SME lending is delivered”.
In terms of specifics, it asks for a minimum investment of £25,000 and interested parties can download an investment memorandum. It is also looking for expressions of interest and people can reserve their allocation in its investment round.
China’s savers are rushing to pull money from peer-to-peer lending platforms, accelerating a contraction of the $195 billion industry and testing the government’s ability to maintain calm as it cracks down on risky shadow-banking activities.
In some cases, savers are turning up at the offices of P2P operators to demand repayment, spooked by reports of defaults, sudden closures and frozen funds. At least 57 platforms have failed in the past two weeks, adding to 80 cases in June, the biggest monthly tally in two years, according to Shanghai-based Yingcan Group.
New rules set by China’s central bank have the potential to wipe out more than $1bn in revenue for Alipay and Tencent; third party payment groups now need to hold all customer funds in reserve.
Previously payments groups were able to invest customer funds at banks to earn interest; the PBoC has been slowly implementing changes requiring 20 percent of funds to be held, then 50 percent and now 100 percent; the move is meant to protect fraud and protect customers according to the PBoC.
The changes do not affect mutual funds like Yu’E Bao.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and seven local lenders will launch a trade finance platform using blockchain technology in September, reflecting efforts by the city to bolster fintech development and close the gap with regional rival Singapore.
Lenders taking part in the project include HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of East Asia, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, Hang Seng Bank, and DBS Bank, according to a statement.
Pinduoduo made waves this week after aiming for a $1.63 billion IPO in the United States. The Chinese company is only three years old. Following the Pinduoduo news, two-year-old Sina-backed fintech startup Pintec also filed for a United States-based IPO, hoping to raise $70 million.
The Beijing-based startup is a technology platform that provides financial services that connect businesses to their end users. Its software covers installment loans, personal loans, SME loans, wealth management, and insurance brokerage services. One of its most popular offerings is online lending, which facilitated RMB 3.9 billion loans for over 1.1 million unique borrowers by the end of 2017, per its filing.
Not many companies end up inspiring their own verb like Google. But there are small signs, at least in the UK, that it is happening to Klarna, the Swedish financial technology start-up.
“Klarna it,” a young woman urges her friend on Twitter who is hesitating about a purchase with online retailer Asos. Asos offers Klarna’s “pay later” function, which gives shoppers 30 days to settle their purchases and allows them to return items without ever having paid for them.
CreditEase, a China based peer to peer lending platform, has been recognized for its Fintech venture fund by a CB Insights report. According to the report, the CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund is number three in the world when it comes to ranking the most active Fintech VCs in the world.
While CreditEase started life as an online lender, the company has morphed into a Fintech conglomerate providing robo-advisory services, crowdfunding, Insurtech and more. Additionally, CreditEase, and their Wealth Management Fund of Funds, is a limited partner in many Fintech VCs.
The Fund invests in five subcategories within Fintech: Lending, Payments, Personal Finance / Wealth Management, Enterprise Solutions, and Insurtech.
Anyone can track a Venmo user’s purchase history and glean a detailed profile – including their drug deals, eating habits and arguments – because the payment app lacks default privacy protections.
By accessing the data through a public application programming interface, Do Thi Duc was able to see the names of every user who hadn’t changed their settings to private, along with the dates of every transaction and the message sent with the payment. This allowed her to explore the lives of unsuspecting Venmo users and learn “an alarming amount about them”.
Source: Public By Default / Hang Do Thi Duc & The Guardian
Globally, 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked, which means more than one-third of the world’s population does not have formal financial services. It is believed that bringing unbanked adults and businesses into the formal financial platform could generate about $380 billion in new revenues for banks.
LALA world is hoping to create a financial ecosystem for all, where services including low-cost remittances, cashless payments, peer-to-peer lending, fiat lending, etc.prevail under one umbrella. It is opening the door to regulated financial services stating that it has great potential to protect up to $42 billion from what it calls “the grey market.”
LALA world has the vision to reach people with limited resources through blockchain, without needing to understand the underlying technology.
Discount broker 5Paisa.com is planning to raise about ₹103.5 crore through a rights issue to enter the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending business, said chief executive Prakarsh Gagdani in an interaction with Mint.
5Paisa.com is a discount broker, which was listed in November 2017. The company is backed by the IIFL group, which is engaged in distribution of financial services and broking. It plans to use the funds for investing in improvisation of technology platform, scaling up its business operations and invest in alternative businesses.
Bangalore-based finzy is the premier peer-to-peer (P2P lending solution in India. It connects borrowers with investors and makes the entire process simple and easy. finzy makes the entire borrowing process simple and user friendly. You can get your loan funded in as little as 48 hours.
Amit More, founder and CEO, finzy, tells us more. Excerpts:
Who are your borrowers, typically? Also, how do you determine profiles of lenders?
Around 80 percent of our borrowers are salaried and 20 percent are self-employed. Contrary to the perception that the P2P industry is the lender of last resort and only cater to borrowers not served by banks and NBFCs, we, at finzy, offer loans, starting at a best-in-class rate of 10.99 percent per annum.
Vemanti Group, Inc. (OTC PINK:VMNT), a technology-driven holding company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to take 20% equity interest in eLoan, JSC (“eLoan”), a Fintech company based in Vietnam whose focus is to build a decentralized ecosystem of financial services starting with its business-centric online Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending marketplace.
Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, eLoan () is a P2P lending marketplace that match investors with borrowers, allowing anyone to lend money directly to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Established in December 2017, the company is operational and post-revenue.
eLoan is the brainchild of CEO Trung Vo, a respected C-level banking veteran, and CTO Tom Tran, a seasoned Internet commerce executive and serial entrepreneur. eLoan is the first P2P lending company in Vietnam focusing purely on serving SME clients with short-term loans. Businesses can borrow up to $250K for up to 6 months. The company determines the loan rate based on risk category and loan term. Unlike traditional banks, the approval process is much quicker with decision made in as little as 24 hours. Whole or fractional loans are participated by individual and institutional investors. Investors make money from the interest charged on participated loans which currently stands at 12%-20% annually while eLoan earns revenues by charging borrowers an origination fee on each funded loan. There is no fee charged to the investors.
Cadre, an online startup which makes commercial real estate investments, recently expanded into Canada through the opening of a Toronto office focused exclusively on software product development.
The Canadian office of the fintech firm is strictly for research, engineering, and product development and “we are not raising money or signing deals in the area,” says Raj Singh, director of product and head of Canadian operations at Cadre. Singh joined Cadre in December to run the Toronto office.
News Comments Today’s main news: Kabbage to launch payment services. Funding Circle SME Income Fund limited force signal moves past key line. Zopa boosts TruFin results. DEPO launches to help lenders accept digital assets as collateral. Qudian stock drops 16.5%. Today’s main analysis: Deep dive into MFT 2018-2 vs. AVNT 2018-A (A MUST-READ). Today’s thought-provoking articles: Credit score improvement […]
Kabbage to launch payment services. AT: “Expansion is a good thing, and Kabbage has been making some great strides lately. Of course, there are a few ways to expand. Expanding services is just one of them, but a very important one.”
MFT 2018-2 vs. AVNT 2018-A. AT: “A very good, deep look at Marlette’s MFT 2018-2 securitization and Avant’s AVNT 2018-A. A great comparison. A must-read.”
GreenSky’s IPO is online lending litmus test. AT: “A very good look at GreenSky’s value versus LendingClub’s and Prosper’s. We can debate why the two latter have had struggles since their IPOs, but the industry is maturing now and GreenSky’s IPO could signal a new wave of online lending IPOs. If it does well, a floodgate could open. If not, the doors may shut for a long time.”
Decentralized lending: Is it too good to be true? AT: “A sober look at a new buzzword. Lenders should be cautious about jumping on the decentralized bandwagon and throwing about a word that might be misleading or confusing. If your lending business is truly decentralized, fine, but is that really a distinction that can drive value?”
Kabbage Inc, a U.S. online lender for small businesses, plans to launch payment processing services by year-end, President Kathryn Petralia said on Monday, helping it to diversify and compete more directly with industry leaders PayPal Holdings Inc and Square Inc.
The Atlanta-based startup will offer tools to enable clients, mostly brick-and-mortar businesses, to accept card payments in-store and online, Petralia said in an interview.
This week we compare 2 very different MPL personal loan securitizations – Marlette’s MFT 2018-2 Prime deal and Avant’s AVNT 2018-A Near Prime deal.
Collateral Comparison
AVNT 2018-A has lower average loan size by $6,435, shorter weighted average loan terms by 9 months and higher WAC by 16.28%. This is a reflection of the quality of borrowers that Avant and Marlette target. Marlette’s prime borrowers have higher weighted average FICO scores by 59 points than Avant’s near prime borrowers. The geographic distribution is quite similar between the two deals.
Source: PeerIQ, KBRA
Bond Characteristics and Pricing
The significantly higher WAC on AVNT 2018-A leads to a 14.8% pickup in excess spread. KBRA’s base case loss estimate is 7.4% higher on AVNT 2018-A, which leads to a 7.4% higher loss-adjusted excess spread on AVNT 2018-A.
Source: PeerIQ, KBRA
Capital Structure
AVNT 2018-A has 3.3% lower O/C which is compensated by 14.8% higher excess spread. The A tranches have similar CE in both deals but Marlette’s A is rated one notch higher.
The introduction of tighter underwriting criteria continues to pay off for the online consumer lender Avant.
The company, which was founded in 2012 and is based in Chicago, was able to lower the credit enhancement, again, on its latest securitization, the $221.9 million Avant Loans Funding Trust 2018-A.
Kroll Bond Rating Agency assigned an A- to the $149 million senior tranche of notes to be issued, which benefit from 38.42% credit enhancement. That’s down from 41.8% on the comparable tranche of its prior transaction, completed last year.
LendingTree today released its study on the top places with rising credit scores. With credit scores being a crucial component of personal financial stability and opportunity, LendingTree analysts decided to look at anonymized My LendingTree users who logged into their accounts in both the first quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018 to determine the top metros for rising credit scores among the 50 largest in the United States.
Below are some of the key takeaways from the study.
Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Denver and Tampa saw the highest rate of rising credit scores among the 50 biggest metros from Q1 2017 to Q1 2018.
Virginia Beach, Va., Los Angeles and Birmingham, Ala., had the lowest rate of rising credit scores, with 47 percent of Virginia Beach users raised their credit scores.
San Jose (Silicon Valley) saw the most dramatic rises in credit scores, with the highest rates of people who raised their score by more than 75 points and 100 points.
In the majority of the 50 metros analyzed, more than 50 percent of users improved their credit scores between Q1 2017 and Q1 2018.
About one in three increased their scores by over 20 points, and 3.5 percent were able to improve their scores by 100 points or more.
It wasn’t long ago that online lenders were ascendant. More than $3 billion in capital from investors as diverse as Japanese conglomerate SoftBank GroupCorp. and celebrity chef David Chang gushed into lending startups in 2015, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Analysts at Morgan Stanley predicted that year that the nascent industry would account for 10% of all unsecured consumer and small-business loans by 2020.
Investors soured on the sector. Shares of LendingClub, which once had a market value of about $10 billion, are down 77% from their IPO price. Prosper’s valuation was slashed by more than two-thirds in a private fundraising round last year.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
GreenSky said in its IPO filings that it has facilitated more than $12 billion in loans to consumers for home-improvement projects and elective medical procedures.
Part of GreenSky’s advantage comes from its relatively low customer-acquisition costs. LendingClub’s biggest expense is sales and marketing, which last year rose to $229.9 million, equivalent to 40% of revenue.
Recently, Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup joined Capital One and Discover in banning cardholders from using them to buy cryptocurrencies. Credit cards were one of the most popular payment methods because of their relatively low fees and instant transaction rates, and investors are having to look at other options to make their investments.
Source: Bankrate
You can borrow money from a family member or friend, or you can use a peer-to-peer lending platform like SoFi to leverage funds for Bitcoin investments. However, be cautious when borrowing money for an investment. Interest rates can eliminate any gains you get from the investment, and the risk of losing money in such a volatile market is high.
The acting director also responded to a question about qualified mortgages which has left the industry scratching its head since. Was Mulvaney separating fintech marketplace lending from traditional mortgage lending, or was he drawing a line between depository mortgage and non-depository mortgages?
Legislation that would ease banking regulations — and modify rules governing credit reports and some consumer loans — is headed for likely passage in Congress any day now.
The bill cleared the Senate in March with some bipartisan support and is expected to be voted on by House lawmakers this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday.
The measure rolls back some of the regulations imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. That legislation came on the heels of the financial meltdown that rocked the U.S. economy a decade ago, when risky and unaffordable mortgages contributed to millions of homeowners losing their houses to foreclosure.
Main Street banks are feeling squeezed by competition from new rivals: nonbanks like hedge funds and private-equity firms that are elbowing into business loans.
Growth in business lending has picked up recently—it was up 3.3% year over year as of May 9, according to Federal Reserve data released Friday, after falling below 1% earlier this year. But the growth rate is still far below where it’s been in recent years, when loans to businesses grew at a double-digit clip for much of 2014, 2015 and 2016.
The board members of R Bank in Round Rock, Texas — who include the Hall of Fame fireballer Nolan Ryan, a co-founder of the bank — hold accounts there, and they, like most other patrons, knew its old technology made for clunky customer service.
So, says president and CEO Steve Stapp, he channeled those irksome experiences into board support for an investment in a systems overhaul at the $455 million-asset bank.
For community banks in highly competitive markets, service with a personal touch can be a differentiator to win and keep customers. But when legacy technology hampers the customer experience, all the cups of coffee in the world won’t help.
Blippy, which was hyped up to a $46.2 million valuation back in 2010 before the world realized that almost nobody wanted a dedicated network for sharing and viewing each others’ purchases. Well, guess what? Someone’s trying a Blippy-like thing again — this time, in the form of a new app called Vota, which automatically records your credit card purchases and the places you visit so you can share them with friends or family, or view them privately for your own reference.
As a byproduct of this data collection, you may spot credit card fraud or other errant charges, too, or just get a handle on your spending.
Optimal Blue is proud to recognize enterprise SaaS digital mortgage solution leader, Capsilon, as its first strategic partner to complete certification with the highly anticipated Pipeline & Lock Management APIs. By debuting these innovative system-to-system API interfaces in the mortgage industry, Optimal Blue has enabled Capsilon’s digital mortgage platform to fully support the creation, management, registration, and locking of first-lien mortgages instantaneously with Optimal Blue. As a result of this advanced integration, a completed application and pre-approval are done in half the time of the traditional back-and-forth processes, empowering loan officers to be more competitive in today’s purchase market and win more business from real estate agents.
The company on Monday announced the creation of Accelerate, a new initiative to drive growth at scale for the fast-evolving fintech industry, reflecting the company’s ongoing commitment to this sector.
Designed to operate alongside its successful Start Path program, Accelerate will broaden Mastercard’s engagement with the payment fintech community including the next generation of digital banks.
Checking on current RSI levels on shares of Funding Circle Sme Income Fund Limited (FCIF.L), the 14-day RSI is currently standing at 58.31, the 7-day is at 65.97, and the 3-day is resting at 83.22.
Funding Circle Sme Income Fund Limited (FCIF.L) currently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of 148.41.
Shares of Funding Circle Sme Income Fund Limited (FCIF.L) have a 200-day moving average of 103.52. The 50-day is 104.93, and the 7-day is sitting at 104.82.
TruFin, the AIM listed fintech lender and payments provider, has released its first set of annual results following on from its public listing back in February. The numbers show a 7.67 per cent uptick in its valuation of its stake in p2p lender Zopa in 2017.
TruFin, which says it used an external company to aid the valuation of Zopa, re-valued its holding upwards by £2.6m to £36.5m over the course of the year. The firm, which was spun out of hedge fund Arrowgrass’ fintech holdings, holds a c.15 per cent stake in Zopa bought by Arrowgrass in 2014 for £15m. TruFin was set up by Henry Kenner, one of the founders of Arrowgrass, who is also its CEO and chairman. The hedge fund itself was launched by a group of Deutsche Bank traders in the wake of the financial crisis, including Kenner.
Advice doled out online or via smartphone apps, referred to in the industry as “robo advice”, aims to cut costs for customers looking to save or invest. It also seeks to foster innovation and increase competition in financial services.
But the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said two reviews of the industry uncovered problems among early entrants.
Following our exclusive report from earlier this month that Jamieson Blake, Head of Client Experience at the FCA regulated London based arm of ADS Securities, had resigned from the company, LeapRate has now learned that Mr. Blake has landed – at specialty lending and retail investment firm Basset and Gold, as Head of Relationship Management.
Shares of Qudian (NYSE:QD) closed down 16.5% on Monday after the Chinese online lender announced earnings that fell short of expectations.
Qudian reported “diluted adjusted net income per share” of $0.16 but GAAP diluted net income per share of only $0.15 per share. Whichever yardstick you use, though, these numbers appear to be lower than the $0.17-per-share estimate quoted on Yahoo! Finance. Revenue, on the other hand, came in at $273.7 million, significantly above consensus expectations for $214.6 million.
Following a similar model as traditional depository services, DEPO gives lenders the freedom to accept digital assets as loan collateral. The platform also allows borrowers to keep ownership of their digital asset during the entire loan period. The platform also protects future financial gain of the asset for borrowers with its decentralized design.
By employing the DEPO platform, lenders will be able to accept cryptocurrency as collateral for loans. To be protected, lenders can request additional collateral, or a partial sale of the asset should the market become excessively volatile at any time during the loan period.
The history of Naspers, the parent company of PayU.
What PayU does and the markets where it operates.
Why Matthias decided to leave PayPal after 12 years and move to PayU.
How PayU approaches going into a new international market.
The Naspers investment in Chinese giant Tencent and the PayU footprint in China.
Why the number one country PayU is focused on today is India.
Why they invested €110 million in Kreditech and how they are leveraging that partnership.
The point of sale lending product they have launched in India with Kreditech.
The biggest growth drivers for PayU over the next 12-18 months.
New Insight will change the way you think about data (Instantor Email) Rated: A
Today Instantor, the Swedish fintech company making financial decisions easy, announces Insight. A new product that will transform the way financial organisations assess risk for loan applicants. By using robust machine learning, Insight analyses more than 70 predictive features and insightful patterns in historical banking, and can be used to make better risk and opportunity decisions. Instead of having a risk team spending months testing risk models, Insight ́s intelligent features will build the most optimal risk model using the clients own data and can be up and running within a week.
Untie Group used to be several companies, the largest of which were Bricknode and Lendytech. They had a common founder in Stefan Willebrand and used, at least to a degree, the same self developed software. Also a number of people have gone from one firm to the other over the years.
Since the rise of cryptocurrencies, the term “decentralized” seems to be everywhere. Decentralization has been proposed in many industries as a way to heighten transparency and make transactions simpler. One field in particular which has shown great potential for the application of decentralization is money lending. As many might rightly ask, don’t we need banks who are willing to take the financial risk and approve loans? As it turns out, maybe we don’t.
The report, entitled Whose customer are you? The reality of digital banking, shows that 73 per cent of bankers believe retail banking will be at least 80 per cent automated in the next two years. A further 78 per cent see ‘platformisation’ steering the market in the future.
71 per cent of respondents are focusing their digital investment budget on cyber security, up from 34 per cent last year. Yet a mere 17 per cent are thinking about the risks of third-party integrations under Open Banking.
The new FinTech lending model opens new opportunities to people who were not able to borrow from traditional banks and other financial institutions because of the poor credit history and other factors. Such loans are now available to the new groups of people who need an instant funding, for instance, small business owners, students etc. In particular, entrepreneurs got a chance to get a loan without collateral, which a while ago was a real obstacle for many business owners.
Today we are already witnessing a drastic change in the lending model that existed for centuries. Consumers want to have a more flexible way to lend money but most importantly, they want this process to be quick. The FinTech industry already gave us this opportunity and hopefully, the following changes will be for the better.
Credify Inc., a pioneer in decentralised reputation systems, is pleased to announce that Kieran Arasaratnam is joining the founding team as Chief Financial Officer.
Block & Leviton LLP files class action against Lending Club. AT: “This was to be expected. I suspect this will be settled by the parties before end of trial, but it could be a long road. In the end, it will eat into Lending Club’s profits and cast another dark shadow on the industry.”
Block & Leviton LLP (www.blockesq.com), a securities litigation firm representing investors nationwide, announces that a new class action lawsuit has been filed against Lending Club Corp. (“Lending Club” or the “Company”) (NYSE: LC) and certain of its officers and directors alleging violations of the federal and securities laws. Class members interested in serving as lead plaintiff are reminded of the July 2, 2018 lead plaintiff deadline.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (No. 3:18-cv-02599), alleges that throughout the Class Period, defendants made false and/or misleading statements when they stated that Lending Club customers would receive a loan with “no hidden fees.” On April 25, 2018, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed a complaint alleging that Lending Club knowingly charged consumers hidden fees, contrary to their public disclosures.
Lending Club was fully aware that thousands of consumers applied for loans with no knowledge of the obscure origination fee. In fact, Lending Club received “[a]t least tens of thousands”12 of complaints directly from consumers about the hidden fees. Indeed, Lending Club’s own training materials for customer service representatives listed “I didn’t receive the full loan amount” as one of the two most common complaints that representatives were trained to address.13 Consumers “frequently complained that they only discovered the fee after [Lending Club] disbursed their loan proceeds, when they noticed that the amounts disbursed were smaller than they were expecting.”14 Once consumers became aware of the fee, many elected to cancel their loans, often “preferring a loan from a competitor or no loan at all.”15
Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) assigns preliminary ratings to three classes of notes issued by Marlette Funding Trust 2018-2 (MFT 2018-2). This is a $310.1 million consumer loan ABS transaction.
Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) has posted its financial results for the first quarter of 2018 on the Financial Information section of its Investor Relations website at square.com/investors.
We continue to accelerate growth at scale, expanding our ecosystem for sellers and individuals. In the first quarter of 2018, total net revenue was $669 million, up 45% year over year, and Adjusted Revenue was $307 million, up 51% year over year. This is an increase from the fourth quarter of 2017, when total net revenue and Adjusted Revenue grew 36% and 47%, respectively, year over year. Gross Payment Volume (GPV) was $17.8 billion, up 31% year over year. Net loss in the first quarter was $24 million, which is an increase of $9 million from a net loss of $15 million in the first quarter of 2017. Adjusted EBITDA was $36 million in the first quarter of 2018, compared to $27 million in the first quarter of 2017. We achieved an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 12%, which reflects our reinvestment in the business to drive long-term growth.
Goldman’s Marcus has scaled extraordinarily fast having provided $2.4 billion in consumer loans; some analysts have expressed concerns on the credit quality of the loans Marcus has been making; Blankfein on Wednesday noted that a poor credit environment could bring new risks but he isn’t concerned with their timing into the market; the bank has a long-term view on their consumer focused business and believes they can manage it through the ups and downs.
Private lenders hold just a fraction of the outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. — about 7.7 percent as of last year. But those companies have plans to grow their student loan holdings.
The PROSPER Act, House Republicans’ opening bid to update the Higher Education Act, would raise undergraduate lending limits and add new annual limits for graduate student borrowing. Those students would have their total annual borrowing capped at $28,500 annually. Currently, graduate students can borrow up to the cost of attendance.
Graduate loans also offer a higher loan volume for private lenders. As Quinlan noted to investors, grad students make up 16 percent of the borrower market but hold 40 percent of student loan debt. So the average borrower holds more debt, they’re older, and they’re better educated, too, making it more likely that they will pay off their loan.
The recent end of Promise Financial personal loans leaves brides- and grooms-to-be with one less borrowing option. The company, which focused solely on financing weddings through unsecured personal loans, stopped funding new loans in January 2017, reported Bloomberg.
A group in Springfield, Mass., has applied to form a new bank. The group hopes to raise $25 million to $30 million in initial capital. If it opens, Green Apple would become the first new bank in Massachusetts since 2008, according to the state’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation.
The application notes that Green Apple, which aims to open by the end of this year, would focus on small-business banking, commercial real estate lending, personal banking, renewable energy, local agriculture businesses and the food security sector.
Banks like to call themselves technology companies. And most large ones are currently focused on fighting — and winning — the war for talent against Silicon Valley.
The problem is, they have issues when it comes to incentivizing their many tech employees to create great products.
Credit unions aren’t paving the way. Nor are they pioneering the ability to serve the underbanked. Seriously. Many are doing great things, that’s for sure, yet the fundamental change is originating from tech firms. And they’re not doing it alone (more on that later).
Although CreditCards.com lists the national average APR on a credit card at 16.38% as of January 2018, the rates on three-year unsecured loans are only 9.22% for credit unions and 10.09% for banks as of March 2018, according to the National Credit Union Association.
An online lender might provide an even lower personal loan APR, with FreedomPlus offering rates starting at 4.99% and SoFi at 5.37%.
Virginia alleges one of the nation’s largest online lenders made more than $47 million of illegal, high-interest-rate loans that put Virginians on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in interest and fees.
The state is suing Net Credit, which sells personal loans for up to $10,000 and charges interest rates of as much as 155 percent, for violating the state’s consumer protection laws.
The lawsuit also alleges that Net Credit has lied to Virginians about the legality of its loan terms and that it has continued to automatically debit money from customers’ bank accounts after they’ve filed bankruptcy and won a court-ordered freeze on debt collections.
The Online Lending Policy Institute (OLPI) today announced that it will partner with Detroit-based financial media outlet Benzinga for the Benzinga Global Fintech Awards Gala (BZ Awards) in NYC on May 15, 2018.
FUNDING Circle’s latest securitisation has been priced at a tighter spread than its first with backers including the European Investment Fund (EIF) and German development bank KfW.
The £207m portfolio is issued by investment trust P2P Global Investments and has been priced at 75 basis points, compared with 220 basis points on the tranches issued in 2016.
NatWest has outlined plans to scale and grow its digital lending platform Esme Loans following a successful pilot phase.
Esme Loans was developed by the bank at its innovation unit with fintech firm Ezbob as a direct response to the emergence of specialist direct and P2P lending platforms.
Real estate source platform, Infabode, has successfully secured its initial £750,000 funding target on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs from more than 150 investors. Founded in 2013, Infabode reported that it connects its community of users with industry information from the real estate sector on one customizable online platform. Infabode’s platform has more than 450 content providers and over 17,000 members.
The council identifies only 36% of the population as “white British”. Dalston Junction, a now-trendy part of the borough, buzzes with a down-at-heel sort of cosmopolitanism: a Caribbean bakery; the Halal Dixy Chicken shop; the Afro World wig-and-extensions parlour; dozens of outlets for Lycamobile (“call the world for less”) and for money-transfer firms.
Competing with this last group is a branch of Oakam, a British lender set up in 2006. It advertises itself as an “alternative to doorstep lenders”, the traditional financiers for those beneath the bar set by mainstream banks. Originally aimed at recent immigrants, it extended its reach to the rest of those “lacking access to basic financial services”—a group it puts at 12m across Britain. A report published in March 2017 by a House of Lords committee estimated that 1.7m adult British residents have no bank account; 40% of the working-age population have less than £100 ($140) in cash savings; and 31% show signs of financial distress.
Revenues jumped 41 per cent in the six months ending in March to £74.1m compared with £52.4m over the same period of the prior year. Pre-tax profits rose 86 per cent to £19.5m.
Corporate broking and advisory revenues were up 76 per cent year on year to £50.9m, boosted in part by a growth in fees from M&A advisory work, a growing sector for some City brokers. However this compared with a weak comparative period, and fell 10 per cent below a record performance in the second half of last year.
61% of UK savers acknowledge possibility of higher returns and better interest rates with IFISAs, but majority still don’t understand the service
Over a third (36%) of UK savers would place their money in an IFISA if they had the money available.
While a large proportion acknowledge the prospect of higher returns (61%) alongside the allure of the tax-free wrapper and greater diversification, the IFISA is still a hard sell, according to research undertaken by P2P lending service ArchOver. In truth, the majority of UK savers (57%) still don’t fully understand the service.
The $2,5 billion e-invoicing company is today launching its first pure consumer app, which gives users an overview of their Klarna transactions in addition to a host of other features.
It’s essentially a remake of Klarna’s existing app and serves as a meeting place between merchants and their end customers.
The app is first rolled out across the Nordics and continental Europe, with UK and US launches planned for later this year.
ZOPA co-founder Giles Andrews OBE has been named as chairman of German alternative consumer lender Kreditech’s advisory board.
The fintech firm provides loans and credit cards for the under-banked and those with poor or little credit history and operates in Mexico, Spain, Czech Republic, Poland and Russia.
More than $127bn has been invested in fintech companies globally since 2014, with funding topping $40bn last year, according to data gathered by Fintech Global.
Last year this number declined to just over 1800 but with an increased in the average deal size to $22.4m in 2017.
Ripio Credit Network (RCN) — a global credit network based on cosigned smart contracts — has released an entirely new version of its NanoLoanEngine, the driving mechanism behind its protocol. The upgrade, which is called Basalt, includes significant improvements that will offer lenders and borrowers more flexibility. The company also claims that the new engine lowers costs.
Basalt changes how interest is applied to the network’s loans and eliminates nearly all maintenance fees associated with those transactions.
What HOLD (HOLD) allows you to do is simple, if you don’t want to sell your crypto or you want to “HODL” but at the same time you need cash, then HOLD is the platform for you. By creating an escrow that will lock up your funds as a collateral, HOLD will then send you a credit card of that amount in fiat, which means that you can have liquidity without selling your crypto assets.
How HOLD (HOLD) can have major advantages over SALT
What you might be thinking is that SALT already provides these types of services but the major advantage of HOLD platform is the almost instant credit card that will be issued for you to use in any store making adoption of crypto as payment a closer reality. This is a very important middle step towards businesses accepting crypto as payment.
Athens-based digital-first insurer Hellas Directhas teamed up with banking alternative Revolutto build “microinsurance, by-the-day products.”
Also, according to the press release, “the partnership will allow Revolut and Hellas Direct to push their offering into new markets and enable them to leapfrog some of the traditional barriers of growth and expansion by using the core competencies of each partner.
Profile Software, an international, award-winning banking solutions provider, announced today that FMS.next, its leading Core Digital Banking platform, is now available in the cloud.
BuzzFeed reports that the Commonwealth Bank lost 12 million customers’ data after magnetic tape backups containing their personal financial history from 2004 to 2014 went missing. It just lost them. They may have literally fallen off a truck. And the bank didn’t even bother telling its customers about the incident.
While said losing-of-data was only publicly revealed this week, it took place back in 2016, when the Commonwealth Bank hired a subcontractor to destroy the backup tapes while decommissioning a data center. After it didn’t get a receipt of the tapes’ destruction, the bank investigated and discovered that the tapes were nowhere to be found.
Enter Bamboo, a West Australian startup whose mission is to make a cryptocurrency investment platform for the rest of us.
Bamboo brings together two new ideas. One complicated (cryptocurrency) and one a bit more simple (microinvesting). As platform Raiz (previously Acorns Australia) describes on their site, microinvesting works by transferring “spare change automatically from everyday purchases into a diversified portfolio”. For example, if you were to buy a coffee for $4.80, Raiz would round the sale up to $5.00 and then invest the $0.20 for you.
Noida-based OYE Fintech, which operates a consumer-focused lending platform called OYE! Loans, has raised $2.25 million (about ₹15 crore) from GAIN Credit, Inc. OYE! Loans currently serves new-to-credit and new-to-workforce consumers with simple, timely and affordable One Year EMI loans (hence the brand OYE!), with ticket-sizes ranging between 10K and 1L INR.
The company leverages alternative data to assess risk on customers who have thin or non-existent footprints on the credit bureau. The loan application to disbursal process is largely online, enabling for quick turn-around times of less than 2 business days – an attribute that has strengthened its growing reputation as a lender-of-choice within its target markets.
Interest rates on bank deposits are at a decade low, and those on small savings schemes are close to a 40-year low. This has forced people to look for alternatives, one of which is peer-to-peer, or P2P, lending.
News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi to roll out deposit accounts, debit cards next month. PeerStreet raises $29.5M. Welendus loanbook hits 100K GBP in 3 months. Weidai plans $400M IPO. Instamojo to expand into SME lending. Today’s main analysis: Banks slow fintech investment, revert to their own digital infrastructure plans. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Credit bureaus aren’t going anywhere yet. Blockchain […]
The credit bureaus aren’t going anywhere yet. AT: “Paradigm shifts aren’t overnight sensations. The word ‘revolution’ is overplayed. The credit bureaus are still relevant, but alternative data is forcing them to alter their business models to accommodate a growing and expanding market.”
LendingTree’s personal loan offers report. AT: “The LendingTree reports were edged out by the Tearsheet analysis on banks’ investment in fintech by a hair as the main analysis for today. That doesn’t mean these aren’t great reports with important insights into the market. Last month, for instance, lenders offered borrowers less money than in February.”
Mortgage offers report. AT: “Refinance offers went up. APRs were up. There is plenty here to sink your teeth into.”
Social Finance Inc. said it will start offering deposit accounts and debit cards to some customers next month, the first major new product under Chief Executive Officer Anthony Noto.
The San Francisco-based company is looking to branch into various financial services as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ratchets up pressure on SoFi’s profitable center of personal loans. The startup unveiled a banking-like product, called SoFi Money, in January and began accepting applications to a waiting list.
The biggest driver of the investment gap between men and women isn’t knowledge or other financial obligations, but fear, according to a new study by SoFi and professional networking site Levo League (Levo).
However, while millennial women are extremely active in managing their financial status, and over 50%+ have the means to invest each month, the study found the majority of millennial women do not to invest due to fear (56%). Furthermore, the study results indicated the top two reasons why millennial women do not invest is because they don’t know where to start (25%+) and because they are paying down their debt (25%+).
Lenders offered personal loan borrowers less money than they did last month, while offered APRs were mixed. Rate and loan amount offers varied widely among consumers, depending on factors including, but not limited to, credit score, income, and current debt obligations.
Excellent credit (760+ score): Offered APRs to consumers with a credit score of 760+ averaged 7.42% in March.
The average best APR offered to all borrowers with credit scores of 760 or above was 7.42%, a decrease of 2 basis points from the prior month, and down 22 basis points from the same period one year ago.
At $22,644, the average loan amounts offered with the best APRs to all borrowers with a score of 760 and above was down 4.61% ($1,045) from February, but up over 17.60% ($3,986) from the same period one year ago.
The top 10% of offers, presented to borrowers with the best profiles within this group, had offered APRs of 4.87% on average, and loan amounts of $35,669. A borrower with this APR and loan amount would save $3,021 by consolidating debt with a 10% APR over a three-year term.
Good credit (680 – 719 score): Offered APRs to consumers with a credit score between 680 and 719 averaged 15.89% in March.
The average best APR for all borrowers with credit scores of 680 – 719 was 15.89%, up 20 basis points from last month and 139 basis points from a year earlier.
At $15,993, borrowers with scores of 680 – 719 saw the amounts offered with the best APRs decrease by 175 basis points ($279) in the last month, but increased by 242 basis points ($386) from March 2017.
The top 10% of offers, presented to borrowers with the best profiles within the 680 – 719 credit score range, had an average best APR of 7.00%, offered with an average loan amount of $23,822. A borrower with this APR and loan amount would save $3,250 by consolidating debt from a 15% APR over a three-year term.
The most common reasons for seeking a personal loan are credit card refinancing and debt consolidation. These two categories comprise 63% of all loan inquiries.
March’s best offers for borrowers with the best profiles had an average APR of 4.25% for conforming 30-year fixed purchase loans, up from 4.22% in February. Refinance loan offers were up 11 bps to 4.24%. Mortgage rates vary dependent upon parameters including credit score, loan-to-value, income and property type.
For the average borrower, purchase APRs for conforming 30-yr fixed loans offered on LendingTree’s platform were up 5 bps to 4.85%. The loan note rate hit the highest since March 2016 at 4.75% and was also up 5 bps from February. We prefer to emphasize the APR as lenders often make changes to other fees in response to changing interest rates.
Consumers with the highest credit scores (760+) saw offered APRs of 4.72% in March, vs 4.99% for consumers with scores of 680-719. The APR spread of 27 bps between these score ranges was unchanged from February and still near the widest since this data series began in April 2016. The spread represents over $14,000 in additional costs for borrowers with lower credit scores over 30 years for the average purchase loan amount of $238,593. The additional costs are due to higher interest rates, larger fees or a combination of the two.
Refinance APRs for conforming 30-yr fixed loans were up 6 bps to 4.83%. The credit score bracket spread remained at 24 bps, amounting to nearly $13,000 in extra costs over the life of the loan for lower credit score borrowers given an average refinance loan of $239,668.
Average proposed purchase down payments were little changed at $62,758.
PeerStreet today announced the close of a Series B funding round of $29.5 million to continue driving the company’s mission of democratizing access to real estate debt.
The Series B round was led by World Innovation Lab. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Thomvest, Colchis Capital, Felicis Ventures, and others participated along with new investors Solon Mack and Navitas Capital. The raise will accelerate PeerStreet’s growth. Specifically, PeerStreet will be broadening the type of real estate loans it cultivates from its network of lenders and hiring more world-class talent.
RealtyMogul announced that it has completed an investment in a $11.9 million multifamily apartment portfolio in Plano, Texas, consisting of 156 units.
The property was acquired through a partnership with Comunidad Realty Partners, a dynamic real estate investment firm specializing in multifamily apartment communities in densely-populated Hispanic neighborhoods. Comunidad reports to have owned and managed over $600 million in multifamily assets overall, comprised of approximately 8,200 units. RealtyMogul has invested with Comunidad Realty Partners on five previous transactions.
Stripe has made its name by providing developers with a simpler way to start charging customers and handling transactions, but today they hope to take another step by launching a billing product for online businesses. That’ll allow them to handle subscription recurring revenue, as well as invoicing, within the Stripe platform and get everything all in the same place. The goal was to replace a previously hand-built setup, whether using analog methods for invoicing or painstakingly putting together a set of subscription tools, and make that experience as seamless as charging for products on Stripe.
While this is a tool that’s a natural fit for something like Stripe, it’s certainly one that’s created a substantial business opportunity. Last month, Zuora — an enterprise subscription services company — filed to go public amid a fresh wave of enterprise IPOs that included Dropbox and Zscaler (and also, to a certain extent, Salesforce’s big acquisition of Mulesoft). Zuora’s subscription services revenue continues to grow, showing that Stripe will certainly have competition here, but also that there’s a large market opportunity.
Today, FinTech companies, marketplace lenders, traditional banking institutions and many other types of innovative new lending platforms are using loan pricing systems to sharpen their focus on balancing shareholder returns with customer pricing sensitivities and market demands.
The lending landscape is changing, but the need to achieve an adequate rate of return while delivering fair and accurate pricing, remains a constant.
There are a variety of strategies to consider ensuring attaining a reasonable return on your investment in a loan pricing system. We’ll cover each of these in the form of short case studies that we’ve taken from one or more of our existing clients’ actual experiences.
Enhanced Loan Yield Quantitative analysis can be easily used to measure the effectiveness of the loan pricing system implementation on a pre-test / post-test basis. The technique used relies on the same Funds Transfer Pricing (FTP) methodology which a robust loan pricing system uses to calculate loan profitability. To illustrate this, we’ll use a recent client implementation of LoanPricingPRO at a $1 billion lender. Source: Probank Report
Increased Collection of Loan Fees In today’s highly competitive environment with historically low rates and generally weak loan demand, loan fees are often sacrificed, or at least underutilized as a tool for increasing profitability. As a general rule, the shorter the loan term, the more powerful the impact of loan fees on loan profitability and ROE.
Decline in Lost Opportunities-Lenders using LoanPricingPRO® usually have a higher batting average when measuring the number of new loan clients against the total number of requests received or applications taken.
Active Portfolio Management-When implementing a loan pricing system with an interface to the organization’s core data systems, significant new reporting capabilities are attained. Lenders are able to receive reports on and track trends in loan officers’ portfolios.
Improved Discipline, Accuracy & Pricing Consistency-As has been shown, it is possible for senior management teams and lenders working
together and aided by an accurate and appropriately calibrated loan pricing system, to significantly improve the return performance and growth rate of the lending client base.
More than a third of Americans would give up their right to vote for a 10% annual pay raise, according to a new survey.
The peculiar findings come from a survey conducted by LendEDU, an online student loan marketplace, that polled 1,238 working Americans. In exchange for the hypothetical pay bump, about 35% of these employees said they would sacrifice their voting rights for life. In addition, just over 9% of respondents said they would give up their children’s (or future children’s) right to vote for life for the make-believe raise.
But those aren’t the only big sacrifices the respondents would make for a 10% annual salary increase. More than 12% said they would break up with their partners, and nearly 19% said they would give up their health insurance for the next five years. Forty percent would forfeit their dental care for five years for a raise, and nearly 18% would say goodbye to their Social Security benefits.
As tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and WeChat set out on their quest to be all things to all people, eroding the boundaries between industries, banks that want to maintain and grow their market share need to rethink the rules of competition.
While a growing number of banks have acquired fintechs to avoid fading into the background (
LendingClub and Prosper, for example, are both in the peer-to-peer lending space. LendingClub has fixed personal loan rates ranging from 5.99% – 35.89%. You’ll need to check your rate with Prosper directly since it varies depending on your credit and borrower profile.
Marlette Funding, LLC, recently appointed Marshall Lux as an advisor to its board of directors and company. Marlette Funding is the parent company of Best Egg, which is a lending platform that offers unsecured personal loans.
Jeffrey Meiler, chief executive officer of Marlette Funding, said Lux’s considerable experience in financial services and his expertise in the consumer market make him a good fit for the company.
inFactor Corp, an integrated financial technology company providing liquidity solutions across the spectrum of non-bank lending, has announced today that Ethan Schwarzbach has joined the company to head up the company’s new inFactorIQ platform.
Mr. Schwarzbach joins inFactor from Orchard Platform where he most recently served as a Manager on the Business Development team. Orchard Platform is the leading provider of data, technology, and software to the online lending industry.
According to a recent statement, SoLo’s founders uniquely understood the plight that American workers were facing every day because they too were once in their shoes. It is not uncommon to seek a small loan from friends and family, but the founders were not seeing a quick and easy lending solution to help facilitate the process.
Traditional banks don’t lend small dollars, and payday lenders charge excessively high interest rates that for many in emergency situations are almost impossible to pay back. There was simply no affordable way to get a small dollar loan. The team thought that the limited resources for small-dollar loans only plagued the minority communities like the ones they were raised in, but that was wrong; they discovered a more mainstream problem. According to the statement, 78% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck and 47% of the country can’t cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing from someone else or selling a personal asset.
Liquid FSI, a direct lender and creator of the Convert2Pay platform, which provides on-demand payment for medical invoices, added Barry Blecherman to its Board of Advisors.
While a few recent graduates of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering were helping the Liquid FSI team with some algorithms for their technology platform, they mentioned Blecherman, a professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at the Tandon School.
WELENDUS investors have funded £100,000 of short-term loans in just three months of its beta stage, the platform has announced.
Nadeem Siam (pictured), founder of the platform, says a full launch of the product is planned soon but Welendus has already built up more than 4,000 users.
Research by payments provider Klarna shows that discounting is no longer confined to the traditional winter and summer sales. The new rules of retail mean discounting has become a fluid and unpredictable phenomenon with over half (57%) of consumers expecting regular sales.
The research of 500 British retailers highlighted the negative impact this can have on the bottom line of merchants. Over half of retailers surveyed (53%) say the “always on” nature of sales is having a negative impact on profits – 11% said discounting cost them over £25,000 throughout 2017. This isn’t felt just by smaller retailers, but merchants of all sizes – in fact, it’s those with 100-239 employees that feel the burden most with 66% saying constant discounts are impacting profits.
Stewart Cazier, of alternative lending platform Thincats, details what investors need to know about peer to peer, crowdfunding and Innovative Finance Isas on the Investing Show.
He explains to Simon Lambert, of This is Money, and Richard Hunter, of Interactive Investor, how alternative lending works, what investors need to consider, how to diversify and why it’s important not to consider it risk-free or put all your eggs in one basket.
Ask Inclusive Finance (AskIf) is a commercial enterprise with an ambitious social mission – to close the sizeable funding gap for loans to financeable small companies unable to secure funding from banks. Smaller estimates suggest this funding gap could be upwards of £2.2bn per year.
Other research estimates much larger numbers. AskIf is a platform lender bringing together funders, a network of lending partners and the borrowers themselves. By providing support and funding to small companies, we’ll enable job creation, economic value and opportunity in many communities across the UK.
JP Jenkins reports that its co-owner, Peterhouse Corporate Finance, has closed its 200th capital raise in the past three years, with a total funding of circa £200m for smaller growth companies.
Significant new capital has recently been provided by Malcolm Burne, a substantial shareholder and Executive Director, to expand the JPJ franchise further. The Company has also entered into partnership & collaborative agreements with US Capital Partners, private placements, Equidate a US private companies Stock Market, and Primary Markets an International Unlisted Exchange.
Chinese peer-to-peer lender Weidai Hangzhou Financial Information Service Co. is planning an initial public offering that could raise about $400 million, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
There hasn’t been a major listing of a Chinese financial technology company in the U.S. or Hong Kong since LexinFintech Holdings Ltd., which raised $124 million in a downsized U.S. IPO in December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Qudian Inc., which completed a $1 billion IPO in October, has since fallen 52 percent from its offer price.
INNOPAY has defined a first set of use cases for insurance companies. The use cases have been mapped on the most important value levers for insurance to capture relevancy and see where exactly the use cases drive value. The mapping is presented in figure 1 and a first description of the cases is given below.
New (cyber)insurance product for a new client segment: insure TPPs in PSD2 landscape: data sharing through third parties implies new (cyber) risks and thus accountability in case of data breaches.
Better deal engines: PSD2 provides third parties access to payment account information data (AIS). This data can be mined and relevant insights on customer behaviour can be extracted. This behaviour can then be for example spending on insurance to see if a better offer can be made to the customer or looking for patterns which can imply a better risk profile and thus better pricing on insurance products for the customer.
Improve personalised advice: next to mining, the data can be used to improve personalized advice. Although TPPs are by law only allowed to present the account information of customers, insurance companies can use that information to give advice about their financial situation.
Optimise claims management: together with other data sources, account information that is shared by customers’ banks can be used to create new data sets that could be used to improve reconciliation and reimburse the right amount to customers and gain better insights on possible fraud (by looking at for example customer spending patterns).
Up to date customer records: although there is no Open Banking standard yet and all banks are developing their own view and strategy on opening up data beyond PSD2 compliance, there are already good examples insurance companies can build upon.
Expanding service proposition to providing accounts: with the possibility to execute a transaction (PIS) on behalf of the customer or to check available funds (CAF) the functional scope of PSD2 is limited.
Digital identity verification: banks can help in identifying a person during a digital onboarding or digital identity verification process. This functionality is for example already operated by the banks in The Netherlands under the iDIN scheme.
A Swiss crowd-lending platform is using the blockchain technology to improve the way it brokers loans to companies. It will also introduce tokens as a currency of valuation.
Swisspeers, a Winterthur-based platform specialized in loans to small- and medium-sized companies is registering transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. The company is going to use the so-called Smart Contract developed specifically for its purposes, Swisspeers said on Thursday.
Banks’ investment in fintech companies is slowing down as they refocus on improving core banking infrastructure, according to a report by CB Insights.
The Banks in Fintech report, released this week, found that banks have been foregoing big investments and partnerships over the past five quarters with a preference for building products in house — particularly in lending, payments and personal financial management. In both the U.S. and Europe banks spent more of their architecture investment dollars on capital markets software companies than blockchain startups.
Source: CBInsights
KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech report for the fourth quarter of 2017 noted that while deal activity among venture capital and private equity firms remained steady compared to 2016, the earliest stage of VC financing could see fewer deals and a volume decline in particular segments like online lendingin the coming year. It’s a sign of the industry’s maturity; banks are showing their efforts to “fight fintech with fintech,” Lindsay Davis, an intelligence analyst at CB Insights, said in a presentation.
In every step of the trade financing process, blockchain technology seems to offer an efficiency boost in commodity transactions and the global supply chains. From contract generation level, which includes time-consuming reviews of the operation by the Letter of Credit issuing bank, to the settlement level, which often proves problematic due to payment platform incompatibility, fintech offers smart solutions.
Although credit fintech is on the rise, blockchain was mostly used for peer-to-peer lending and that the trade financing gap persists, according to the Asian Development Bank. 70% of financial institutions which responded to the survey claimed that the technology would allow for greater exposure to SME risk, mostly because of significant cost reduction in compliance and due diligence.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) banking engine provider Mambu has launched its digital marketplace to offer cloud-enabled apps, products and tools for banking and lending.
Mambu Marketplace offers a choice of global and localised solutions which can be integrated with the SaaS engine. Its offerings are based on an API-driven architecture.
But it’s increasingly clear that many of the financially underserved are also technologically underserved. The GSMA’s Mobile Economy 2018 reports that nearly 40% of the world’s 5 billion mobile subscribers have no internet access; most of the offline, live in the low- and middle-income countries that could benefit the most from digital financial services. Many mobile subscribers live outside of 3G or 4G signal range, which slows service or limits what they can do with their devices. Many unconnected users must contend with poor network performance, high connectivity and handset costs, poor digital literacy, or a lack of locally relevant content.
Digital lending innovations: Small businesses face a $5 trillion financing gap. Inefficiencies in customer acquisition and analysis prevent lenders from making reliable lending decisions and entrepreneurs from getting the financing that they need. But new technologies and data sources can help small businesses: Mexico’s Konfio analyzes thousands of data points – including biographic information, financial history, electronic invoicing, and social media usage – to make lending decisions quickly and inexpensively.
Online payment solution provider Instamojo Technologies Pvt. Ltd plans to expand into business loans, logistics and advertising services for small merchants, as more small and medium enterprises (SMEs) turn to digital means to sell and market their product, a top company executive told Mint.
Bengaluru-based Instamojo, which focuses primarily on SMEs, currently has 400,000 SMEs using its payment service, and it is also targeting to onboard at least 1 million SME customers by the end of FY19, the company’s chief executive Sampad Swain said in an interview.
Investment avenues are available either in the form of instruments per se (e.g. equity stocks, bonds, etc.) or as vehicles for participating in the instruments e.g. Mutual Funds, Portfolio Management Services, Alternate Investment Funds, etc. Some of the vehicles are available in small ticket sizes, e.g. Mutual Funds, whereas some require a sizable ticket e.g. PMS (Rs 25 lakh) or AIF (Rs 1 crore). There is a differentiated investment avenue, which is neither a tradable instrument nor a structured vehicle, but a facilitator for retail investors. This is called Peer to Peer (P2P) Lending where there is an online intermediary, which brings the lender and borrower together to facilitate direct lending by the lender to the borrower on mutually agreed terms. This is an online marketplace where the digital platforms like e.g. IndiaMoneyMart would conduct due diligence and credit assessment of the borrower and connect the two individuals.
FinEX Asia offers Asian investors access to US consumer credit assets
Asian institutional investors often find it difficult to gain exposure to US consumer credit assets because of the diverse array of such products and a lack of investment channels.
Canadian fintech lender PayBright announced on Thursday its e-commerce financing solution is now available for merchants operating the IBM Websphere Commerce platform.
According to PayBright, the e-commerce solution integrates with merchant’s e-commerce platforms and provides Canadian customers with an additional payment option at checkout. Upon selecting PayBright as a payment method, customers can finalize their purchases in a matter of seconds. Merchants then receive their funds directly from PayBright the next business day with no credit risk. Customers then pay for their purchases in affordable monthly installments over time, with interest rates as low as 0%.
News Comments Today’s main news: SoFi changes wealth portfolios. Silver Lake buys $500M of Credit Karma stock. Half of Zopa deposits are into IFISA accounts. Landbay considers IPO, opens Seedrs campaign. Wonga South Africa enters personal lending. Today’s main analysis: 7 reasons to hate the long bond (A GREAT READ). Today’s thought-provoking articles: The benefits of additional data from […]
SoFi makes changes to wealth portfolios. AT: “Alternative lenders must constantly and consistently reassess their offerings. Those that are willing to make adjustments based on current market conditions will survive.”
How to benefit from additional data while reviewing subprime applicants. AT: “This analysis compares two hypothetical loan applicants. It’s a great analysis with a salient point. Data doesn’t always tell the whole story, but lenders should get as much data as possible, and not be afraid to resort to alternative data when necessary.”
Sophisticated investors could be harming online lending platforms. AT: “Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your POV, big money wins peeing contests. Platforms need institutional money to grow, but there is a balance to spark between pursuing fast growth and creating opportunities in the hidden market. This is a balance every lender has to strike for itself.”
On Tuesday, online lending platform SoFi announced it was making changes to wealth portfolios. SoFi made changes in all five risk strategies – Conservative, Moderately Conservative, Moderate, Moderately Aggressive, and Aggressive.
Conservative:
“Our lowest risk portfolio invests heavily in bonds, which may be appropriate for someone investing with a lower tolerance for risk or a shorter time horizon, like under three years. With bonds, there are three options: Short-term bonds are considered lower-risk/lower-reward, intermediate-term bonds are considered moderate-risk/moderate-reward, and long-term bonds are considered higher-risk/higher-reward.
Source Crowdfund Insider
Moderately Conservative
“The Moderately Conservative strategy is also weighted toward short-term bonds, so it’s a fairly cautious approach. Historically, we’ve selected both investment-grade bonds (lower risk, lower interest rate) and high-yield bonds (higher risk, higher interest rate). Now, we’re reducing some of that high-yield exposure and increasing the amount of investment-grade bonds to lower the overall risk of this portfolio. This strategy also invests a bit in the stock market. Our approach here (and in other strategies) is to balance our investments across the globe. We’re putting a little less in Emerging Markets, less in U.S. Markets, and more in Developed Markets outside the U.S. (like Japan, parts of Europe, and Canada). We believe that these new allocations will give this portfolio a relatively better chance to grow.”
San Francisco based Credit Karma has received $500m in a secondary offering from Silver Lake, valuing the company at $4b.
Credit Karma isn’t receiving any proceeds or issuing any new shares as part of the transaction, Chief Executive Kenneth Lin said in an interview. Rather, Silver Lake is amassing common shares from earlier investors and employees in a so-called secondary sale that values the 11-year-old company at roughly $4 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Nearly 80 million adults have what is considered subprime credit, according to Experian data.
The takeaway: while Darrell has a higher biweekly income than Nancy, he is much less stable in his borrowing history. And, while Nancy has been late on a few payments, she has a proven track record of ultimately satisfying her debts.
These examples illustrate why lenders hoping to help consumers in the growing nonprime and subprime markets stand to benefit from alternative credit data.
But lending platforms, also called peer-to-peer lending, must address a major design problem: Sophisticated investors have been gaming the system by applying specialized screening tools to scoop up the choicest loans with the lowest default rates, leaving less experienced investors with less attractive loans to choose from. After these lower-grade loans perform poorly—that is, the borrowers fall into arrears with payments or default altogether—these less savvy investors may flee the platform.
Can lending platforms make their systems more equitable for all investors?
In their new working paper Marketplace Lending: A New Banking Paradigm? Vallée and Yao Zeng, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Washington, address these issues from the perspective of what platforms can do to level the investing playing field.
The key variable to control, Vallée and Zeng found, is the amount of information available about loan applicants. When platforms share a lot of information about applicants with potential investors—data such as income, debt level, and credit history, and even whether the loan is financing a wedding, for instance—experienced investors can precisely pin down the safest loans to back.
The researchers looked at all transactions executed by LendingRobot users for a three-year period between January 2014 and February 2017, including more than $120 million invested on the two major lending platforms, LendingClub and Prosper. They found that using the LendingRobot screening model paid off by reducing the average loan default rate by more than 20 percent compared to the average level on the platforms.
Appealing to this new financial demographic is the idea behind such companies as Upstart and Social Finance Inc. (commonly known as SoFi). Since 2013, SoFi has securitized about $9.5 billion in loans, while Upstart last year packaged $338 million of personal loans into two deals.
SoFi targets top college graduates – Harvard lawyers, Yale doctors, Wharton bankers – people whose outstanding student-loan balances match their outstanding career potential. For SoFi, this cohort is a good bet to provide lower-cost loans that allow the buyers to de-lever faster and hopefully return for car loans, mortgages and wealth management services such as college and retirement savings plans. Upstart took the idea a stage further by widening the customer base beyond the Ivy League.
Mobile devices have changed consumer expectations. People now expect that you can have access to anything you might need right from your mobile device. While this has historically been the case for consumer financial apps, Kabbage released data today on small businesses which shows they too are leveraging mobile to better manage their business.
They analyzed behavior of almost 150,000 small business and found that between April 2014 and February 2018 loans accessed through mobile increased by more than 360 percent. Dollars accessed through mobile increased over 1,220 percent.
The fintech startup Petal announced a partnership Wednesday with WebBank to officially launch a credit card for the estimated 65 million people who have insufficient credit history to qualify for a traditional credit card.
The CFPB has identified 45 million people who have no credit score,” Gross said. “Experian and others have indicated that there are 50 million more people that are thin file people and have a have a credit score that’s not accurate because of limited data at the credit bureau. Andreessen Horwitz has estimated 90 million people are misscored — that’s a third of the U.S. population.
Aperture is a new platform that is focusing on the real estate marketplace putting a new spin on property crowdfunding. While not the first blockchain based real estate startup, Property Coin (PCX) is in the midst of a security token offering that is claiming first when it comes to crypto denominated securitization / structured real estate portfolio using distributed ledger technology.
Operating in the fix and flip space, Aperture says they have delivered over “50% un-levered IRRs so far – a claim that is pretty impressive.
In aggregate, their team claims they have been involved in the closing of over $150 billion of real estate financing transactions and have originated over $10 billion in mortgage loans, having worked for some of the largest investment banks in the world.
Lenda claims to make the fastest mortgages out there — currently two weeks start to finish, with an eventual goal of 30 minutes in a nearly all-digital process.
Launched in 2014, Lenda has made $200 million worth of mortgages, is licensed in 12 states and plans to expand to 12 more later this year. Jason van den Brand, its co-founder and CEO, said that despite other big players, the mortgage arena is ripe for further disruption.
How Lenda works
Lenda lets the consumer log in to their bank account from its portal to retrieve the necessary three months of bank statements. (They could also download the statements from their Dropbox, Box or Google Drive account and then upload them to Lenda.)
Income verification and employment verification are automated where possible. To be sure, some employers don’t share employment data with databases used by lenders. In such cases employment verification needs to be manual.
Consumers ready for a digital mortgage
Consumers, meanwhile, seem to be increasingly ready for digital mortgages. According to a Harris poll commissioned by Fiserv, 69% of consumers already research loan options online and 68% said they review loan documents online. Among millennials, 48% said they would be comfortable researching loan options on their smartphone.
Specifically, it looked at businesses that earn an annual revenue of less than $7,500,000, have been in business for at least six months and no longer than 60 months, and submitted a loan query to LendingTree between Jan. 1, 2016, and Jan. 23, 2018. The self-reported data was then limited to the 50 most populous metropolitan areas, and with that, a list was born.
Faced with watching some parishioners struggle to pay back high-interest loans, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Diocese of Columbus launched its own microloan program in Licking County in late 2016. Since then, it’s expanded to four other counties.
The non-profit organization has partnered with a local credit union to offer loans of up to $500. Borrowers then make monthly payments for 12 to 15 months to pay off loans that carry an interest rate of 3 percent.
That’s a fraction of the rate for loans from payday lending businesses, where interest can exceed 600 percent.
The Catholic microloan program is open to people of all faiths, and Zabloudil says about 75 percent of loan recipients have made good on their payments. Part of the reason for that, Zabloudil says, is they work to ensure borrowers don’t get in over their head.
The program currently offers loan to people from Franklin, Delaware, Fairfield, Knox, Licking and Ross Counties. Zabloudil hopes to eventually take the program to the 17 other counties served by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.
Lennar Corp. plans to start using mortgage-application technology from San Francisco, Calif.-based startup Blend in an effort to attract younger buyers. By applying for a mortgage online or on a phone, consumers can shave 10 days off the process, executives say. The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Kusisto reports:
Making it easier for those buyers to get mortgages could help Lennar with attracting millennials, a critical group of home buyers that have been put off from buying new homes by the high prices and long commute times to many communities. An additional obstacle on the margins for younger home buyers is the complicated process of applying for a mortgage.
GoKapital, an online lender from Miami Florida, has launched an affiliate program that will allow bloggers, webmasters, and digital marketers to earn commissions when they refer new customers to one of their business loan programs.
GoKapital’s Affiliate program highlights:
Business loans ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000 for every industry. Servicing businesses in all 50 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico
Marlette Funding, LLC, owner of the Best Egg personal loan platform, today announced the addition of Marshall Lux as an Advisor to the Board and Company.
Marshall Lux has been a Financial Services consultant and practitioner for 30 years. He began his career at McKinsey where he served all manner of financial service firms across a variety of subsectors and functional areas. Marshall led McKinsey’s and BCG’s private equity practice. He has extensive relationships across PE Firms.
Jack Henry & Associates’ banking division is in seventh heaven with the revelation that seven US community banks within the last seven months have selected to implement its Core Director processing platform.
The platform can be installed in-house or implemented through JHA OutLink Processing Services, Jack Henry Banking’s outsourced offering.
The firm names two of the banks – California International Bank and the State Bank of Bottineau, located in North Dakota. FinTech Futures has contacted Jack Henry for the other five names but they won’t be revealed yet.
Half of all customer deposits at peer-to-peer lender Zopa since the start of the year have come via its Innovative Finance Isa, despite only launching the tax-free accounts in June 2017, This is Money can reveal.
Zopa, which was the first to offer the new style Isa product, said 12,000 customers have opened one of its two Isas, which offer up to 4.6 per cent interest.
For savers with a cash Isa, the FSCS offers protection of up to £85,000 per banking licence. This means that if something goes wrong with the bank or building society where you have deposited your money, you will never lose the first £85,000.
Meanwhile for those with a stocks and shares Isa, the first £50,000 is protected, as long as the provider belongs to the scheme.
LANDBAY has announced that it is opening its latest equity funding round to new investors on Seedrs, as its chief executive unveils the company’s flotation ambitions.
The peer-to-peer lender, which specialises in buy-to-let mortgages, has already raised its target of £1.25m from this funding round but it has been opened up again to new investors.
LendingCrowd said March 28 that it secured another 2 million pounds ($2.8 million) in funding led by Equity Gap. Also participating were a number of private investors from Scotland’s entrepreneurial and finance scene and the Scottish Investment Bank. LendingCrowd, of Edinburgh, Scotland provides a peer to peer lending platform.
But technology also presents opportunities to reach new markets – making it vital that credit unions keep up with new developments, delegates at this year’s conference of the Association of British Credit Unions (Abcul) were told.
Pitching his fintech to the conference, he said it could offer new possibilities to the sector, such as partnering with the Post Office to offer branch facilities where members can deposit and withdraw money.
“Mobile use is continuing to shoot up. 78% of the UK population is using a smartphone two-four hours a day – and fastest growth is the over -55s. In the South Manchester Credit Union 65% of traffic comes from mobile devices. It’s something we’ve got to accept.”
Colchester in Essex is the top area to invest in buy-to-let based on capital growth, transaction volumes, rental yield and rental price growth, LendInvest research shows.
In Colchester prices are rising by 9.98% per year, rental growth is increasing by 3.41%, transaction volumes are rising by 2.79% and yields stand at 3.71%.
Despite topping LendInvest’s list Colchester is far from the best in terms of yield, with Manchester offering returns of 5.42%.
The worst area to invest is in East Central London, where capital gains are falling by 3.76%, rental price growth is sliding by 1.1% and transaction volume growth is down 1.73% year-on-year. Despite all of these factors landlords in that area still make a yield of 2.9%.
In a growing economy there is a balance to be struck between ensuring banks are well-capitalised and providing the credit private companies need to expand. That much is recognised by leading business figures such as Mike Welch and Jim McColl, with the latter planning to launch his own bank to help address the funding issues.
In that context, the £425 million Royal Bank of Scotland has set aside to boost competition in the banking sector for SMEs is to be welcomed.
And it is encouraging that Nationwide said it would direct that funding to the UK’s 5.7 million smaller and micro businesses rather than the big corporates, given that is arguably firms of this size which have suffered most from the tightening of bank lending. It is also SMEs, broadly speaking, which have been caught up in the shocking mistreatment scandals that have to occurred at certain banks since the financial crisis.
Investors in the Assetz Capital platform are yet to be convinced by cryptocurrencies, with just 16% seeing them as worthwhile investments.
The peer-to-peer lending platform canvassed the views of its investors in the Q1 Assetz Capital Investor Barometer. 43% believe the entire market is on the brink of collapse, while 40% feel cryptocurrencies are still too immature at present with significant risks attached. 14% feel it is a worthwhile investment but only in moderation, with just 2% thinking it is the future of investments.
One route into the fintech sector is the Spotcap Fellowship, which provides up to £8,000 towards the cost of an MBA and a path to working at the Berlin-based online lender.
Niels Turfboer, UK managing director of Spotcap and an IE Business School MBA graduate, says he created the scholarship to address a talent shortage. A survey by recruitment website Indeed found that 20 percent of top fintech job vacancies were left unfilled after 60 days.
CreditEase, a Beijing-based leading FinTech conglomerate in China, announced that its venture fund, CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund (“CEFIF”), recently joined a group of prestigious investors to participate in the Series B investment round of $70 million in Branch International. Other strategic investors in this round of financing include International Finance Corporation (IFC), Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Ventures and Victory Park.
According to the report recently published by CreditEase, jointly with IFC and Stanford Business School, there are over two billion adults globally in the emerging markets who do not have access to basic financial services (click here to download the Financial Inclusion Report). On a daily basis, Branch processes tens of thousands of loans, in amounts ranging from $2.50 to $500, and expects its total loan origination to exceed $250 million in 2018. Recently entered into the Nigerian market, Branch is currently growing 50 percent month-over-month within that country and 20% month-over-month overall.
For millions of people, a lack of access to credit is just another part of life. Yet, without this access, it can be incredibly difficult for businesses and customers to connect with each other. In fact, according to The World Bank, despite a 20% increase between 2011 and 2014 in the number of adults with access to formal financial services worldwide, an expected 2 billion adults worldwide are unbanked. In addition, some 200 million businesses are excluded from the formal financial system.
The problem is particularly prolific in high growth markets; with a 2015 PwC report putting India’s unbanked population at 233 million (that’s nearly every 1 in 6 people). In South East Asia, a further 264 million people are without access to credit (including a staggering 80% of Cambodians). And even beyond the individuals affected, some 200 million businesses are excluded from the formal financial system.
A key way that we are achieving this at PayU is through our €110 million investment in German fintech company Kreditech, a leading technology group for digital consumer credit using machine-learning based underwriting. With traditional credit models simply not catering to large sections of the population, collaborative partnership can be instrumental in finding new ways to offer innovative solutions to the huge problem at hand.
International
Seven reasons to hate the long bond (INTL FCStone Email), Rated: AAA
The price of long-term treasuries will fall because:
1 – The global savings glut is turning into a global savings squeeze
2 – Just look at a chart of Treasury yields
3 – Speculative traders have a massive one-way bet on curve-flattening
4 – China could (should?) sell long-term Treasuries to teach Trump a lesson
5 – The Federal Reserve is reducing the size and duration of its holdings: it still has $526 bn of long bonds to sell!
6 – U.S. public debt is abnormally short: deficit-driven issuance will hit the long end disproportionately
7 – Forward guidance artificially compressed term premia: economic uncertainty will make them rise again
Source: INTL FCStoneSource: INTL FCStone
Chinese savings are unlikely to support anymore U.S. bonds for at least five reasons:
• The disappearance of China’s trade surpluses: China’s trade surplus has fallen from 10% of GDP in 2007 to 1% last year. China may become a deficit country next year.
• The Belt and Road initiative: China has found much better uses for its savings than financing the U.S. military and boomers’ Social Security claims. Going forward, China’s mountains of savings will build the infrastructure of Central Asia, the horn of Africa, Russia, Iran, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe, rather than flood the U.S. Treasury market.
• American protectionism: In the unlikely event that Trump’s bid to reduce the U.S.-China trade deficit by $100 billion next year is successful, China will have $100 billion less to invest in the U.S. Treasury market.
• China’s retaliation against American protectionism: Despite Trump’s claim that “trade wars are easy to win”, other countries have national interests too. China also has industries to protect, jobs to defend, and face to maintain. China is sitting on $3.1 trillion in currency reserves: according to the U.S. Treasury, China holds about $1.2 trillion in U.S. national debt (that just includes official accounts).
Fintech is disrupting the global finance industry, to the benefit of both businesses and consumers.
Advancements in communication and information technology has enabled the rapid growth of technology platforms that provide transactional services. Online payment systems, debt platforms and online exchanges allow companies to better manage their clients and use the data collected to provide the best possible service.
What Fintech products will the property industry gain the most benefit from?
Data Analytics: Using information and data from Fintech platforms will help advisors and agents to make informed decisions for their clients. They will be able to get a better understanding of the client’s overall position, while also increasing the level of personalisation for the client.
Raising Capital: There are a number of avenues available for raising capital and the digitalisation of fundraising will open up new opportunities. Using Fintech products will not only speed up the process, but it will also open the door for reaching new investors through a number of online platforms.
Despite government’s discouraging stance towards cryptocurrencies India’s crypto startups are getting their deserved thumbs-up from the industry and investors. One such promising startup known as Nuo Bank just raised about Rs. 1.6 crore ($250,000) from the CEO and MD of PayU India within a week of its launch, which shows the kind of trust that both PayU directors have in its growth potential.
Next, like other major cryptocurrency companies Nuo bank will also have its own coin. It’s going to issue 200 million Nuo tokens to customers, which represent 20% of its 1 billion token supply. The value of these tokens will be determined from smart contracts, and the smart contracts stipulate that 25% of Nuo Bank’s revenue should be kept reserved for these tokens.
From established players like Faircent to early stage companies like India Money Mart, Paisadukaan and OML P2P, all are trying to develop the industry’s first blockchain platform and also share data about lending transactions between them in order to mitigate frauds.
All these companies have applied and are waiting for the NBFC P2P licence from the Reserve Bank of India.
Faircent, the country’s largest P2P platform has committed upwards of $1 million for this kind of a solution which they feel will help them reap huge benefits when traction on these platforms gains.
The Singapore-based firm forecasts a US$2tn market opportunity in its use of blockchain to provide a secure invoice factoring solution using its customised cryptocurrency. With its token pre-sale set to end on April 8, the group’s initial coin offering will launch on April 9.
Acudeen Technologies brands its platform as “an inclusive environment for small businesses who are having a hard time getting financing using traditional means”.
Wonga, the well-known short-term lender, has added to its range of consumer finance products with a new personal loan. Like a payday loan, the personal loan is unsecured, which means assets such as vehicles and property are not required as collateral.
The key differences between payday and personal loans are the amount of money borrowers can access and the repayment period. The personal loan, also known as an installment loan, allows new customers to borrow a maximum of R4000 which they repay in equal pre-scheduled repayments (or installments) over a period of 2-6 months.
The numbers are in and the jury is out. The world over the fintech craze that underpins lending outside the traditional banking ecosystem continues unabated.
Whether the channel of consumption is online, mobile or the services packaged differently such as payday lending and layaway financing, investments continue to pour in chasing opportunities in a vertical that is quickly getting overcrowded with little to no service differentiation and a continued insistence on insight wizardry riding off copious amounts of personal data ingested.
Essentially technology can do two things for the advisor. It can significantly reduce the costs of administration and record keeping, while also making these processes simpler and more efficient.
“The whole market place is talking about digital – the rewiring of the investor and the investment advisor,” Wilson says.
News Comments Today’s main news: Prosper changes pricing. Revolut launches disposable virtual cards. OakNorth reports annual profit. Lufax delays IPO. eToro raises $100M for blockchain development. Today’s main analysis: Isas that pay up to 16%. Today’s thought-provoking articles: Is personal service getting lost in digital? What makes big data BIG? How quantum computing can change financial services. Can the blockchain prevent bank […]
Is personal service getting lost in the digital mindset? AT: “This is worth thinking about. While technology allows alternative lenders to do what they do affordably, efficiently, and at scale, it’s the personal touch that gives companies in this space an edge over big financial institutions.”
Earlier this week in anticipation of the Fed Rate hike, we discussed Prosper’s approach to portfolio pricing in a rising rate environment. Our goal with rate-setting is to deliver value for both sides of the Prosper platform by providing a fair price for borrowers and a reasonable return for investors.
In order to deliver on this objective, the borrower rates offered in our marketplace must react to rate changes in the economy at large. Today, the Federal Reserve announced a 25 basis point (bps) increase in the Fed Funds rate. In light of this development, the rates offered to borrowers through the Prosper platform are being modified.
Pricing Change Impact Simulation
The table below summarizes the simulated impact of the rate increase on the portfolio originated through the Prosper platform in March month-to-date (MTD) 2018. Overall borrower rates on the platform are increasing by 26 bps.
Profitability of digital-only businesses can be astounding because the model is so cost-efficient. Some just don’t want customers with “high maintenance” needs such as human customer support.
The best overall answer is to offer all options. Enable customers to interact solely in a digital way or with live support to guide through the process, answer questions and solve problems. Make it easy to use both, such as Amazon does. Online ordering is usually a breeze. But when a problem or concern arises, they have caring and competent live human beings to help.
Ways To Show That You’re Invested (Or Want To Be) In Human Caring
The paper argues that due to Big Data, “the innovation seen in systematic trading models over the past decade could accelerate” and (a closely related point) the “differences between what used to represent quantitative versus qualitative research” could disappear.
Not all Roses and Plush Toys, Though
The process by which the new data capabilities and principles get internalized by the swifter funds, those that want to be on the winning side of the arb plays, isn’t a painless one. There are “integration and cultural challenges” that have to be overcome. After all, the experts that an aspiring arbitrageur would hire come from “internet firms, gaming companies, the military” and consumer research. The world of asset management will be new to them, so everyone on the developing teams can “work effectively together.”
The explosive adoption of the digital channel is changing the nature of lending. Consumers are coming to expect the kind of convenience and speed that a digital experience can deliver, and lenders are increasingly looking to oblige. Although many of the consumer benefits of digital lending are clear, certain complications related to fraud arise when lending goes digital. This is a function of the degree of separation and anonymity in the digital lending process. Building on these factors, today’s fraudsters are relying on a diversified playbook of schemes and techniques to commit loan fraud in digital channels, including the use of synthetic identities, volumetric attacks, and technology designed to disguise their digital footprint. In this report, Javelin explores how these issues have come to unfold and the steps that lenders must take if they want to effectively resist this growing epidemic of digital lending fraud.
Key questions discussed in this report:
What effect has the use of digital channels had on the lending space?
How has fraud changed as a result of lending going digital?
What are the technology factors affecting the risk of lending fraud in digital channels?
What are the fraud risks specific to each type of loan product?
How are different segments of consumers affected by digital lending fraud?
What are the steps that FIs and other lenders can take to effectively prevent new account fraud?
A recent decision from a federal district court in Colorado, Colorado ex rel. Meade v. Avant, strikes another blow against many of the financial technology firms that are revolutionizing the way consumers and businesses access credit. Joining what is now a line of decisions, the court limited the valid-when-made doctrine, which provides that a loan that is valid when it is made does not become invalid (i.e., usurious) when it is sold or assigned to a third party.
A Colorado federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Act doesn’t so completely preempt a state financial regulator’s claims against nonbank lender Marlette Funding LLC that they have to be heard in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer remanded the case from Julie Ann Meade, the administrator of Colorado’s Uniform Consumer Credit Code, making it the second such “true lender” action to get kicked back to Denver state court this month.
In a joint annual report to Congress released Tuesday with the Federal Trade Commission about debt collection practices, the CFPB said it had initiated four enforcement actions last year, had resolved one case and has five others pending related to unlawful debt collection practices.
Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney has indicated that debt collection will be a top priority for the agency. About 26% of consumers with a credit file have debt that is being collected by a third party, the CFPB said.
The CFPB recovered $577,000 in consumer relief from its enforcement actions while $78,800 was paid into the civil penalty fund, which is used to provide relief to eligible consumers who otherwise would not be compensated.
On March 14, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington signed the Washington Student Education Loan Bill of Rights. This law had been in the works since 2017 when a report, released by Attorney General Bob Ferguson in December, documented significant disparities across gender, income, age, and race in student loan borrowing and highlighted a handful of the hundreds of complaints the office received from student loan borrowers about their student loan servicers. Providing strong protections for Washington’s more than 730,000 student loan borrowers, whose debt now totals $22.9 billion, the law changes Washington’s regulatory schematic for lenders and servicers operating in the student loan marketplace in the following ways:
It creates the position of “Advocate” within the Washington Student Achievement Council to assist student education loan borrowers with student loans, akin to the position off “ombudsman” under proposed and enacted servicing bills in other states.
It requires servicers to obtain a license from the DFI.
Per this law, all student loan servicers, except those entirely exempt from the statute, are made newly subject to sundry statutory duties.
It imposes several requirements on third-parties providing student education and loan modification services.
It compels institutions of higher education to send borrower notices regarding financial aid.
It calls for the establishment, by rule, of fees sufficient to cover the costs of administering the program that it itself creates.
Lastly, the statute provides for a complete exemption for “any person doing business under, and as permitted by, any law of this state or of the United States relating to banks, savings banks, trust companies, savings and loan or building and loan associations, or credit unions.”
Upstate New York is a popular place for millennials to buy houses, according to a national survey by online lender Lending Tree. For home buyers 35 and under, Rochester ranks 16th among the nation’s 100 largest cities for home mortgage requests and offers from borrowers between Feb. 1, 2017, and Feb. 1, 2018.
LendingTree, an online lending exchange company, released a study listing the best and worst cities for a new small business, and Fresno ranked ninth for best cities to start a new small business.
Ranking at first is Sacramento.
To conduct the study, LendingTree used data from over 80,000 queries submitted by new small-business owners seeking loan offers through their small business loan marketplace to find out where businesses tend to perform the best.
The change will allow Credit.com users to get matched with personal loan offerings that can be pre-approved in real-time without leaving the site thanks to Even’s technology. Previously, users looking for personal loans on the site were referred to individual lender websites.
Roostify today announced the addition of Mark McLaughlin as the company’s Senior Vice President of Business Development. McLaughlin will be responsible for formulating the company’s overall partner strategy, creating a scalable operational model, and further developing an ecosystem of technology partners and strategic alliances.
Citigroup Inc added restrictions on firearms sales for new retail-sector clients, the Wall Street bank said on Thursday, the strongest move to date by a major U.S. lender following last month’s high school shooting in Florida.
In an emailed statement Citi said it will require those clients only sell firearms to customers who have passed a background check, restrict firearms sales for buyers under 21, and not sell so-called “bump stocks” or high-capacity magazines.
In an effort to stay one step ahead of the game at all times, digital banking app Revolut is set to launch disposable virtual cards next week to help users of its Premium service protect themselves against online card fraud.
Revolut users will be able to create disposable virtual cards for online purchases in seconds, with card details that automatically regenerate after each transaction. This will also protect users from inconveniences like chargebacks from sites on one-off purchases, as well as preventing fraudsters from tracking bank account information.
The virtual cards will work alongside existing Revolut security features, such as location-based transaction security, the familiar “freeze/unfreeze” physical card ability, as well as being able to disable swipe and contactless payments.
UK based digital bank OakNorth reported an annual profit of $149mn, becoming the first digital bank to do so; in their second year of full operations the bank has seen their loan book triple in size and deposits double in size; Rishi Khosla, OakNorth chief executive, told the Financial Times, “we build them for profit and on strong foundations so as you grow you’re scaling a real business rather than what happens to a lot of fintech where you just keep building for top-line or number of customers, but don’t necessarily have the strongest business model.”
See the table below to see what Ifisas are on the market, what industry they invest into, the minimum investment amount and what kind of returns you can expect.
Source: Which? News
Among the highest rates, FundingSecure offers up to 16% on investments from £25. However, as a peer-to-peer ‘pawnbroking platform’ borrowers are looking for urgent loans to be given within 24 hours, which are secured against their assets. Borrowers are not required to pass any credit checks. Ablrate offers variable rates up to 16%, but they’re set by the borrower and you have to decide if the return is worth the risk. Past funded loans include units for a film studio, a waste management company and a modular building company.
Where else can I find high interest rates? They may not offer 16% interest, but there are a number of current accounts that pay up to 5% – and they don’t come with the associated risks of a Ifisa.
Nationwide’s FlexDirect account offers 5% AER on balances up to £2,500 when you pay in at least £1,000 a month. This is only for the first 12 months, however.
The TSB Plus account offers 3% AER on funds up to £1,500 as long as £500 is paid in each month and you register for online and paperless banking. There’s also the opportunity to earn up to £10 cashback a month, for a limited time.
The Tesco Bank current account also offers 3% AER on balances up to £3,000. You need to pay in £750 a month and set up at least three direct debits.
From today, digital business bank Tide has been authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an electronic money institution (EMI), which according to Bevis will give Tide “the option to access the same banking infrastructure as older banks”. Since the bank launched last January, 1 in 12 of all business accounts opened in the UK has been with Tide.
Now managing the accounts of over 30,000 businesses, Tide has today also launched a new vertical card and updated app design, and an integration with online accounting provider FreeAgent, which will automatically upload Tide transaction data into the software for easy expenses tracking.
Tide’s recent partnership with iwoca for business lending is also proving fruitful, with the fastest rate of service from first click to credit in the user’s account sitting at 6 minutes and 1 second.
Mark Tucker, chairman of HSBC, Britain’s largest bank, and Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, the insurer, said that there was no room for complacency in Britain’s so-called fintech industry.
Philip Hammond, the chancellor, told an industry conference yesterday that the UK was the “global capital of fintech” and that the emerging industry contributes £7 billion to the economy.
One of China’s largest online lenders has shelved their IPO because of the regulatory crackdown on online lending; the FT reports that Lufax is waiting until the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) required online lenders to apply for a license; the current thinking is the government will approve licenses in April, though the time frame could be a bit longer; Lufax wants to ensure they get it right instead of rushing to be first.
Seventy-eight per cent of small businesses in Mainland China expect to grow in 2018 and 97.5 per cent of small business are confident that the local economy will remain the same or improve in the next 12 months. These are the best survey results for MainlandChina since 2014.
“The high rates of technology use among Mainland China’s small businesses is one of the key drivers of growth, with over 80 per cent of businesses in Mainland China earning more than 10 per cent of revenue from online sales — ranking MainlandChina at the top of the surveyed markets.
This referenced posted blog is a good question and likely the answer is ‘yes’, but also we need to wait and see how effective. Since PSD2 is a legal imperative, one key question posed by the author is whether or not end user companies (the client buying or using a particular financial services product) wishes to share actual bank or account data with the 3rd party vendors for which API-based sharing was designed to assist.
‘When it comes to new services around B2B and working capital, I believe like any good market hypotheses to test, we need to understand a basic question when it comes to corporates – will they provide third party vendors this access? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know it comes down to trust and value proposition. Certainly making sure vendors have the security around your bank data will be important in this age of constant hacking threats’.
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. and its affiliates (“Cerberus”), a global leader in alternative investing, announced today that Roberto Nicastro has become a Senior Advisor to the firm. In this role, Mr. Nicastro will consult with Cerberus as it continues its focus on investment opportunities and strategic partnerships in the European financial services sector.
The raise is set to support eToro’s expansion as it heads into new markets, and continued research and development of blockchain technology and digital assets. The round brings the platform’s total capital raised to $162m, following a signficant period of growth for the business driven in part by its foray into cryptocurrency investments.
eToro added Stellar as its eighth cryptocurrency asset listed on its Crypto Copyfund in February, joining fellow cryptos Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereuem and Ripple amongst others. The trader launched its Crypto Copyfund in July 2017, which uses CFDs to enable investors to diversify across all available cryptocurrencies (weighted by market cap) with just one click.
Basically, a quantum computer doesn’t work with bits but with qubits using particles that can be in superposition (two or more quantum states added together to create another state). This is why particles can take on the value 0, or 1, or both simultaneously. The reason that this is important is that it will allow computers to process and store far more information with far less energy and far more speed than current state computers. For example, in 2016, a team of Google and Nasa scientists found a quantum computer was 100 million times faster than a conventional computer. Elsewhere, in a step towards quantum computing, researchers have guided electrons through semiconductors using incredibly short pulses of light. These extremely short, configurable pulses of light could lead to computers that operate 100,000 times faster than they do today.
This is important in banking because it could displace blockchain, ledger and digital identity developments within a decade. This is because the quantum internet would excel at sending information securely through what is known as quantum encryption. This technology enables banks and businesses to be able to send “unhackable” data over a quantum network. This is because quantum cryptography uses a mechanic called quantum key distribution (QKD), which means an encrypted message and its keys are sent separately. Tampering with such a message causes it to be automatically destroyed, with both the sender and the receiver notified of the situation.
It’s this hassle that Hnry (pronounced ‘Henry’) wants to help resolve, doing away with the need for spreadsheets, software and even costly accountants. Whether it’s income tax, GST, ACC or student loan repayments, Hnry will calculate and pay all of these for you. Same goes for your tax returns, which Hnry will complete on your behalf. It’ll also handle all your invoices, regardless of whether you work for a single client or multiple clients at the same time.
Source: the Spinoff
Jrny
Born from a desire to change how enterprise companies and individuals interact with one another, Jrny uses AI and conversational interfaces to create more relevant, two-way channels of communication. Jrny allows businesses to handle thousands of messages instantly in an effort to build a closer relationship between company and customer.
A massive fraud that cost India’s second-largest bank at least $2 billion is highlighting concerns about vulnerabilities in institutions’ internal controls and spurring some to claim that blockchain could have prevented the crime.
In a recent incident at Punjab National Bank, a deputy branch manager and his subordinate allegedly falsified 150 letters of undertaking directing other banks to give loans to a group of jewelry companies, with PNB providing surety for those letters. Virtually all of them defaulted, causing PNB to be on the hook.
What made the fraud so difficult to detect was that, as far as its internal systems were concerned, the transactions didn’t exist. The letters of undertaking were sent using the Swift network, but none were recorded on PNB’s internal record-keeping software, which wasn’t linked to the Swift system.
Source: American Banker
That’s why some are arguing that bockchain, or distributed ledger technology, could have prevented the fraud. Because immutable records are kept on a decentralized database that multiple parties can view, it’s possible that the fraud either wouldn’t have happened or could have been detected sooner.
In this virtual bank, your savings are stored in crypto format on a blockchain, and instead of interest on your savings, you get a virtual share in the revenue of the bank.
This is an unconventional concept developed by Mumbai-based entrepreneurs Varun Deshpande, Ratnesh Ray and Siddharth Verma, whose product Nuo Bank went live this week.
Naspers, the most valuable listed company in Africa, will be selling $10-billion of its shares of Chinese messaging giant Tencent to invest in fintech, classified and online food delivery businesses.
Naspers announced it will sell up to 190-million Tencent Holdings Limited shares, or 2% of Tencent’s total issued share capital. Naspers is reducing its stake in the maker of WeChat and QQ – which is worth an estimated $545-billion – from 33,2% to 31,2%.
On Tuesday, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) announced it has opened its very own API developer platform. According to the bank, the RBC Developers platform will allow eligible external software developers, industry “innovators,” and clients to access select RBC APIs. While sharing more details about the platform, Sumit Oberai, Senior Vice President of Digital Technology at RBC, stated: “Across other industries we’ve seen the transformational effects of APIs. By providing external developers, industry innovators, and clients with access to select RBC APIs, we have the opportunity to increase connectivity, create new tools and experience for clients, and enable open and innovative collaboration to improve the future of banking.”
News Comments Today’s main news: Kabbage says ‘no’ to lending for assault guns. Collateral enters administration. Orix invests $60M in Wecash. SMBs accept face-to-face payments via mobile devices. Today’s main analysis: The friction between new finance and old regulations (a must-read report). Today’s thought-provoking articles: 3 lessons from LendingClub’s earnings. The business schools that produce the highest salaries. Beware fintechs […]
Top 20 business schools where grads earn the highest salaries. AT: “SoFi takes a look at business schools to see where graduates are earning the highest salaries after graduation. There are probably few surprises for anyone familiar with the top business schools, but top salaries don’t reflect a true financial condition for the graduates. How much debt did they incur to earn that money?”
The friction between new finance and old regulations. AT: There is obvious friction, but this report from The Milken Institute goes into a lot of detail and gets into the weeds of Congressional action on finance. This is a must-read report.”
Equity and credit market volatility. AT: “As always, PeerIQ gives us something to think about. Especially prescient: ‘No new MPL deals have priced since the rise in volatility’.”
Marketplace lending’s death has been greatly exaggerated. AT: “As many predicted last year, there has been a lot of consolidation and growth in that direction. However, consolidation is more about thinning the heard than lowering the volume. As this graph shows, there certainly is not lowering of the volume.”
PeerStreet mixes play with hard work. AT: “In the 20th century, companies competed on benefits to attract and retain employees. In the 21st century, it’s more about career-building and company culture. PeerStreet is one alternative lender that is using this thinking to attract millennials with talent.”
Beware companies bearing bitcoin. AT: Cryptocurrencies are getting a lot of press right now, both good and bad. There are those who are bullish and those who won’t go near them with a 10-foot pole. Both sides have alternative lenders making their position known. This is a great debate with no easy answer. Those companies taking a chance on crypto, like Square, should be applauded. They built their businesses on risk, calculated and mitigated, so why change now? I see it as an expansion, and a necessary one is cryptocurrencies continue their present climb in interest.”
Kabbage Inc, a U.S. online lender for small businesses, said it will cut ties with clients that make or sell assault-style rifles or that sell weapons or ammunition to people under 21 years old, one of the strongest steps by any financial firm after last month’s high school massacre in Florida.
One piece of good news is that the company recently dealt with its largest liabilities from the 2016 scandal, settling both federal and state class action shareholder lawsuits. The bad news: LendingClub has to pay plaintiffs a total of $125 million, with $47.75 million covered by insurance, leaving LendingClub on the hook for the remaining $77.25 million. That amounts to roughly 12% of the company’s liquid assets and about 5% of the current market capitalization.
2. A challenging environment
In addition to these company-specific problems, the macroeconomic environment has become more challenging, though that is no fault of LendingClub. Increased awareness of personal loans delivered via the internet has spurred a large increase in applications, and LendingClub saw a 43% increase in applications in 2017 — much higher than the company’s 3.7% growth in originations.
3. Cost cuts in 2018
LendingClub believes it has stabilized both its credit model and its investor base in 2017 while introducing new investor products, and it will pivot in 2018 to focusing on controlling costs. Part of that will entail outsourcing its loan servicing to industry-standard third parties while reallocating internal engineers to the things that differentiate the company, like data-driven underwriting and product innovation.
For the full year 2018, the company forecasts 18% to 22% revenue growth while targeting cost growth of only 14% to 16%.
The Milken Institute is out with a comprehensive report this week that drills down into existing legislative action by Congress that addresses the emerging Fintech industry. This is the first report of its kind and provides a solid perspective on what Congress has accomplished to date while recognizing the fact elected officials can do far more.
“Subjecting nonbank lenders to 50 different state usury laws is inconsistent with today’s increasingly interconnected and digital global economy.”
The research provides multiple policy recommendations. In brief, they are as follows:
Provide certainty on “true lender” and “valid when made” issues to maintain a vibrant, competitive marketplace for credit.
Harmonize inconsistent state-by-state regulations related to mobile banking to drive financial inclusion and access.
Update tax reporting guidelines regarding cryptocurrency transactions to protect against tax evasion and to promote a more transparent, responsible marketplace.
Enable the reporting of alternative data that can expand access to credit.
Develop common reporting standards among U.S. financial regulators to foster a more transparent marketplace.
Require the IRS to automate certain data collection and reporting processes that can help enhance the speed and efficacy of the underwriting process.
This report is a must read policy paper for Capitol Hill staffers and US Fintech industry participants.
US equity markets had a bad week as the S&P500 closed 3.3% lower at 2,659. CDX IG spreads widened marginally by 0.6 bps to 55 bps and CDX HY spreads widened by 8.7 bps to 337 bps. We have seen significantly higher volatility this year, driven mainly by rising interest rates and inflation expectations. No new MPL deals have priced since the rise in volatility, although we expect the first $1 Bn MPL ABS transaction to announce soon.
We share a few anecdotes from our informal conversations which we share in generic fashion to protect the innocent:
A large issuer: “Our bonds are oversubscribed 2 to 3x. And when we share that with our investors they want more.”
A large ABS investor: “We need help monitoring losses in the personal loan ABS space. Is this an indutry issue?”
A large investment bank (Warehouse): “We ar doubling our exposure to warehouse lending. We have the mandate to grow the book.”
A large investment bank (Syndicate Desk): “MPL has gone mainstream now.”
A lender: “The 5% risk retention requirement is hurting our ability to issue loans to consumer and grow our business responsibly.”
An issuer: “We are a small emerging originator and we have 7 term sheets – from large banks and small – in the last few weeks. Competition in warehouse lending is growing.”
Also heard at the conference was that Citibank is planning a Marcus-like online lender to enter the consumer unsecured loans space, although the timeline was unclear. Our view is that the GS Marcus – and specifically the ROE and NIM opportunity – is inspiring competitive response from other banks including Citi.
Last year, marketplace lenders learned that maintaining diverse sources of funding is just as important as managing the credit risk in their loans.
LendingClub, Marlette Funding and others developed their own securitization platforms, rather than relying on whole-loan sales to large investors. They also invited some of these investors to contribute seasoned loans to collateral pools for these in-house deals.
It’s clear that equity investors no longer see the value of marketplace lenders, such as companies that provide credit at the point of sale or online lending.
Source: PaymentSource
A typical lender leverages equity into debt at a fixed ratio. If they want to grow their portfolio they have to raise equity and lever it into more debt. An off-balance sheet marketplace eliminates the equity-debt leverage ratio allowing a lender to double and triple their portfolio as quickly as they can grow their marketplace.
The fact the Securities and Exchange Commission has been issuing subpoenas to initial coin offering (ICOs) issuers has been rumored for quite some time. Recently, multiple publications, including Crowdfund Insider, revealed this fact. The SEC has been warning of this sort of activity for many months and, while not surprising to most, it is an unpleasant moment for an issuer when that subpoena shows up.
For example, the acting director noted that the agency will devote greater resources to consumer education, instead of relying heavily on enforcement actions to ensure consumers make the correct choices, reaffirming previous remarks in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece (previously covered by InfoBytes here).
On February 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit held that an arbitration clause is unenforceable if the corresponding forum selection provision designates a forum that does not actually exist.
The rise of alternative lending and familiarity of growing names like OnDeck is beginning to shift public perception of the merchant cash advance, however.
There are scenarios, too, in which a merchant cash advance may actually be the best financial option for a business in need of working capital.
“We see a lot of clients who already have a long-term equipment loan, or an SBA loan, or a loan from a traditional bank or a factoring line, and they’re looking to unlock short-term liquidity from their business,” he said. “When you take out an SBA loan or equipment loan, you have to have some type of collateral to pledge, and that money can dry up quickly. We come in un-collateralized.”
One driver behind the shifting reputation of merchant cash advances is the industry’s participation in technology adoption and innovation.
So, every quarter, he and the company’s management team host an all-hands meeting and outline to the company’s 100-plus employees what the most important goal for the next 90 days will be.
So the word went out to employees that for the time being, efforts to grow the business would have to take a back seat to making certain that the existing business was profitable. According to Meiler, it was employees’ focus on the task that helped Best Egg rack up $11 million in GAAP profits last year, even as competitors were still posting operating losses in the tens of millions of dollars. And, he adds, the company still grew its business by 60% anyhow.
Office exercise happens beyond a standing desk at many of the companies. NvoicePay not only provides stretching areas and lockers to employees, it offers monthly classes with a certified trainer and kinesiologist. Marlette Funding’s Best Egg unit offers employees self-defense classes on site, along with yoga.
And if you like the beach, check out nCino, where employees regularly go for early morning paddleboat sessions at nearby Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington, N.C., and SmartbizLoans, which hosts “Disco Yoga” at San Francisco’s Baker Beach.
Addressing an employee’s well-being and comfort comes in different forms, whether it is Cross River Bank’s policy of providing 100% of the premium for various insurance benefits covering employees and their families, Nav’s unlimited paid time off option for employees, or Ensenta’s tradition of celebrating workforce diversity with multiple holidays, including Kwanzaa, Diwali, and the Day of the Dead.
To that end, they’ve established a company that regularly celebrates its successes and milestones with parties, and encourages employees to get together and have fun in nonwork environments. A prime example of the latter is the PeerStreet Olympics, an annual event in which the company is divided for a day into teams of friendly athletic competition, some of which takes place on the beach near its Southern California offices.
Collateral (UK), a small P2P company offering pawnbroker-style and property-backed loans with 15 per cent returns, went into administration on Wednesday after it emerged that it was not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
PEER-TO-PEER investor BondMason has offered to step in and manage the loanbook of the troubled Collateral platform.
BondMason, which invests in loans across more than 30 P2P platforms on behalf of investors, revealed it has invested 2.48 per cent of its portfolio through Collateral, which has fallen into administration.
PEER-TO-PEER lending firms have been reassuring their investors about the safety of their platforms in the aftermath of Collateral going into administration.
Business lenders Ablrate and MoneyThing have both sent messages to their customers detailing their stability, performance and regulatory requirements that mean they have to hold client money separately and have a ‘living will’ that puts a plan in place should a business fail.
The proportion of south east companies which are only paying the interest on their debts – one of the signs of a so-called ‘zombie’ business – has risen to four per cent in December from one per cent in April 2017, according to indicative research by R3, the insolvency and restructuring trade body.
This represents around 12,000 businesses in the region.
Rather than try and undercut banks, or chase millennial savers’ pennies at a loss, fintech firms are now leaping at the chance to make serious cash through a technology that most banks won’t even touch. What’s more, Bitcoin has the power to take over people’s lives. One trader says it’s worse than gambling; Korea calls victims “zombies.”
Here’s a roll call of recent converts: Mobile-payments firm Square Inc. has rolled out Bitcoin trading; social-payments app Circle splashed $400 million on Poloniex, only about 15 months after it had stopped offering bitcoin trading; and money-transfer company Revolut has started offering crypto trading facilities.
Trading platform Coinbase booked more than $1 billion in revenue last year, according to Recode, which, if true, is more than peer-to-peer marketplace Lending Club and more than Square. On top of the money to be made from trading fees and asset-price gains, Bitcoin could also act as a lure, helping startups cross-sell their other products to a bigger audience.
On Friday, London-based FinTech firm Humaniq revealed it is marking the milestone of its mobile app reaching its first 50,000 downloads by unveiling a new, improved version.
Some of the new features include:
New referral program: The new 2.0 referral program will build on this by displaying community progress with referrals and thereby make the referral process more transparent and intuitive for all users.
Transaction options extension: Transactions can now be made through the messaging chat system.
New registration process: Allows users to start interacting with a Humaniq assistant bot, which becomes smarter and is learning to execute more useful commands, even without the registration.
The country’s largest peer-to-peer lending platform said that it had supported the creation of more than 2,400 jobs since it began its Irish operations almost five years ago.
Linked Finance, which connects local businesses in need of loans with an online lending community of individuals, institutions and other investors, said firms that had borrowed money through its platform had raised staffing levels by 24 per cent on average.
ArchOver, the peer-to-peer (P2P) business lending platform, has announced Bill Johnston will join its board of directors as a non-executive director (NED). In his role, Bill will support ArchOver in formularising its training and development programme, to ensure it has the right talent in place as it continues to scale.
Japanese financial services group Orix bought a 6.4 billion yen ($59.8 million) stake in Wecash, a Chinese startup that uses big data and artificial intelligence to rate consumer credit.
Wecash can calculate a consumer’s creditworthiness in 10 seconds or less using phone records and other personal information, and has partnered with dozens of financial institutions so far. It also suggests potential lenders to consumers looking to take out a loan.
Only about 30% of the Chinese population is believed to borrow money from banks.
Hong Kong will allocate HK$500 million (US$64.1 million) to financial services, including fintech, over the next five years, Mr. Chan said in the budget speech.
Big banks are particularly exposed when it comes to ETF funds. The fast-growing $5 trillion-dollar industry is being challenged by a crop of robo advisors, such as Apler’s portfolio company Sigmastocks, an algorithm-powered tool that tailors portfolios for customers, or BetterWealth, a roboadvisor app.
Although the region’s leading banks, such as Danske, Nordea and Swedbank are doing some good things and building new digital banking products and roboadvisory capabilities, Apler says, it won’t be enough.
Apler’s online bank Collector, which received its full banking license in 2015, has expanded to comprise cards, saving accounts and quick loans to both consumers and businesses. Collector doesn’t face the same issues as legacy banks in a digital world, Apler explains.
The retail point-of-sale (POS) terminal market is no stagnant business. While it is currently a $15 billion industry, Global Market Insights is expecting it to reach $45 billion by the year 2024.
Only 13 percent of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are considering adding new payment types to face-to-face and remote environments, according to The PYMNTS SMB Technology Adoption Index.
Here are five ways SMBs are accepting payments from their customers.
About a quarter – or 26 percent – of SMBs use hardware and software integrated POS to accept payments in a face-to-face environment.
Almost two in 10 – or 19 percent of SMBs – use check scanning to accept payments in a face-to-face environment.
And just about the same amount – 18 percent – of SMBs use NFC-enabled terminals to accept payments in a face-to-face environment.
Fourteen percent of SMBs use mobile phonesto accept payments in a face-to-face environment.
Just under one in 10 – or 8 percent – of SMBs use mobile tablets.
Total venture capital across the global FinTech market between 2010 and 2017 hit a combined $97.7 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47 percent.
Accenture highlighted Kabbage, the U.S. alternative small business lending firm, that secured $900 million in 2017, while other alternative finance players, like LendingPoint and SoFi, landed significant investment rounds.
This week, alternative lender C2FO showed that the alternative finance funding gears are still turning, landing $100 million from Allianz X and Mubadala Investment Company. Existing backers Temasek, Union Square Ventures and Mithril Capital also participated, an announcement said.
This week’s blockchain investment comes from Square Peg Capital, which provided $5.5 million in Series A funding to AgriDigital, an Australian company hoping to use the funds to expand into North America.
Reports in The Australian Financial Review this week said the company uses blockchain to facilitate supply chain finance to the agriculture business, offering supply chain management features also powered by distributed ledger technology.
According to CB Insights, $4.7 trillion of revenue generated by financial services firms is at risk of being displaced by fintech startups.
Prominent business school alumni have founded successful fintech startups, such as Giles Andrews, who setup peer-to-peer lender Zopa after getting an MBA at INSEAD. Jeff Lynn and Carlos Silva developed crowdfunding platform Seedrs during their MBA at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. According to PwC’s Global Fintech Report 2017, funding of fintech startups has increased at an annual growth rate of 41% over the past four years, with $40 billion in cumulative investment made.
Niels Turfboer is UK managing director at Spotcap, the Berlin-based online lender.
Bitstrades is clearly aiming to position itself as a complete platform that both links users together and also leverages economies of scale to make both lending and investing possible. The Bitstrades ICO raised millions in funding and now the BSS token is available for trading.
Bringing financial planners into the credit space would be unnecessary, according to a Commonwealth Bank executive, as there are more than enough brokers to service the mortgage needs of Australians.
The CBA executive said: “With 16,000 brokers out in the marketplace, we’re certainly not in a position where we need more people to serve Australians well in meeting their mortgage needs. For me, it’s certainly not a quantity issue.
The PC has also alleged that brokers working for lender-owned aggregators could feel compelled to provide customers with home loan products offered by the bank with an ownership share of the business.
Commissioner Stephen King referenced CBA’s ownership of Aussie Home Loans and cited figures published in the PC’s report, which said that 37 per cent of loans written by Aussie brokers were for CBA products.
This one will be very helpful for readers who know just three things: how much they are borrowing, the amount of their repayments, and the number of those repayments.
It will be very useful indeed for anyone contemplating taking out a personal loan, a car loan, or even a payday loan.
With just these three items, you can work out the effective cost of credit of the debt obligation, expressed as a % per annum.
India is poised to be a USD 4-trillion economy by 2022, of which USD 1-trillion would be digital economy.
Digital economy was a focal point for this budget ’18 as government’s support with regard to lending MSME’s allocated 3794 crore in the form of capital support and interest subsidy by 2022 which will help develop the MSME sector. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) contribute about a third of India’s manufacturing output and provide employment to over 10 crore people. Despite this, the share of institutional lending in the total borrowings of MSMEs is less than 10%.
The prudential guidelines include maximum leverage ratio that can be maintained (2 times), minimum net owned funds (Rs2 crore), cap on aggregate exposure of lender to all borrowers (Rs.10 lakh), borrowers across all P2P (Rs10 lakh), exposure of single lender to borrower (Rs50,000) and maturity of loans (not exceed 36 months).
Signzy developed blockchain and AI-based solutions to digitally identify, verify, and authenticate customers. Its onboarding solution, Real KYC, has now been deployed by more than 45 large clients, including leading banks, NBFCs, mutual funds, P2P lending platforms, payment wallets, and so on.
Mastercard is working with Facebook Messenger to bring a digital payments and banking experience to small businesses in Nigeria, in an effort to incentivize Nigerian merchants to close the mobile payments adoption gap and bring them onto the formal financial grid.
The payments giant, which has said it’s in the business of killing cash, is bringing this initiative to a country where 98 percent of the $301 billion in consumer-to-business payments is transacted using cash.
News Comments Today’s main news: LendingClub spared from sharing underwriting docs with investors. Wealthsimple raises $65M. Zopa warns investors of increased defaults. Raisin now operates in UK. RaboDirect to bow out of Ireland. Today’s main analysis: LendingClub’s Q4 2017 results. Today’s thought-provoking articles: LendingClub’s CIO issues an update on Q4 results. LendingTree ranks best places for fresh start. Faster payments mean […]
Why faster payments mean faster fraud. AT: “Cybersecurity is one of the most important core business concerns for banks and alternative lenders alike.”
Challenges to the challenger bank business model. AT: “It’s a shame no real challenger banks have emerged in the U.S. The market could be taken over by foreign challenger banks moving in on the turf.”
A core strength of LendingClub’s marketplace model is the ability to incorporate data insights quickly in order to responsibly adapt for the benefit of borrowers and investors.
From 2009 to 2014, credit supply was tight, so consumer loans experienced better-than-average loss rates. Since then, credit supply has increased, and the industry has seen a return to long-term average delinquency rates and higher losses in higher risk populations.
As a result of cumulative actions taken, our loss forecast for newly originated loans remains unchanged in aggregate compared to last quarter.
Economic backdrop
U.S. economic growth remains slow but steady, with annual GDP growth rate increasing to 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017. A primary driver of GDP growth since the financial crisis has been a historically low unemployment rate, which is down to 4.1% from its peak of 10% in 2009.
Updated pricing and return forecast
We continuously refine our methodology and recalibrate interest rates based on shifts in risk across the portfolio. This quarter, interest rates are increasing for certain subgrades in grades D and E.
Loss forecasts are remaining stable in aggregate for the platform relative to last quarter.
Platform Summary and Projections as of February 20, 2018
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and the other underwriters of LendingClub Corp.’s $1 billion initial public offering for now don’t have to produce roughly a thousand documents sought by a class of investors suing the peer-to-peer lending company for alleged stock fraud, a California federal judge ruled Tuesday.
LendingTree, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace, today released the findings of its study on the best cities for those seeking a fresh start.
First, the study looked at eight elements to consider when going through a financial recovery, such as the local median income and rents, and if the state has laws to protect debtors from aggressive collections and penalties, in case methods like debt consolidation or refinancing to lower rates aren’t enough to manage liabilities.
Next, to determine what opportunities there might be for people seeking a solid job and income, the study looked at the percentage of people in these metros who are between the ages of 35 and 64, single, employed, have health insurance coverage and are currently enrolled in school.
Lastly, to get an idea of how well people in an area are recovering from financial calamity, LendingTree calculated how quickly credit scores are rising after a bankruptcy by using proprietary data on the average credit score, on a geographic basis, of LendingTree customers who declared bankruptcy between three to four years earlier.
1. Buffalo, N.Y. – 67.6 At $738, Buffalo has the lowest median rent among the 50 cities reviewed, and 94 percent of adults over the age of 35 are insured (second highest). Residents who declare bankruptcy have an average credit score of 664 three years on, tied for the second highest score for the cities reviewed, suggesting that conditions are favorable for financial recovery. However, Buffalo ranks poorly in two metrics: at $52,303, median income is the seventh lowest, and only one other city has fewer students over the age the 35.
2. Minneapolis – 62.9 At just 3.7 percent, the exceedingly low unemployment rate for citizens in Minneapolis between the ages of 35 and 64 helps push the city to the No. 2 spot. Not only are most over-35s employed, but they also earn a median salary of $70,915, the eighth highest in the cities reviewed, 94 percent have health insurance and median rents are relatively low at $963.
3. Salt Lake City – 62.6 Only two other cities have more over-35s enrolled in school (Virginia Beach and Washington), and only five have more unmarried over-35s (New Orleans has the most). That could be due to the lowest unemployment rate for over-35s of any city reviewed (3.6%), and higher-than-average median income of $64,564 for that same group. That combines nicely with a moderate median rent of $967.
Less than a month ago Early Warning Services, the network that powers peer-to-peer payments platform Zelle, touted $75 billion in funds moved through its bank-supported platform with plans to expand its member network. One member bank, however, also reported a fraud rate of 90 percent shortly after implementing Zelle last year, said someone familiar with the statistics who wished to remain anonymous.
Fraud detection in banks, however, is no longer just about building a wall to keep outsiders out; cybersecurity teams need to install a filter that can identify who can and should enter the system.
Bank of America will spend $600 million this year on cyber defense alone, its chief operations and technology officer Cathy Bessant recently told Tearsheet. In December Menlo Security, a company that provides malware isolation solutions, raised $40 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $85 million. JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and American Express Ventures are among its investors.
Greenlight Financial Technology, the startup behind an app and debit card for kids and college students, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round joined by SunTrust Bank, Ally Financial and the Amazon Alexa Fund.
Companies like Better Mortgage, Blend and LendingHome are reengineering the way mortgages are applied for and underwritten. While Cadre and Fundrise are moving real estate investments from Excel spreadsheets to the digital world.
GreenSky offers on-the-spot loans of up to $65,000 for home improvement projects with generous zero-interest promotional periods. Lemonade offers urban renters and homeowners insurance for as little as $5 and $25, respectively. LendingHome provides financing for house flippers, and more recently, homeowners.
With the Enodo platform investors can cut to the chase with a platform that supports their decision-making through acquisition all the way to renovation, with features including rent price forecasting. In other words, Enodo is a real estate investing platform that provides quantifiable data, meaning investors no longer have to rely on hunches alone.
Enodo allows investors to carefully analyze any property in the country using basic physical and investment parameters. Users can also identify comparable properties, predict operating expenses and more. Parameters include things such as the year the home was built, number of units, amenities, market demographics and more.
This thread called Cash Parking on the Lend Academy Forum was created back in December 2016 and since then, forum members have discussed opportunities at banks and credit unions.
The discussion caught my eye when one user posted a 3% 5 year CD which happened to be offered by my local credit union.
Signing Up for a Savings Account at Marcus
Marcus by Goldman Sachs has been near the top of the list since I began checking. We last did a piece on savings account rates back in June 2017 when Goldman Sachs’ deposit accounts were still branded under GS Bank. Rates are now 30 basis points higher at 1.5% on Marcus accounts.
Their investment has paid off and it was recently reported that they had $17 billion of deposits. Since Goldman Sachs acquired GE Capital’s retail deposits, deposits have grown a whopping 90%.
She’s been hailed by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the world, and TechCrunch recognized her for “crushing it” last year. Both sources refer to her success as a leader at Kabbage, Inc. which has financed over $4 billion to more than 130,000 businesses to date.
Q: What sets Kabbage apart from other online small business lenders?
A:Our focus on real-time access to third-party data and our ability to stay connected to our customer’s data all the time. This technology allows us to provide an automated experience.
Q: So, user experience seems to be a big advantage for non-traditional lending sources. While that’s an advantage, what disadvantages does a lender like Kabbage have against a traditional lender?
A:There are lots of things. First, traditional lenders like banks have well-known brands; they have access to really cheap capital. They have a lot of customers already. They already have access to a framework which they operate with the ability to move funds.
The only thing they don’t have is the ability to serve the market, because it’s too expensive for them to serve our customers with the type of product they need.
Q: Was there a typical small business customer that you would lend to? Do you lend to certain business more often than others today?
A:Well, we got our start making loans to eBay sellers which you may or may not know. The reason we started there was because that’s where the first API was available, so we could get information on a business’ performance. Then as more APIs became available, we were able to expand our business. So for a long time, all of our customers were eCommerce businesses.
But about three years ago, we began expanding to service brick & mortar businesses, and today, about 85% of our customers are brick & mortar businesses.
Q: Over the last 5 years, fintech lending has grown to take up more of the small business lending market. Where do you see the market share in 5 years? Where’s Kabbage in this equation?
A:If you’re talking about businesses seeking less than half or a quarter million dollars, I think it’ll stay the way it is with largely non-traditional players, like Kabbage, filling that space. And I think banks could serve that market through partnerships, but overall, I think it’s going to look much the same as it is now.
The Military Lending Act’s (“MLA”) lending restrictions are expanded to apply to consumer credit card issuers and unsecured consumer lenders. Compliance in most areas was mandatory as of October 3, 2016, but as to credit cards the mandatory compliance date is October 3, 2017.
The MLA applies to active-duty military personnel, active Reserve and National Guard personnel serving on Title 10 orders, and their dependents with a valid military identification card.
The $1.45 trillion student loan market is made up of public and private student loans.
We now live in a world where crowdfunding and P2P investment opportunities are everywhere. The student loan market is no different. Companies like Sofi are shaking up what it looks like for both students and investors alike.
Sofi (short for Social Finance) has funded over $25 billion in student loans, with over 437,000 members around the country.
European digital banks N26 and Revolut will launch in the U.S. later this year, and there are reports that U.K. challenger bank Monzo is mulling a move into the U.S. market. Meanwhile, three U.S. banking startups — Varo Money, Square and Moven — recently announced plans to apply for or acquire U.S. banking licenses.
For N26, winning means customers loving N26 like in Europe. U.K.-based Revolut, which plans to launch in the U.S. later this year with a multi-currency bank account, said winning means acquiring millions of customers, particularly those who travel often; and to San Francisco-based Chime, a win is to bring large numbers of customers away from traditional institutions.
BankMobile has launched a content marketing website called Paradigm Money to help customers navigate personal finance.
The site, which launched this month, includes news, opinion pieces, interviews and advice.
BankMobile, which was born as the mobile-only offshoot of Customers Bank which sold it last year, has 1.8 million customers to date and opens about 300,000 new accounts each year.
Competition within the alternatives sector for family office investments is at an all-time high, as these investors get more comfortable with the range of assets available to them and their general understanding of alternatives rises. Fund managers want to win these wealthy investors over, but often find they are unsure of how best to pursue them. The family office client is increasingly demanding a more tailored approach to wooing them over. Managers who can adapt their prospecting tactics stand a better chance of winning a partnership with these prized investors.
A Q4 2017 research study, “Single-Family Offices and Alternative Investments,” by Institutional Capital Network, provides a framework for the changing dynamics in family office activity within the alternatives space. Some of the research findings that stand out in particular include:
First-generation founders have a “stay-rich” mentality, while second-generation are more likely to have a “get-richer” perspective.
About 40% of second generation single-family offices are investing 15% or more of their total portfolios into alternatives, compared to 20% of first generation single-family offices that are investing at similar levels. In 2017, 71% increased their direct allocations relative to 2016, and 82% intend to do so in the future.
In the latest survey by personal finance site Bankrate.com, 33% of Americans say they do not have more emergency savings than credit card debt. That includes 21% who say their credit card debt exceeds their emergency savings and 12% who indicate they have no savings or credit card debt.
While one in three Americans are financially ill-equipped for an emergency, that is down from 41% in 2017 and 43% in 2016 and is the lowest level in the eight years of the survey.
Fifty-eight percent say their emergency savings fund exceeds their credit card debt, which is up from 52% in the last two years and ties 2015 as the best seen in eight years.
A new Market Research Reports Search Engine report states the US mobile payments will grow from $550 billion in 2015 to reach $2.8 trillion by 2020, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.1 percent over the course of that period.
LendIt Fintech, the world’s leading event in financial services innovation, announced today that they have selected the Best Egg Personal Loan Platform provided by Marlette Funding, LLC, as a finalist in the Top Consumer Lending Platform category for the LendIt Fintech Industry Awards. The Top Consumer Lending Platform finalists were selected from companies that demonstrate a combination of loan performance, volume, growth, product diversity and responsiveness to stakeholders.
Klarna North America to Highlight “Smoooth” Payment Products at eTail West 2018 (Klarna Email), Rated: B
Klarna, a global payments provider, is a sponsor of and will be exhibiting at next week’s eTail West 2018 in Palm Springs, Calif.
Mobile banking startup Varo Money, Inc. today announced the hire of Carl Gish as Chief Marketing Officer. Gish is a marketing and general management executive with more than 20 years of experience across well-known, high-growth consumer brands and e-commerce businesses, including Amazon, Unilever, Dyson, eBay and Affirm. He will lead all aspects of the company’s branding and marketing, and will work directly with CEO Colin Walsh to drive large growth in Varo’s customer base across multiple marketing channels and partnerships.
The UK’s oldest peer-to-peer service is warning investors that defaults on its recent loans will be running at a higher rate than during the financial crisis.
Over the past three years, and with the backing of Balderton Capital and Index Ventures, two European venture capital firms, Mr Storonsky’s company has raised about £60m and had a valuation of £300m last year.
The United Kingdom’s financial technology sector attracted a record £1.34bn in venture capital investment in 2017, with 90% of that money going to startup and early stage businesses based in London.
Those raising cash last year included peer2peer lending platform Funding Circle (£81.9m); payments company, Transferwise (£211m) and challenger bank, Monzo (£71m).
Last week I spoke to two fintech entrepreneurs – Ollie Purdue of online bank account provider, Loot and Jared Jesner, CEO of currency exchange, WeSwap – about their reasons for entering the fintech arena and how they hope to carve out a niche in a crowded market.
POLITICIANS are going to consider the availability and uptake of peer-to-peer lending as part of an inquiry into finance for small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has soared in recent years. Members of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association have cumulatively lent a total of £5bn to businesses versus £3bn to individuals, as of the end of 2017.
Loans to SMEs tend to produce a higher rate of return than loans to consumers, but they can also be riskier in some cases. The average size of loan is also much higher.
Today the brand eclipses its competition, with many of its 400 failing to survive in 2016 as fresh price caps on loan and repayment charges came into action.
With UK-domination taken care of, the lender has been expanding rapidly overseas, starting its journey by launching in Canada, South Africa and Poland, before going on to purchase and assimilate a number of foreign short term lenders as part of its global growth.
To launch Wonga Spain, the lender purchased Spanish credit agency Credito Pocket in 2013, going on to purchase German “pay later” payment firm BillPay (with two million users to its name) and a stake in Indian firm Nahar Credits Private in October of the same year.
China’s 1.2 trillion yuan ($189 billion) internet finance industry has reached a turning point as regulators tighten regulations after one too many cases of bankruptcy and fraud.
RaboDirectIreland, an online savings bank owned by the Dutch lender Rabobank, will quit the Irish market in May. The bank has up to 90,000 Irish customer accounts with a total of €3 billion on deposit.
The bank says it has decided to withdraw from the Irish market after 13 years following “moves by our parent, the Rabobank Group, to simplify its business model across the world and reduce costs”.
In November, Swiss fintech company Temenos Group AG spent 150 million Swiss francs ($160 million) buying back its shares at an average price of 122 francs each. Weeks later, with the stock at 115 francs, it’s preparing to sell shares to fund a $1.9 billion takeover of British rival Fidessa Group Plc.
The return on invested capital looks set to be just over 6 percent in 2020, based on the stated cost synergies plus Fidessa’s forecast operating performance. That’s well below the target’s 9 percent cost of capital.
Anyfin, a Swedish startup that offers to refinance consumer loans and credit card debt using a combination of artificial intelligence and a photo of the current statement and repayment terms, has bagged €4.8 million in Series A funding led by Accel and Northzone.
BNI Europa, through Puzzle, its online credit brand, created a partnership with <Code for All_> to provide financial aid to anyone who wants to learn to become a IT developer.
This partnership provides an intensive code training program of 14 weeks supported by an online credit solution that offers special payment conditions to the program’s students.
The Ripio Credit Network wants to offer a real global credit ecosystem which is more suitable than traditional solutions and even than similar peer-to-peer lending services. While that sounds like a tall order, the RCN protocol will connect lenders and borrowers all over the world via the native RCN token.
As is the case with any blockchain ecosystem, the Ripio Credit Network has its own native RCN token. It is the network’s payment channel first and foremost. Although credit transactions can be settled in any local currency, one does need RCN tokens to access the network and facilitate transactions.
A new investment portal, Etherty, has launched offering a real estate linked-crypto currency that enables investors to seize property investment opportunities all over the world, primarily in key markets such as Dubai, Mexico, and Australia.
500 Startups, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator, announced Tuesday it is partnering with cryptocurrency exchange Huobi’s incubator wing, Huobi Labs.
The two companies will support startups in various areas, including developing business plans, focusing on elements such as white papers, marketing strategies, community engagement and fundraising efforts, the accelerator said in a press release.
The FMA is now open for applications from providers seeking to offer personalised financial advice to consumers through digital tools and platforms (so-called robo-advice).
Weizmann Forex Limited (WFL), a foreign exchange and inward remittances platform, has approved the acquisition of its unit Weizmann Impex Enterprises Ltd (WISE). The proposed deal is supposed to take place on April 1st and will be done through a Scheme of Amalgamation, the company said in a press release. WISE is authorized by the Reserve bank of India to issue and operate semi-closed prepaid payment systems in India. The company owns ‘JaldiCash’, a payments platform that claims to have a network of more than 18,000 channel partners across 29 Indian states and more than 520 districts through their B2B model. JaldiCash works on a P2P model lending model, enabling loans for retailers, hotels and other services
Islamic banking assets is only 5.03 per cent of the total banking sector’s assets in the country, with a market share of IDR356.5 trillion (US$26.7 billion).
According to ALAMI CEO Bembi Juniar, this is due to the lack of infrastructure, support from key opinion leaders, and education on the benefits of sharia-based financial services.
So ALAMI offers a platform that serves as an aggregator for sharia-based financing for SMEs.
Canada’s digital investor has raised a $65 million investment from the Power Financial group of companies, bringing their total investment in Wealthsimple to $165 million. Wealthsimple manages approximately $1.9 billion for over 65,000 clients in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. More than 80 per cent of people who use digital investing in Canada use Wealthsimple.
