Category: Payday Loan Ranger

United States

Elevate Customers Save More Than $ 2 Billion Thanks to Advanced Tech-Enabled Underwriting (BusinessWire), Rated: AAA

Elevate Credit, Inc. (“Elevate” or “the company”), a leading tech-enabled provider of innovative and responsible online credit solutions for non-prime consumers, today announced their customers have saved more than $2 billion, versus what they would have paid for payday loans. $613 million of these cumulative savings were incurred in the first half of 2017 alone.

Joe Chen’s Sneaky SoFi Share Snatch (Forbes), Rated: AAA

But in Silicon Valley Renren’s founder and CEO, Joseph “Joe” Chen, is no outcast. He is a well-connected guru and mentor who sits on the boards of companies in which Renren has invested, like LendingHome, Fundrise, and Motif Investing. Chen also sits on the board of Social Finance, known as SoFi, which has been under fire due to a mounting sexual harassment scandal that recently saw Mike Cagney resign as SoFi’s CEO and chairman.

Chen is cooking up a deal that will allow shareholders of Renren who are “qualified purchasers” and “accredited investors,” to exchange their shares in the company for ownership in a spinoff entity consisting of its investment portfolio, including Renren’s stake in SoFi. Other shareholders who do not qualify would instead get a cash payment reviewed by a special committee of Renren’s board.

Under the spinout plan, Chen, who owns 31% of Renren’s stock, SoftBank, which owns 39% of Renren, and DCM, which owns 8.6%, will likely increase their SoFi holdings. Most of the shareholders owning the remaining 20% of Renren would lose their exposure to SoFi given that they appear to largely be individual retail investors, Securities & Exchange Commission filings show. This would leave them with a yet-to-be determined dividend, and a holding in a declining, money-losing Chinese internet company.

Renren still has its stake in SoFi, which together with some other Renren investments is worth more than Renren’s market capitalization of $630 million.

Overstock.com launches SEC-compliant ICO alternative (Bankless Times), Rated: AAA

Online retail giant Overstock.com is currently not only offering custom jewelry or discount mattresses but has been delving into cryptocurrency through Overstock.com, its subsidiary focused on Blockchain ventures.

In their Overstock.com, they are now in a joint venture together with RenGen and Argon Group to launch an Automated Trading System (ATS) for trading tokens issued via ICOs.

According to reports, $2 billion has been raised in token sales this year alone.

Hedge Funds Flip ICOs, Leaving Other Investors Holding the Bag (Bloomberg), Rated: A

Hedge funds are proving to be first among equals when it comes to digital token sales by technology startups, receiving preferential discounts and terms and then often cashing out. While legal, the maneuver is drawing comparisons to some of the eyebrow-raising practices that took place during the IPO heyday of the 1990s, when many preferred investors would quickly resell shares for big profits.

“It’s not healthy for the ecosystem, and it’s pretty abusive,” said Kyle Samani, a managing partner at Austin, Texas-based Multicoin Capital, which invests in ICOs. “They are getting a discount because they are a big name, and they think it’s going to draw the retail investor. It’s the greater fools theory –- I’ll buy it if there’s someone who’s more of a fool than me.”

Startups often announce, with much fanfare, that such-and-such funds and big-name investors have participated in the presale. What isn’t as well publicized is that the early investors — and, possibly, even the startup’s founders — can often cash out right after the ICO.

More than 80 percent of ICOs are doing presales, according to Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous NEXT.

PeerStreet funds over half a billion in loans, maintains zero losses to investors (PeerStreet Email), Rated: AAA

PeerStreet, the real estate investing platform for real estate debt, has just hit the milestone of having funded half a billion in loans and with zero losses to investors since the company launched in 2015.

Platforms in the P2P and crowdfunding space are seeing increasing competition and scrutiny, but PeerStreet has continued to offer investors access to quality loans and high yields, earning the public testimonial of some high-profile users, such as 

Kabbage is Raising $ 161 Million (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: AAA

Online SME lender Kabbage is raising $161 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Fintech firm filed the Form D last week indicating it had already received $80,573,040 with the same amount remaining to be raised.

Atlanta fintech ‘unicorn’ Kabbage raising $ 161 million (Biz Journals), Rated: B

Kabbage, which is mulling an IPO, has raised about $80 million on the planned raise, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing. The fintech, valued at more than $1 billion, announced a $250 million investment from SoftBank last year.

Kabbage’s Petralia Talks Big Tech, Fintech and Lending (deBanked), Rated: A

It’s only been a few weeks since the blockbuster announcement that SoftBank is investing $250 million into Kabbage, which thrust the small business lender into the spotlight for a few reasons, not the least of which was the more than $1 billion valuation that has been speculated for Kabbage.

This valuation, of course, is in stark contrast to that of OnDeck, which also lends to small businesses.

“All of our bank partnerships are technology integrations where our technology sits in their systems. They use our technology to deliver the customer experience. And I think what SoftBank saw in us was that potential. Whatever the valuation was I can assure you it was a result of a lot of due diligence on the part of SoftBank,” she said.

Rethinking Credit Scores in the Age of Fintech (Huffington Post), Rated: AAA

What value do the three big ratings bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, provide today in our emerging digital economy?

Increasingly in a world where payments may involve a peer to peer exchange, a global transfer, and more and more often a mobile phone transaction, the definition of good credit is going to change and widen.

Today, Experian maintains credit information on 215 million American consumers [Experian]. That’s over two-thirds of the total U.S. population [U.S. Census]. Roughly half of the population in the US has a FICO credit score that is less than 650, meaning that nearly half of people in the US cannot get credit from banks today.

The Equifax debacle turned up the volume on the call for change. We’re about to see more innovative ways of looking at credit, most of them built by mobile-first fintech companies.

Companies like PayPal, Kabbage, SmartBiz, Square, and others have stepped in to look at new ways to determine creditworthiness. Rather than depend solely on a single score like FICO, they are looking at a more holistic picture of a credit applicant.

SoFi, another lending startup, is using AI to analyze data from sources other than credit card information. And ShoCard, a blockchain-identity management system (IMS), teamed up with Creditinfo to let a customer claim their identity and manage who it gets shared with.

Chad Swenson of Lantern Credit believes your credit should be under your control. “Companies,” he says, “now have the ability to work with multiple alternative data streams outside of the traditional data delivered from the bureaus.”

Evan Singer, CEO of SmartBiz, a company devoted to helping small businesses secure loans, says that other metrics like your bank rating (how you use your bank rather than your credit) is another important piece of the puzzle often ignored.

CrowdStreet Debuts First Direct Commercial Real Estate Investing Platform for Financial Advisors (CrowdStreet), Rated: A

CrowdStreet, provider of the leading commercial real estate investment platform for investor acquisition and relationship management, today announced several enhancements to its flagship Sponsor Direct white-label software platform designed to address the needs of modern investment firms. With these new features, Sponsor Direct is now the only software offering that combines support for financial advisor accounts with a suite of tools specifically developed to help them engage, communicate with and service their investors. Hines Securities Inc. is the first firm to leverage these new capabilities, relying on Sponsor Direct to provide easy-to-use online real estate capital fundraising functionality to financial advisors.

CrowdStreet’s proven software solutions currently support more than 53,000 investors, managing more than 1,000 offerings and $3.7 billion in invested capital. Since its launch, the CrowdStreet software platform has been used to raise more than $260 million and distribute more than $684 million to investors.

New Yorkers pay the second highest ATM fees in the country (NY Daily News), Rated: A

ATM fees have reached an 11-year record high, and New Yorkers are paying the second highest rates, says Bankrate’s annual Checking Account Survey for 2017.

The national average ATM fee is $4.69, equaling the average ATM surcharge of $2.97 plus the average out-of-network fee your main bank charges of $1.72.

Cities whose fees top over $5 include Pittsburgh ($5.19), New York ($5.14), Washington, D.C. ($5.11), Cleveland ($5.11) and Atlanta ($5.05).

Even the lowest fees still don’t drop below $4 with Milwaukee at $4.19 and Dallas at $4.07.

Overall, ATM withdrawal fees have risen by 55% over the last ten years and there is little to curb this growth.

1031 Crowdfunding Moves Up Rankings to #4 Among Top Real Estate Crowdfunding Sites (PR Newswire), Rated: A

1031 Crowdfunding, LLC announced today that the Company moved up in the rankings for the 2017-2018 Top 100+ Real Estate Crowdfunding Sites to #4 overall and maintained its position as #1 ranked Real Estate Crowdfunding site for 1031 Exchanges.

The Real-Estate Crowdfunding Review conducted in-depth research of over 100 real estate crowdfunding sites to form the reviews and rankings provided in the Top 100+ Real Estate Crowdfunding Sites. Site features most highly-valued included: pre-funding, low investor fees, low investors minimums, bankruptcy protection, velocity, positive investor feedback, co-investment by the company, and venture capital funding in the company.

Top 100+ Real Estate Crowdfunding Sites (The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review), Rated: A

13 sites in the former top 25 have fallen completely out of the rankings due to abandoning their business model or challenges. 5 sites have improved tremendously with substantially increased volume, and a few of these that were lower ranked have leaped up the charts as well.

Tier 1: Best of the Best

These sites have it all: High transparency, co-investment,  pre-funding, high-volume, average to low fees, excellent bankruptcy protection, strong administration and customer service, and strong financial backing.

None. No site has all these features yet, but we hope that will change by the time of our next review.

Tier 2: All-Stars

These sites are all extremely strong in the majority of the fundamentals that are most important to investors.

• 1) Peer Street
• 2) Crowd Street
• 3) FundThatFlip
• 4) 1031 Crowdfunding
• 5) Real Crowd

Tier 4: Up-And-Coming + On-probation

There are 2 types of sites in this category. The 1st are up-and-coming sites that may not be as polished as competitors but have some sort of promise or potential for the future. The 2nd are sites that did well in last year’s rankings, but since then have had substantial investor complaints, decreasing volume or other challenges.

• 7) SBRE Funds (up-and-coming)
• 8) Realty Shares (investor complaints probation)
• 9) Equity Multiple (up-and-coming)
• 10) Realty Mogul (volume probation)
• 11) C.K. Mack (up-and-coming)
• 12) LendingHome (investor complaints probation)
• 13) Prodigy Network (volume probation)
• 14) Alpha Flow (up-and-coming)
• 15) Instalend (up-and-coming)

Justice Department gives big banks green light on real-time payments (American Banker), Rated: A

Following an antitrust review that lasted almost a year, the Department of Justice has greenlighted a real-time payments network being developed jointly by the nation’s largest banks.

The government’s approval may boost the prospects of a system that is being built by The Clearing House, the payments firm co-owned by JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and a host of other banks.

Fintech players assess post-disruption environment (Banking Exchange), Rated: A

Has the state of consumer credit changed post-crisis? Lending Club Chief Executive Scott Sanborn said he believes that the “new normal” in consumer lending is riskier.

Wages are stagnant, Sanborn said, and a greater portion of many consumers’ income now goes toward repayment of debt. Credit cards, student loans, and auto loans are among the major drains on the consumer wallet today, he noted.

A common use of marketplace lenders’ credit is debt consolidation loans, undertaken by consumers to bring down their overall borrowing rates.

Lending Club is not alone among nonbank digital lenders in going beyond traditional credit criteria. A co-panelist with Sanborn, Sarah Friar, chief financial officer at Square, said that her company—which recently applied for an industrial bank charter in Utah—doesn’t use FICO ratings at all. Friar said Square—which began as a payments mechanism and has expanded into small business credit—looks at financial accounts, number of employees, and status versus other players, among other factors.

Spending Within Their Means: Some Cities Do It Better Than Others (Business Insider), Rated: A

LendingTree®, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace, has released the findings of its study on how well residents in the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas are spending within their means – or aren’t.

Among the 50 ranked metro areas, residents are, on average, using 30 percent of their revolving credit lines — such as credit cards and home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs. They also have mortgage balances averaging 79 percent of their annual income and non-housing debt balances averaging 44 percent of annual income, and have had five credit inquiries in the last two years.

Greenville, SC takes the top score, despite having the second-lowest average income among the 50 cities ranked at $65,503 per household.

Goldman Sachs Explores a New World: Trading Bitcoin (WSJ), Rated: B

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS 0.40% is weighing a new trading operation dedicated to bitcoin and other digital currencies, the first blue-chip Wall Street firm preparing to deal directly in this burgeoning yet controversial market, according to people familiar with the matter.

Goldman’s effort is in its early stages and may not proceed, the people said.

United Kingdom

RateSetter streamlines secondary market fees (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

RATESETTER has announced that it is simplifying the way investors can access their money, with one single “transfer fee” when selling loans on the secondary market.

Lenders are currently charged two fees when selling out existing RateSetter loans, but from 2 November this is being streamlined into a single charge. The fee will be a percentage of the capital being withdrawn, and will be fixed for each market.

LendInvest urges government to back SME builders (Mortgage Solutions), Rated: AAA

Property finance platform LendInvest has called on government to do more to support small builders after discussing the subject with a group of influential MPs.

The event follows the publication of a report by LendInvest earlier this year on the challenges faced by property SMEs. These include constrained access to finance and distorted policy around regulation, taxation and access to land.

At the time of the report LendInvest said only 12.5% of new homes built today are constructed by small builders, down from 37.5% before 1990.

A canary in the P2P coal mine? (Financial Times), Rated: A

How are British “peer-to-peer” lenders doing?

Employee lenders are one of the fastest-growing areas of UK fintech (Financial Times), Rated: A

Online lenders that are repaid from people’s salaries have raised more than £175m in recent months, marking out the nascent sector as one of the hottest areas of the UK financial technology market.

Legal & General, the insurer, will on Wednesday announce that it is leading the latest £40m investment in SalaryFinance, which provides loans to employees of 50 groups in the UK and plans to expand in the US.

Founded by three former executives from Google, PA Consulting and Royal Bank of Scotland, SalaryFinance combines with companies to offer their employees loans at lower rates than credit cards or payday lenders.

The company has an unusually low default rate of 0.5 per cent because of the security of deducting repayments directly from a borrower’s salary, and the extra information it gains about its customers by tapping into their employer’s payroll systems.

Fintech awareness is surprisingly low in the UK (Business Insider), Rated: A

Despite the high number of UK consumers who use financial products and the extent of financial services penetration in the country — 91% of people across the UK have a current account, and 67% use contactless payments at least once a month — awareness of fintech services in the UK remains low, according to a