During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter as it happens. Then every Saturday I take the most interesting news items and blog posts from the past week and share them here.
RBS to refer rejected small firms to peer-to-peer lenders from Reuters UK – The biggest news of the week was undoubtedly this deal about RBS, the UK’s largest small business lender, referring borrowers to p2p lenders Funding Circle and Assetz Capital.
14 Percent of Millennial Business Owners Use Alternative Lending from Small Business Trends – One of the reasons I am so bullish on P2P lending for small business is the changing demographics laid out in this article.
Marketplace Lending Is Doing What Banks Can’t by Crowdfund Insider – By David Klein, the CEO and Co-founder of CommonBond, on why marketplace lending is succeeding right now.
Wall Street Lukewarm on Lending Club from Barron’s – Lending Club’s quiet period from their IPO officially ended this week and four of their underwriters rated the stock as “neutral”.
The Bad News About Lending Club.. from CrowdfundBeat – This provocatively titled piece is really about picking the future marketplace lending winners.
U.S. firm invests $228 million in British peer-to-peer loans from Daily Mail – Victory Park Capital have made some big investments in marketplace lending platforms but none bigger than this deal with Assetz Capital.
Investment in Asian P2P Increases from AltFi – Tiger Global has made a large investment in Dianrong, a leading Chinese p2p lender.
Former NAB notables turn on big banks with peer-to-peer lending start-up Moneyplace from BRW (Australia) – Four former executives of one of Australia’s largest banks are launching a P2P lending platform down under.
Connect 450: A tech startup helps rejig America’s capital markets from The Economist – A profile of Orchard and how they are connecting investors with marketplace lending platforms.
Prosper Loans Historical Listings: Default Rate, Originations, Rating and Days Past Due from PeerCube – Detailed analysis of Prosper’s loan history since 2009 with some great charts.
Banks Conspicuously Scarce in Supercharged Online Loan Field from American Banker – Most banks really don’t know what to make of the huge growth in online lending.
Peer-to-Peer Lender SoFi Planning Its Largest Sale of Securities from Bloomberg – SoFi is getting ready to sell $314 million of securities backed by student loans in what would be the largest securitization ever in this industry.
Going Beyond FICO: How P2P Lending Platforms Use Big Data to Determine Risk from Prime Meridian – While FICO is important to underwriting, marketplace lenders use other factors as well when determining risk.
Peer-to-peer lending heralds mortgages without banks from New Scientist – A look at the housing market in the UK and the movement toward P2P mortgages.
From the Lend Academy Forum
The Lend Academy forum is where investors go to discuss p2p lending. Below are some topics that were being discussed this week.
Account Value according to Mr. IRS – When converting an IRA from a traditional to a Roth what account value should be used?
3 weeks in review – Sometimes loans can spend a long time in review as the platforms gather information from the borrower.
Terribly Slow ACH Transfers – Interesting discussion as to why ACH transfers take so long.