AutoGravity has launched a new mobile financing app; the app allows consumers in California to choose a car and receive four financing options through the mobile app; the buyer can arrange all of the pre-sale details through the mobile app making the completion of the deal at the dealership fast and convenient. Source
US online lender Affirm has announced its 1 millionth consumer installment loan; the platform works with Cross River Bank for loan originations and partners with retailers to offer its credit financing solution; the firm is managed by Pay Pal co-founder Max Levchin and has also announced it will be moving its San Francisco headquarters to 650 California Street with 86,225 square feet of office space for the growing company. Source
Bank service provider Misys is looking to bring an end to alternative lending by giving banks a solution that is similar to that of marketplace lenders; "There's clearly a demand for banks to take back that piece of the lending market," explained Misys Senior Product Officer Jean-Cedric Jollant in a discussion with PYMNTS; Misys believes this solution would give banks more lending options and they would no longer have to partner with an online lender; Jollant goes on to say that 90% of the online lending market will collapse and only the top names will survive a decade or two. Source
Lantern Credit has acquired the Abstract Regression Classification (ARC) Machine Learning Library to enhance its proprietary machine learning solution, Beam AI; the firm expects the acquisition and machine learning enhancements to improve its credit advice, credit offers and support for financial institutions; according to Chad Swensen, CEO of Lantern Credit, "Leveraging the ARC software to advance the Beam AI technology produces the most advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning application in the consumer credit management space." Source
Prosper filed its annual earnings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission showing an annual loss in 2016 of $118.7 million from revenue of $132.9 million; the loss compares to an annual loss of $26 million for 2015; 2016 was a challenging year for the industry overall; Prosper attributes the losses to lower loan volumes and higher restructuring and legal costs; in February, Prosper reported a $5 billion deal with a consortium of investors committing to invest in Prosper's loans over the next two years, which has helped to give the firm a much more positive outlook for 2017. Source
After substantial growth in 2016, Money360 has expanded its team by adding two new divisions and directors; David Christensen will lead the Northwest region and Kenneth Wood will lead the Northeast region; in December the company reported a record month of lending with $35 million in loans; in the first few months of 2017 it expects to report cumulative lending of over $200 million. Source
Upstart has been steadily growing its online lending business and has now announced a new fundraising as well as the launch of a white label software as a service (SaaS) product; the fundraising will add $32.5 million in new capital from investors including: Rakuten, a large US-based asset manager, Third Point Ventures, Khosla Ventures and First Round Capital; Upstart has emerged with many significant developments in the online loan business including next-day funding and a robust proprietary credit underwriting platform built on machine learning and modern technology; with the evolution of the business, the firm has developed a new white label SaaS product called by Powered by Upstart which it is launching at LendIt USA; the service is an extension of the firm's proprietary credit underwriting system driven by machine learning and modern data science. Source
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Stéphane Blanchoz from BNP Paribas says market factors should help increase investment in alternative credit and specifically non-bank lending; bank disintermediation, regulatory support from policymakers, volatile fixed income markets, a low interest rate environment, and significant differentiation between fixed income and equity returns are all near-term factors increasing investment interest in non-bank lending investments; Blanchoz expects these factors to attract both retail and institutional investors with SME credit investments emerging as a leading investment. Source