LendingRobot, who previously only offered automated investing for consumer loans through Lending Club and Prosper announced today that they will...
Zopa, the industry's first P2P lender, has reached a new milestone, originating over 2 billion British pounds ($2.5 billion) in loans since 2005; according to Zopa the firm has originated 300,000 loans from 246,000 borrowers and has 75,000 investors; in the UK, Funding Circle is also close to reaching the 2 billion British pound mark with cumulative loan originations of 1.92 billion British pounds ($2.40 billion) since its launch in 2010. Source
One of the co-founders of Funding Circle USA is stepping down and will become Chairman. Source
The head of Funding Circle USA talks small business lending, competition, banks, the SBA, Canada expansion, regulation and more. Source...
Congress tried to solve the problem of large businesses obtaining loans from the PPP by giving more money to smaller...
UK Small business lender Funding Circle attempts to simplify the investment process by removing manual bidding in favor of a two tiered autobid process; the two autobid accounts will be: balanced with a targeted return of 7.5% and conservative with a targeted return of 4.8%; UK Managing Director James Meekings tells AltFi: "These changes will make lending at Funding Circle simpler, better, fairer. We want to create a level playing field for all investors and ensure everyone has the same opportunity to lend to UK businesses."; the changes were in response to individual investors "gaming" the system and not allowing the passive investors access to higher return loans which are very popular; according to AltFi this is a trend in in the industry with other platforms, including Zopa in May, moving to this process. Source
During a keynote panel at LendIt Europe Funding Circle CEO Samir Desai wondered if incumbent banks who build fintechs are attempting to pull a fast one on customers; the discussion talked about banks building fintech platforms and delivering better customer experiences; they also touched upon some misconceptions in online lending and the main customer lead channels. Source.
According to The Times, sources say Funding Circle is in no hurry to do an IPO, but if the markets continue to be favorable they may go public in the second half of the year; article also shares the potential in their US business where they have much less brand awareness compared to the UK; there are some concerns from clients and investors that the company has not yet been through a recession as they look at an IPO; Funding Circle currently has 850 employees and last raised £82 million at a £990 million valuation. Source
It has been an interesting to say the least as we have watched everything play out with the Paycheck Protection...
Funding Circle and Zopa both discussed the rationale for becoming a bank at the AltFi Europe Summit; Funding Circle's Samir Desai talked about three ways online lenders are collaborating with banks and said, "We at Funding Circle have no plans to launch a bank."; comparatively, Zopa is taking the opposite approach and Jaidev Janardana discussed the firm's bank expansion, noting that the firm will be focusing on savings deposit accounts and will be using deposits to fund loans. Source