Finbee currently offers consumer loans and has announced expansion into business loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); the expansion follows a new law enacted by the government to support online lending and a license obtained by Finbee for the service; the SME loans will be sourced from a separate website; Finbee will offer SME loans for up to 15,000 euros ($15,911) with a 12 month duration; different from the consumer loans, Finbee will not be covering defaults from SME loans with its compensation fund. Source
Nucleus Commercial Finance has lent over 500 million British pounds ($624 million) to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and is planning to ramp up lending in 2017; firm's lending products include asset finance, construction finance, invoice finance and cash flow finance and they are planning to add new products as well as hire three new people for its asset-based lending team; the platform's lending has increased 100% since April 2016 and it is targeting 1 billion British pounds ($1.25 billion) in loans to SMEs in the next 12 months. Source
In its Q3 2016 State of Blockchain report, CoinDesk provides insights on blockchain; says blockchain investment is decreasing however significant development efforts continue to occur primarily from major banks and stock exchanges; report also says interest in blockchain from central banks is likely to continue. Source
UK consumer lending platforms reported originations of 154 million British pounds ($191.81 million) in January which topped a previous high in September 2016; Zopa led UK consumer lenders in January with originations of 80 million British pounds ($99.64 million); other consumer lenders contributing to the January record included RateSetter, Lending Works, Funding Secure and Lendable. Source
SoFi has securitized another portfolio which was priced on February 2; Moody's provided ratings ranging from Aaa to Baa2 for the portfolio; the portfolio includes private student loans from SoFi; the value of rated loans was $561 million. Source
Dianrong is a Chinese online lender run by one of the co-founders of Lending Club, Soul Htite; the company is planning an IPO in Hong Kong and could raise $500 million next year. Source
- JD Finance Announces JD Financial Cloud“Fintech as a Service” to empower financial institutions with enhanced precision marketing and risk management capabilities
- LendKey Forms Partnership with Allied Solutions to Offer Digital Lending & Loan Participation Solutions for Financial Institutions
- China, Australia sign agreement to share fintech information
- AI-driven finance app Douugh partners Choice Financial for checking account
Infinity Lending Systems offers a range of platform software services for online lenders; in their featured blog post J Washburn provides three tips for improving network security; suggests using clever passwords, regulating external devices and avoiding phishing attempts. Sponsored Blog Post
PeerIQ and Freedom Financial Network have signed an agreement that will allow new data access for Freedom Financial Asset Management and its clients; Freedom Financial Asset Management is a marketplace lending platform offering consumer loans; the data access will include PeerIQ's full suite of tools which will also be available to the platform's institutional investors; Freedom Financial Asset Management will also utilize PeerIQ's fair valuation services which launched last year. Source
VeriComply has announced the completion of a new funding round from investors including Jon Barlow of Eaglewood Capital and John Maute of Helios AMC and Situs Holdings; VeriComply plans to use the funding for sales and operations of the firm's automated loan verification services for lending platforms and the secondary market; it is currently building out its business for verification services in the marketplace lending industry. Source