[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Rajat Gandhi. Rajat is the Founder and CEO of India’s largest P2P platform,...
Last year we featured GROUNDFLOOR who was the first p2p lending firm to leverage Regulation A+ in Title IV in...
The Reserve Bank of India will begin regulating p2p lending firms; the government of India released a notification on Wednesday; the platforms will be treated as non-banking financial companies (NBFCs); article shares the suggested regulatory framework from a paper released in 2016. Source
Zopa's Chief Product Office Andrew Lawson told investors last week they launched a new credit risk scorecard; the scorecard is meant to better help the platform assess borrowers and what is behind their approval/denial; Zopa has seen higher than expected losses and has also cut down on lending to higher risk customers; Lawson explained how the new model will use traditional credit methodology mixed with data science. Source.
In an interview with Business Insider at LendIt Europe Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana says even though new investors are on hold they are growing lending volumes by as much as 50 percent; the investor waiting list is over 15,000 and the current plan is to have them start investing by year end; the interview also touched on consumer credit and the overall economy in the UK. Source.
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Edoardo Matarrese and Roberto Condulmar of P2P Lending Italia an Italian language site focused on...
In a move viewed as a step towards becoming more central to their member’s financial lives, SoFi acquired Zenbanx for...
Zopa plans to reopen to new investors by end of the year after stopping investor on boarding earlier this year; they stopped taking new money because they were finding it harder to get good quality borrowers; they also saw a big jump in demand for their Innovative Finance Isa; while the plan for opening to new investors is targeted at year end it could be delayed by existing investor's Isa demand. Source.
AltFi takes an in-depth look at the oldest P2P lender Zopa and how they are positioning themselves for the future; recent partnerships with the Saffron Building Society and the coming PSD2 regulatory changes are key ingredients to the company’s future; Zopa also has plans to introduce a number of new products when it launches their bank in 2018. Source
The Financial Times’ Lex column explains that the P2P market in the UK can learn a great deal from the 2016 experience in the US; as lenders continue growing and look to achieve scale they should be careful to not overdo it; while troubles have occurred in the UK they have not reached the same level and lenders need to be sure to preserve credit quality. Source.