Author: wiseclerk

Cashare Plans To Use Digital Signatures in P2P Lending Process

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In Switzerland P2P Lending Service Cashare announced that it plans to be one of the web service pioneering the use of SuisseID a digital signature. Documents signed with this digital signature are as binding as a conventional signature on paper.

Opportunities for P2P Lending

Several European countries (e.g. Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium) have enacted laws that equate digital signatures with conventional signatures.

P2P Lending can use digital signatures to

  • validate the identity (and depending on the signature card the address) of users
  • automate processes that otherwise would require a signature on paper and enable paperless process chains.

Banks Need to Understand Their Customer’s Needs Better – FAST

wiseclerk

I just finished reading Bank 2.0 by Brett King. If I would work in middle-management of a bank – any bank – then I would be scared now, because the book clearly shows that banks are changing to slow. Or they simply deny that the world around them is evolving faster and faster and still try to continue business as it used to be.

Banks still spend too much time trying to solve the wrong questions like how to design branches or think about channel distribution. What they need to understand is that a customized solution fitted to the needs the customer has right now is needed.

If bank management does not foster innovations quickly they will lose contact to the customer. Banking function will continue but the interface to the customers might in future be held by p2p payment providers, p2p lending services, telcos, aggregators or other non-banking “insurgents”.

The book is filled with ample examples and observations from the authors work experience in banking. Available at Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon DE.

Fairplace – P2P Lending in Brazil

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Fairplace.com.br recently launched the first p2p lending service in Brazil. With approx. 190 million inhabitants Brazil could prove an interesting market for peer to peer lending. While financial institutions are the most common source for loans, consumers face lots of paperwork and high interest.

Founder Eldes Matiuzzo knows that, for he worked 14 years for Unibanco. He says user response since the launch is promising with about 25 registrations per day.

Each loan application undergoes risk assessment (Fairplace uses Seresa Experian Data) and only about 20 percent of applications are approved.

Loan requests are listed for a 14 day auction. Borrowers pay fees only if the loan is successfully funded. Fees listed are 5% for one year loans and 8 percent for two year loans. There are additional fees for credit assessment and each repayment installment. Lenders are charged 2% of each repayment (repaid principal + interest).

Currently the average interest rate at Fairplace is 2.99 percent per month, which is much lower than the average for the Brazilian market.

Vittana Credit

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Education microfinance service Vittana.org (see earlier coverage about Vittana) now enables lenders to relend directly. Lenders no longer need to go through Paypal for  every payment and repayment.

CEO Kushal Chakrabarti says: “Today, I have the honor of announcing that, as of last week, Vittana lenders had given over 200,000 US$ in loans to hundreds of young people who want to become engineers, policemen, biologists and much more.”

P2P Lending Topic in German Parliament

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In German the “green” party has initiated a parliament inquiry asking the government to ask 25 questions regarding it’s position towards p2p lending. While the party in the preamble describes p2p lending as a chance for consumers potentially offering them more choices, the wording of most of the questions exhibits that the green party is mostly concerned about the risks and implies that p2p lending is not enough regulated.

(Source: P2P-Kredite.com)