Korea

The Merge of P2P Lending and Crowdfunding

wiseclerk 3 Comments

P2P Lending and crowdfunding are two totally different concepts you say? True so far.
P2P Lending means the lender loans the borrower money. The amount is repaid together with interest.
Crowdfunding is usually applied to describe concepts were a crowd decides to finance project. The motivation there is to see the project getting done. The funds are not paid back but spent on the project and investors are sometimes rewarded with the art or products that are a result of the project. A good example for a crowdfunding platform is Kickstarter, which P2P-Banking.com covered earlier – see article: ‘Kickstarter – Pledge Money to Fund an Artist‘.

Moneyauction creates ‘Reward Funding’ – merges P2P Lending and Crowdfunding

Moneyauction, a leading p2p lending service in Korea, now announced their ‘reward funding’ option. Continue reading →

P2P Lending Service Moneyauction Wins Savings Bank as Lender

wiseclerk 1 Comment

In Korea, p2p lending service Moneyauction became so attractive for lenders that it won a Savings Bank as a lender. A company spokesman told P2P-Banking.com that the bank evaluated the repayment rate of borrowers on the p2p lending site and found it to be better compared to the rate of it’s own existing customer base even though the p2p borrowers credit scores are lower than the credit scores of their customers. Other financial institutions have expressed interest in utilising Moneyauction or entering cooperations.

Moneyauction is advancing in it’s product development. In March it released the new ‘Automatic portfolio lending’ feature as well as support for mobile bidding via smartphones. Lenders can now bid on loans using smart phones like the iPhone (see picture).

(Source: company management)

Moneyauction – Booming P2P Lending Service in Korea

wiseclerk

Moneyauction, a Korean p2p lending company, says it is “the No. 2 [website] in Korea’s non-bank area, but the number 1 website in the finance area”. And it has impressive figures to prove it. Between June 01th, 2007 and Sep. 15th the loan amount applied was 56.6 million US$.

Moneyauction partnered with telecommunication carrier Korea Telecom and offers a mobile service allowing borrowers to apply for and lenders to bid on loans via their cell phone.

In 3 months Moneyauction plans to launch a secondary market (called ‘Divided bond trading’). A spokesman told P2P-Banking.com that he expects this new feature to boost the transaction volume.

(Source: company management)

P2P lending Asia

wiseclerk

Some news from p2p lending in Asian markets:

Chinese PPdai.com (see earlier coverage) says it has received a first round of funding from Essentia Private equity. The amount was not disclosed.

On February 27th, Zopa's managing director Giles Andrews mentioned in a webchat "I have also been spending time in Asia and hope that we will launch in 2 very significant markets there in 2008, one of which we may even announce shortly….".
In the webchat Giles Andrews also said regarding the US market: "@Tealer We also think that our "competitors" over there are illegal, and I don't want to go to jail!".
Furthermore Zopa said it plans to launch an (optional) capital guarantee product in the UK market.

See earlier coverage of P2P-Banking.com on the p2p lending markets in Corea, China, India or Japan.

P2P Lending Korea – Popfunding and Moneyauction

wiseclerk

Internet usage in Korea is booming, most surfers enjoy broadband internet access. Furthermore the population is very open minded towards new technologies.

This year two P2P lending services launched.

Popfunding.com allows borrowers to get loans up to a maximum amount of approx. 2000 US$. Interest rates are auctioned. Maximum interest rate is 29 percent. The CEO is Hyun Uk Shin. According to the Korea Times the service does NOT charge fees from borrowers or lenders. Only bank fees have to be paid. If a borrower fails to make a payment popfunding.com will disclose his identity and contact information to the lender. 

Moneyauction.co.kr has a similar concept. 

Financial regulators are looking into the concepts to check if they are in compliance with korean laws.

(Sources: Ringblog, Korea Times)