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Will Funding Circle Expand Into Europe?

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Note: The following is a synopsis from an Funding Circle investor event in London yesterday. I did not attend, therefore it is based on notes that attending investors have published.* I selected only some aspects from these notes, that I found interesting, so the following probably omits many topics from the meeting and is by no means complete.

Funding Circle confirmed that it has been investing own money (approx. 760K GBP) in loans on the platform. So far none of these loans have been sold on the secondary market.
Property loans were a new area for Funding Circle. To get it started Funding Circle used cash backs to incentivise investors. So far institutional investors have not invested into the property loans but this is likely to change soon.

Funding Circle sees retail and institutional investors as equally important for their lender mix in the future. Cashbacks are expected to be reduced in future as they were more important when new markets were introduced than now.

Funding Circle is working on improvements on the website and in communication to better meet the expectations of investors. The risk model is performing increasingly well over time. They also capture and monitor data about borrowers that they reject, watching for CCJs and other credit events.  This has enabled them to develop a more complete model, and ultimately enabled them to launch the E risk band.  E borrowers are people that they would previously have had to reject, but now they understand them well enough to feel they can accurately model the default risk.
Personal Guarantees are factored in to the risk banding process, and also considered in the manual underwriting stage; they do make an assessment of the “value” of the PG, but it’s aggregated amongst lots of other stats to produce an overall ‘score’.

In collections Funding Circle has  reduced their late rate (percentage of loans making late repayments) from 1.4% to 0.7% since they brought the function in house.
The recovery rate is currently at 20p/£1, but this is skewed by the vast volume of loans being made; Funding Circle expect this would be at c. 43p/£1 if the loan book was frozen.

Funding Circle produced a tool, for MPs, prior to the 2015 election, to show what businesses in what constituencies were borrowing what, from whom (and presumably, by extension, risk bandings etc).  This tool will be made available to investors via the Funding Circle website soon. Continue reading →

Sign Up for Lendit Europe Conference in London in October

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LendIt Europe will be held in London on October 20-21, 2015. LendIt is the major conference for the p2p lending industry with venues in New York, San Francisco, China and London. I attended Lendit London last year and can recommend it to anybody in the p2p lending industry. You can read my Lendit Recap 2014 here.

With the event only 3 months away and registration open you can now grab tickets at earlybird pricing. Earlybird price for the conference is 495 GBP (plus VAT), price will go up to 895 GBP (plus VAT) after July 31st. For my valued blog readers I obtained Lendit discount code wiseclerkvip – enter this voucher code on the payment page and you get a special 15% discount on the ticket price.

LendIt Europe will bring together the leaders and pioneers at the forefront of the p2p and online lending industry in Europe. In addition to the leading lending platforms, LendIt Europe is expected to draw institutional investors, financial analysts, private wealth managers, family offices, individual investors, and media representatives from across the globe.

LendIt Europe 2015 will be a two day event with the second day in partnership with the UK P2P Finance Association (P2PFA). Agenda, speakers, and sponsors will be announced in the coming weeks.

The conference at the Hilton Metropole Hotel will feature keynotes from the CEOs of the leading UK platforms, as well as interactive panel sessions with leaders from across Europe. There will also be a pre-conference cocktail party held the night before at the Landmark Hotel.

I am looking forward to LendIt London and hope to see you all there! For those of you who can’t make it – the event will be broadcasted live on the internet.

Lendit Europe 2015

Funding Empire Sells Majority Stake to Paratus AMC

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Funding Empire LogoFunding Empire, the P2P platform for SME business finance, has sold a majority stake to Paratus AMC, the Bracknell based residential mortgage servicer and lender.

Funding Empire will continue to be headquartered in Cardiff and is currently Wales’ only P2P lending platform.

Commenting on the deal, Parag Patel MD of Funding Empire: ‘We are delighted to welcome Paratus AMC as a partner and majority shareholder. Their team, mature back office functions, strong balance sheet and proven ability in managing secured assets on a large scale presents us with a unique opportunity to create a market leading business in the dynamic P2P lending market. With the backing of Paratus AMC, we are now best placed to accelerate the development of Funding Empire and build on the solid foundation the team has worked relentlessly to create over the past few years. We are currently working on the launch of some new and exciting products without compromising our reputation for taking a very thorough, transparent and customer-centric approach to doing business.’ Continue reading →

Sage Partners with Funding Circle and MarketInvoice

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Sage, the business software and services provider, announced two partnerships that will help SMEs unlock the UK’s growing alternative finance industry, which was worth 1.74 billion GBP in 2014.

Integrating with one of Europe’s peer-to-peer business lenders for short term finance, MarketInvoice, Sage’s flagship small business accounting package – Sage 50 Accounts – now enables small businesses across the UK and Ireland to apply for business-critical funds more quickly and easily than ever before.

Working with Funding Circle, an marketplace for business loans, Sage aims to help even more businesses across the country understand how they can borrow all important growth capital between 5,000 GBP and 1 million GBP (and up to 3 million GBP for property finance) in days not months.

‘Sage has been at the forefront of payment and funding innovation for years, and alternative finance is no exception,’ said Lee Perkins, EVP and UKI Managing Director for Sage Group plc. ‘Sage Pay already provides a key piece of the business growth puzzle, and when it comes to small business accounting, Sage 50 Accounts offers the deepest and broadest hybrid accounting capabilities on the market. By partnering with MarketInvoice and Funding Circle, we’re giving Small & Medium Businesses in the UK the ability to swiftly and easily apply for additional funding to support their business development and growth.”

Lack of finance remains a critical issue for UK companies, with almost 40 per cent stating it holds them back from growing, according to UK Bond Network. Whether they need to invest in stock, new premises, product development, or even cover day-to-day costs, alternative finance can provide faster, more convenient lending than traditional sources. Marketplace lending platforms have provided over 2.1bn GBP  in funds to UK small businesses in recent years.

James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle, said: ‘The Funding Circle marketplace is currently the fifth largest net lender to small businesses in the UK, in just under five years. But there’s still a long way to go – many small business owners remain unaware of the choice they now have when looking for finance. Partnering with Sage will allow us to grow awareness and trust, bringing more competition and efficiency to the small business lending market.’ Continue reading →

International P2P Lending Services – Loan Volumes June 2015

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The following table lists the loan originations for June. Most p2p lending services grew in June. I do monitor development of p2p lending figures for many markets. Since I already have most of the data on file I can publish statistics on the monthly loan originations for selected p2p lending services.
Investors living in markets with no or limited choice of local p2p lending services can check this list of marketplaces open to international investors.
P2P Lending Volume 06/2015
Table: P2P Lending Volumes in June 2015. Source: own research
Note that volumes have been converted from local currency to Euro for the sake of comparison. Some figures are estimates/approximations.
*Prosper and Lending Club no longer publish origination data for the most recent monthNotice to p2p lending services not listed: Continue reading →

Prêt d’Union Raises 31M EUR

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pretdunion-logo-2015French p2p lending marketplace Prêt d’Union has announced a capital increase of 31 million EUR subscribed by new investors, including Eurazeo and Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, as well as its historical shareholders. The total funding since its commercial launch in December 2011 has thus to €50 million. This new fundraising will be used to accelerate its international launch, scheduled for early 2016. Alongside its founders, employees and business angels, Prêt d’Union welcomes Eurazeo as a new shareholder, which joins a solid consortium comprising Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Schibsted (shareholder in France of the Leboncoin.fr website), AG2R La Mondiale, Weber Investissements (holding company of the founders of Financière de l’Echiquier) and Kima Ventures, the investment fund of Xavier Niel and Jérémie Berrebi.

Prêt d’Union is currently the first and only internet peer-to-peer lender to be certified as a ‘credit institution and investment service provider’ by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (French Prudential Supervisory Authority).

‘With loans of €200 million granted in just over 3 years, we have achieved a lending rate of 15 million EUR per month or an average monthly growth rate of 6%. This new fundraising, which was widely oversubscribed, marks a new growth phase for Prêt d’Union. It will enable us to commence our European expansion and pursue our growth in France, through numerous hirings, the launch of innovative technology projects, mainly involving Big Data, and ongoing investments in customer experience”, explained Geoffroy Guigou and Charles Egly, Prêt d’Union co-CEOs.