Today Lending Club announced that it opens to investors from Texas and Arizona. Lending Club is now open to retail investors from 30 US states.
“We are delighted to announce the addition of two key states today, which we believe will help drive more individual investors to our platform,” said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. “Our marketplace gives investors unprecedented access to consumer credit as an asset class, and empowers investors to diversify their investment across hundreds or thousands of loans. We are thrilled to be able to bring this access to investors in Texas and Arizona and appreciate the work done by the state regulators that allowed this to happen.”
TWINO is a peer-to-peer lending platform that connects investors with some money they could lend and borrowers who need some money for making their dream come true — buying a new car, covering tuition or medical costs, for travel and leisure, renovating their house or starting a business etc. The money is lent without a pledge. This is a chance for borrower to get a loan with a lower interest rate than a bank or the various short-term loan providers would offer, while the investor can make direct investments without institutional intermediaries and receive a higher return on his investments.
What are the three main advantages for investors?
First and foremost, it is as chance to get significantly higher return on your investment than in a bank. Our financial solution allows omitting complicated financial operations that require high administrative expenses; therefore, it is possible to provide the service for a lower cost.
Secondly, so far, TWINO has been the only company in European market to offer opportunities to invest into consumer loans with buyout guarantee that completely minimise the risk of investor.
Finally, you do not need to meet face to face or sign heaps of documents to become a TWINO investor — you can save yourself the precious resource of time! You can live anywhere in the world and become a TWINO investor, you physical location does not matter. All the investor has to do is to e-mail a scanned ID document  to prove his identity.
What are the three main advantages for borrowers?
The Latvian households similarly to the ones elsewhere in Europe are victims of the frozen economy after the crisis. If they want to make a larger purchase but can not put money aside from their monthly income, they have two options. They can borrow the money in a bank, but very often banks are not willing to credit these people due to strict crediting terms or they can get a short-term loan with very high interest. This is why TWINO is almost the only way of borrowing money with reasonable interest.
The borrower can fulfil any of his needs with the money, including investing in his future — paying for tuition or essential assets or even starting a career in business or a investing in a start-up, thus supporting the local economy. It is very topical people living in the countryside regions and to those, who cannot access bank loans and cannot get a short –term loan with low interest.
Finally, borrowers should not be afraid that they will not be able to evaluate their borrowing capacity adequately — TWINO has an experienced team that evaluates every borrowing request separately according to the rules of the Consumer Rights Protection Centre and they follow the progress of giving back the borrowed money. If the TWINO team sees that the borrower has encountered unforeseen difficulties, we look for solutions together with the client. This means that you must not be afraid that you will not receive consultations and help just because this is a financial technology. The TWINO team members are ready to help you any time by providing consultations and looking for solutions together with you.
What ROI can investors expect?
Out investors earn roughly 10-20% per annum. Of course, this can fluctuate depending on their investment amount.
What is the background of the company running Twino?
Finabay is an innovative online finance company founded in Latvia almost 7 years ago. It is also providing short-term loans and has developed its services in Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, Poland, Georgia and Denmark. This year it will launch its services in Spain
Is the technical platform self-developed?
Yes, the technical platform has been developed in Latvia by the experienced FinaBay IT Solutions Team.
What has been the greatest challenge so far in the course of launching Twino?
Currently the greatest challenge for TWINO is explaining what a peer-to-peer lending platform is to potential investors and borrowers. While this sector has been active in various European countries for almost 10 years now and it has lent 4.5 billion EUR to customers from 2012 to 2014, it is still a new service in Latvia and the Baltics. However we have to admit that this is not a burden, because peer-to-peer lending platforms are rooted in the economy of sharing, and through such peer-to-peer platforms it proves itself as a functioning model of economy — not only does it affect the well-being of individuals, it has a potential to stimulate the economy of regions and even countries. Continue reading →
Thanks to Companies House filings of British Companies are available to the public fee-free now (previously there was a small fee to access documents). This is a huge plus for equity crowdfunding as interested investors can check past filings of the pitching companies (provided the company was not founded very recently).
This also allows anybody interested to check how many shares the founders, employees and investors of the top UK equity crowdfunding platforms Crowdcube and Seedrs hold. And in order to save you the time to search yourself, P2P-Banking.com provides the direct links to the documents below:
The way bidding works at p2p lending service Ratesetter will change on June 24th. Ratesetter informed investors
Currently your money is re-invested at the higher of “Your Rate†(i.e. the rate you have specified) or “Market Rate†(i.e. the rate that is worked out daily at RateSetter looking at the whole market). Once re-set to Market Rate it stays at that rate which resulted in some scenarios where your money could be sitting at Market Rate unmatched when in actual fact your specified rate was lower.
From 24th June, your money will simply be put on the market to be re-invested at your specified rate. Simple as that.
It is worth saying that if the highest borrower bid at the time of your re-investment is higher than your specified rate, your money will be matched at that rate.
So, we hope that you can now use the “Your Rate†functionality to better control the rate at which you re-invest. One way of looking at it is that is like a floor – you will get at least your rate, or the best borrower bid if that is higher.
There has been some discussion among investors what this means and what actually changes for investors. The way I interpret it (but I am not even a Ratesetter investor) is that the market rate will become less important as Ratesetter could advice the borrower at what rate his loan request would match instantly. Since many investors will not micro-manage their set rate and only login occasionally it will lead to a broader distribution of interest rates set as ‘Your Rate’ and thereby reduce volatility. E.g. should interest rates move upward on the market (for whatever reason), unchanged ‘Your Rates’ at lower levels from earlier times will delay and slow the rise (provided they have unused cash from repayments in their accounts). But let’s hear opinion of actual Ratesetter investors in the comments, please!
When German p2p lending startup Finmar tried to register their logo as a trademark they were in for a negative surprise. The trademark office in 2014 forwarded them a 500 page objection filed by the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) which complained that the design of Finmar’s logo to closely resembled FINRA’s logo which was already protected by a European trademark filed in Madrid. Given the similarity of name and logo FINRA feared that there is a risk that both are confused.
Finmar was flabbergasted but tried to reduce the damage. They negotiated with FINRA that Finmar would change its logo but could keep its name. Finmar designed a new logo (see above), revoked the old trademark application, submitted a new one and exchanged the logo on the website and in all social media channels. In total this dispute took Finmar more than 15 months to settle.
Swedish crowdfunding marketplace Fundedbyme today announces that its partner Alix Global Sdn Bhd, was awarded one of six coveted licenses to operate equity crowdfunding in Malaysia. Malaysia is the first South-East Asia country offering equity crowdfunding licenses. The license allows FundedByMe to start operations in the new market.
The announcement follows careful deliberations by the Malaysian Securities Commission, which closed submissions for licenses in May 2015. The license comes under Section 34 of the Capital Markets and Services Act (2007), by the Malaysian Securities Commission. It will permit the selected platforms to help privately owned businesses raise money from a spectrum of investors – including institutional, accredited, and retail investors – with limitations placed on non-accredited investors.
“We’re extremely excited to be one of the few platforms selected by the Malaysian Securities Commission today, which is a first for the region, and marks a historic moment for Malaysia and the crowdfunding industry. As a business-building crowdfunding platform, we together with our partners Alix Global are thrilled to help build this fast-growing industry of which empowers businesses through crowdfunding,†said Daniel Daboczy, CEO and Co-Founder of FundedByMe. Continue reading →
