Lending Club Buys Springstone Financial

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Lending Club announced today that it has acquired Springstone Financial for a total consideration of 140 million US$ in cash and stock. Springstone provides financing options for consumers looking to finance private education and elective medical procedures through a network of over 14,000 schools and healthcare providers.

“The acquisition of Springstone is significantly expanding the services we offer to help consumers achieve their goals,” said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. “Parents looking to finance their children’s education and patients undergoing elective procedures will now have access to Lending Club loans and benefit from responsible, transparent and affordable financing options.”

Mike Gilroy, CEO of Springstone, said, “Lending Club has established a great reputation as an innovator. We’ve built strong bridges between providers and patients and between educational institutions and parents. We’re excited to become part of the Lending Club platform, which will bring new financing options to our network.”

As part of the financing of this transaction, Lending Club also announced the closing of an equity capital raise. Investors in the $65 million round included funds and accounts managed by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Wellington Management Company, LLP, BlackRock and Sands Capital. According to Peter Renton the valuation of Lending Club at this round is at 3.76 million US$.

“We believe that Lending Club has an opportunity to transform an important part of the banking system into a transparent online marketplace,” said Henry Ellenbogen, Portfolio Manager at T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. “The Springstone acquisition is another step in that direction, and we are very excited at the prospect of being a long term equity partner of Lending Club.”

Lending Club also raised $50 million in debt financing to fund the acquisition.

(Source: Press release)

Bondora Moves to Fixed Price Bidding Only

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P2P lending service Bondora informed investors today that it plans changes to the bidding system in May. So far Bondora allows borrower to selected between ‘timed funding’ which results in a reverse auction lowering interest rates if more lenders want to bid on a loan during the auction period than the loan amount needed and ‘quick funding’ where the bidding ends, once the loan is fully filled.

In future Bondora will uniformly use ‘quick funding’ loans with fixed interest rates.

Since there will be no advantage for investors to set interest rates low on their automated investment profiles any more after the change, I expect the short term effect will be that investors raise the interest rate on their profiles to the actual interest rate they want to invest at (Currently it is possible and custom to bid 6% in order to heighten chances that bids participate in quick funding loans, which then might actually close at 28%).

Related article: P2P Lending: How are interest rates set

Ppdai Closes Series B Round

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Shanghai-based p2p lending service Ppdai.com has completed series B round (rumoured to be at 45M US$). The round was led by Lightspeed China Partners, an early stage investment company. Wealth management company Noah Private Wealth Management and Sequoia Capital also invested.

Ratesetter Will Expand P2P Lending Service to Australia

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Ratesetter will expand its p2p lending operations to Australia in 2014 and says this will serve as the stepping stone to further launches in Asia. It is also exploring launches in association with financial services partners closer to home in Europe.

Ratesetter has secured investment of $3 million from local and international investors to kick-start its offering from its Sydney offices.

Headed by Daniel Foggo, a former banker with Barclays Capital and NM Rothschild in Sydney and London respectively, the company says it will be the only Australian P2P company offering market-beating savings rates to individuals who lend funds on its platform and accessible loan rates to everyday borrowers who are tired of banks’ hidden fees and profiteering.

Ratesetter will go live in Australia this summer. Ratesetter says, it will be the first P2P lender in Australia to be fully regulated from the outset, allowing all Australians to participate on its  platform, not just professional investors. To make the platform available to retail investors at launch, Ratesetter has been working for a year on licensing.

Ratesetter, launched in October 2010 in the UK was also the first P2P lender to launch a ‘Provision Fund’ – the largest in the UK at 3.8 million GBP – to help protect savers’ funds in the event of a borrower default.  In March 2014, Ratesetter also originated the largest monthly inflows in the UK p2p lending sector. Since October 2010 the total p2p loan volume originated by Ratesetter has been over 208 million GBP.

Rhydian Lewis, founder and CEO of Ratesetter, said: “When looking at international markets in which to expand, Australia was the obvious choice as it bears great similarity to the UK before the advent of p2p lending. Its saving and loans industry is ripe for disruption as banks have been offering below-par deals for too long with little true competition.” Continue reading →

Lendico Launch in South Africa

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Today p2p lending service Lendico is launching in South Africa, the first non-European market for Lendico. The start-up is launching through Africa Internet Holdings (AIH) – an e-commerce development platform supported by Rocket Internet, Millicom International and MTN. AIH co-founder Jeremy Hodara said South Africa matches the 3 criteria Lendico looks for in new markets:

  • The country needs good financial infrastructure, with all the necessary components in place
  • There needs to be an expanding online population, with adequate Internet penetration
  • There needs to be a demand for personal loans

(Sources: Lendico, BusinessTech.co.za)

Isepankur Rebrands As Bondora – Raised 1.3M

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P2P Lending marketplace Isepankur yesterday rebranded as Bondora. Bondora is active for borrowers in Estonia, Spain, Finland and Slovakia and lenders in 29 countries across Europe (all European Union countries plus Switzerland).

Following a new 1.3M Euro round of financing raised for the company, Bondora welcomes a new board to help the company in delivering an innovative business idea across the borders.

Mark Noetzold (a member of various supervisory boards and a lecturer for risk management in Germany, Switzerland and Austria), João P. S. Monteiro (an international manager responsible for global development at a blue-chip company) and Mati Otsmaa (a C-level management executive with extensive experience in consumer credit lending at American Express, Barclays, Citibank, Chase, Experian and HSBC) join forces to improve, market and raise awareness for the first cross-border peer-lending platform Bondora.

„Direct or p2p lending is the most rapidly developing financial service today and has a huge future potential by offering the best solutions to the borrowers and high returns for the lenders. I believe that Bondora, with its cross-border strategy, strong team and the ability to execute fast, has the potential to change the world of finance to be more transparent and straightforward,” – commented João P. S. Monteiro, board member and one of the angel investors.

According to an article in E24 Postimees the new investors now hold about 19% to 20% of the company shares.

„Over the last 5 years we have brought together over 70,000 customers from 29 countries to borrow and lend on our platform. The newly raised capital will be used to improve, market and raise awareness of our service further. Today we have a product, where a telephone engineer from Estonia could get funds to renovate his flat from a dozen of lenders located in any European country. Not only our borrowers get a chance to have their loans financed, but they get the best available deal on the marketplace. A secretary from Slovakia, for example, ready to pay 28% for a 600 Euro loan to study English, might end up paying only 12% because lenders pile in.  It is a simple and secure application process for the borrowers and a possibility to diversify private investment for the lenders. At the moment 26% of our lenders come from Germany, 11% from the UK and 4% from Switzerland (with the rest being spread across Europe). With the rapid growth of the company in the last year, the old name could no longer accommodate room for our cross-border growth, that is why today we are also launching our new name – Bondora, and our website available in 23 languages,” – commented the CEO of Bondora, Pärtel Tomberg. Continue reading →