US #

FreedomPlus #

FreedomPlus

• FreedomPlus is a lender that mainly focuses on underwriting loans to prime consumers.

• FreedomPlus is the consumer brand of Freedom Financial Network, LLC.

• FreedomPlus developed a proprietary underwriting process that delivers low-cost loans to borrowers and low-risk access to consumer loan portfolios for accredited investors.

• FreedomPlus will be open to accredited investors to invest in pools of loans, but it is not a peer to peer lending company.

• FreedomPlus focus on “emerging prime” borrowers with FICO scores between 620 and 749.

• The company use traditional underwriting tools, such as credit scores, when underwriting loans.

  • It will also talk with borrowers to verify information and understand the goals they wish to accomplish with the loan, to try to find loans that fits borrowers’ specific needs.

OneMain Financial #

OneMain Holdings, Inc.

• Its business primarily focuses on providing personal loans and optional insurance products to customers with limited access to traditional lenders, such as banks and credit card companies.
• As of December 2020, OneMain had approximately 1,500 branch offices in 44 states.

LendingPoint #

LendingPoint

• LendingPoint is a financial technology platform.
• The company looks at a person’s complete financial picture, taking into consideration credit history, employment history, earning potential and other data to determine creditworthiness.
• LendingPoint gives access to more affordable loans for consumers with credit scores between 500–850 and discounts traditional creditworthiness factors, such as FICO scores, debt-to-income (DTI) ratios, and payment-to-income (PTI) ratios.

• 2018.1.11 - the company announced that it acquired the merchant portal technology and other assets of LoanHero, a fintech platform for point of sale finance.
• 2020.7 - LendingPoint introduced a merchant lending platform called SDKn, which provides an online consumer loan pre-approval portal for companies.
• 2020.8 - LendingPoint partnered with eBay to offer installment loans up to 48 months to eBay’s merchants.
  • Dubbed eBay Seller Capital, the program allows sellers on the e-commerce platform to borrow up to $25,000 with no origination fees or early payback fees.
• 2020.10 - LendingPoint closed its first revolving and largest ever asset-backed security (ABS) issuance at $328. 5 million.

Avant (company) #

Avant,LLC. formerly AvantCredit

• Avant use proprietary software to determine an individual’s creditworthiness.

• Online Lending simplify the borrowing process and eliminates the need for physical branches.

• The company issued its first personal unsecured loan in early 2013 .

• In April 2015, Avant launched the Avant Institutional Marketplace.

• In February 2020, Avant announced the completion of the spinoff of its SaaS financial technology business unit as a new company called Amount.

Upstart (company) #

Upstart Holdings, Inc.

• Upstart is an AI lending platform that partners with banks and credit unions to provide consumer loans using non-traditional variables, such as education and employment, to predict creditworthiness.
  • In addition to traditional underwriting criteria - FICO score, credit report, and income
  • The Upstart underwriting considers education variables—colleges attended, area of study, GPA, and standardized test scores— and work history to develop a statistical model of the borrower’s financial capacity and personal propensity to repay.
• In late 2020, Upstart went public via an IPO.

Discover Financial #

Discover Financial Services

• Discover Financial Services is an American financial services company that owns and operates Discover Bank, which offers checking and savings accounts, personal loans, home equity loans, student loans and credit cards.

• Parent

  • Dean Witter Reynolds (1985–1997)
  • Morgan Stanley (1997–2007)
  • Independent (2007–present)

• Subsidiaries

  • Diners Club International
  • Discover Bank
  • Discover Network
  • Pulse

• Competitors

  • In the United States, Discover, as a card network, competes primarily with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

LightStream #

LightStream

• LightStream(a division of Truist Bank) is an American online lender .
• LightStream offers loans up to $100,000 for any purpose.
• Funds are deposited directly into customer bank accounts, as soon as the day they apply.

SoFi #

SoFi Technologies, Inc. (SoFi)

• Products: Student loans - Home loans - Personal loans - Stockbroker - Wealth management - Credit card
  • SoFi Technologies, Inc. (now the parent company of Social Finance, Inc.) is an American online personal finance company.
  • SoFi provides financial products that includes student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, credit card, investing, and banking through both mobile app and desktop interfaces.

Products #

• Lending
  • Personal loans, student loans, home loans, and loan refinancing.
  • SoFi uses an underwriting model that examines free cash flow, professional history and education in addition to a history of responsible bill payment to evaluate its borrowers.
• Trading
  • In 2018, SoFi began to offer commission and fee-free trading of stocks and exchange-traded funds.
  • In 2019, SoFi introduced their own robo advisor service called SoFi Automated Investing, charging no management fees.
  • Cryptocurrency trading
    • In February 2019, SoFi announced they’d be partnering with Coinbase to offer cryptocurrency trading.
    • Cryptocurrency transactions are one of SoFi’s only products that have fees, currently set at a 1. 25% markup.
• Banking
  • SoFi currently offers an online cash management account that acts as a hybrid checking/savings account.
  • They achieve FDIC insurance through their partner banks: MetaBank, Hills Bank and Trust Company, EagleBank, East West Bank, Tristate Bank Capital Bank, and Wells Fargo.
• Credit Score Monitoring & Budgeting Tool
  • The service allows users to track their money in bank, credit card, investment, and loan balances and transactions.
  • No-cost credit score tracking with weekly updates is provided through TransUnion.

UK #

Zopa #

Zopa Limited

• Zopa was launched in the UK in March 2005 as p2p lending platform.

• It was founded in Buckinghamshire in 2004 by a team from the internet banking company Egg Banking.

• 2017.5 - Zopa became fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority .

• 2020.6 - Retail banking services – including deposit accounts and a credit card – were launched in June 2020, soon after a full banking licence was awarded.

• 2021.12.7 - Zopa announced it would be winding up the peer-to-peer side of its business, including buying back the existing loans of investors.

• Products and services

  • Peer-to-peer lending
    • Zopa enabled investors to lend to UK consumers through its peer-to-peer lending platform.
    • 2021.12.7 - Zopa announced it would be winding up the peer-to-peer side of its business, including buying back the existing loans of investors.
  • Banking and credit cards
    • Zopa offers FSCS-protected deposit accounts, credit cards, and a money management app .

RateSetter #

• RateSetter is a British peer-to-peer lending company.

• It has a locally-owned business in Australia.

• The company is known for having introduced into peer-to-peer lending the concept of a “provision fund”

  • an internal fund which aims to help lenders manage the risk of borrower default, and is generated by borrowers’ payment of a “credit rate” fee based on their credit profile.

• RateSetter UK was acquired by Metro Bank in September 2020.

  • Metro Bank plc, a London-based retail and commercial bank, announced in August 2020 that it had agreed to acquire Retail Money Market Ltd for a price of up to £12 million, with £2.5 million paid upfront and the remainder to be paid over the next three years; the latter component is conditional on meeting certain performance criteria.
  • Metro Bank acquired 100% of RateSetter shares but its stake in RateSetter Australia, valued at £13. 7 million, was excluded from the transaction and remains with RateSetter shareholders.

• Metro Bank said it intended to continue the RateSetter brand and its operations, with new unsecured personal lending funded by the bank’s deposits, not through peer-to-peer.

• Ratesetter Australia

  • RateSetter Australia commenced operations in November 2014.
  • The Australian business, based in Sydney, is managed and majority-owned locally.
  • In August 2020, RateSetter Australia was renamed Plenti ahead of an IPO which took place in September 2020.