Borrowing

Mar
02

Lending startup RedCarpet raises $2.5 mn from Lightspeed

Gurgaon-based micro-lending startup RedCarpet Tech Pvt Ltd has secured $2.5 million (Rs 16 crores) in a funding round led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to a financial daily. The funds will be deployed for improving the technology used for risk evaluation, adding new student-lending features, appointing data scientists and increasing market penetration, The Economic Times reported, citing an anonymous source. RedCarpet declined to comment on the development. Founded in 2015 by Sandeep Srinivasa, Kartik Venkataraman and Abhay Tamaria, RedCarpet finances online purchases for e-commerce and travel. RedCarpet was among the six startups selected by Google for its Launchpad accelerator programme in May 2016. As part of the […]

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Peer-to-peer finance firm Folk2Folk launches new branch in Harrogate

Folk2Folk, the peer-to-peer business lending firm, has launched a new branch in Harrogate. The company’s new branch is aiming to introduce over £20m in finance to an estimated 100 businesses in its first year in the region. Folk2Folk’s move into North Yorkshire is part of its national expansion plan having already established a local demand for its finance services. Harrogate was chosen based on its strong rural business network and geographic importance to other local towns and areas. This new branch will be the fourth opening from Folk2Folk, which launched in 2013. The new Folk2Folk branch is situated in the centre of Harrogate, making it easy for business owners and […]

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Mar
02

Peer-to-Peer Lender Prosper to sell $5 Billion in loans

Prosper Marketplace, America’s first peer-to-peer lending marketplace, announced on Monday that it had closed a deal to sell $5 billion of loans to a consortium of investors over the next two years. The consortium includes New Residential Investment Corp., Jefferies Group, and Third Point. “We’re very pleased to be working with this consortium of investors, and believe they will be great long-term partners as we continue to build a large-scale business,” David Kimball, CEO of Prosper Marketplace said. Founded in 2005, Prosper is an online platform that matches lenders and borrowers. The growth in peer-to-peer lending is part of a wider shift in the fintech industry as participants look to […]

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Zopa to move into secured lending

ZOPA is looking to expand into the secured auto finance space, where it sees an opportunity to grow its borrower base. The peer-to-peer lending platform, which usually specialises in unsecured consumer loans, said it sees strong potential in the secured car finance sector as there are healthy levels of demand but typically a poor customer experience. “People are getting poor deals in that area and end up paying significantly higher annual percentage rates (APRs) than they would if they arranged their financing before going into a dealership,” said Amy Miller, Zopa’s chief marketing officer. Consumers looking to borrow money to buy a car tend to sign up to dealer-arranged loans, […]

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Feb
24

P2P Bitcoin lender Bitbond raises $1.2 million in new funding

Peer-to-peer bitcoin loan market Bitbond has raised $1.2m in new funding. The web platform, which connects lenders and borrowers to facilitate the distribution of loans denominated in bitcoin, received the new funding largely from a group of angel investors, some of whom already have stakes in the startup. The round was led by Şekip Can Gökalp, founder of Mobilike, a Turkey-based mobile ad network formed in 2009, and that was acquired last year. Other investors include Janis Zech and Andreas Bodczek, who founded ad tech startup Fyber, and Alexander Graubner-Müller, co-founder and CEO of Germany-based online lender Kreditech. According to Bitbond representative Chris Grundy, most of the funding will be […]

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Feb
23

Plum announces partnership with Ratesetter

Plum, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered Facebook chatbot which allows consumers to start saving and investing without any effort, today announces its partnership with RateSetter. Plum’s smart algorithm understands spending patterns and identifies income and bills to create a unique profile for its users. It calculates the amount to save or invest and automatically transfers it to a Plum account to put that money to work. Plum’s partnership with RateSetter means that people who are comfortable putting capital at risk can use the peer-to-peer lending platform to earn a higher rate of interest. The average return earned by RateSetter investors to date is 4.7 per cent. Victor Trokoudes, co-founder at […]

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Zopa named Best Personal Loan Provider & Best Alternative Finance Provider at the 2017 British Bank Awards

Zopa, the UK’s very first peer to peer lending platform, announced on Monday it was named Best Personal Loan Provider & Best Alternative Finance Provider at the 2017 British Bank Awards. The online lender revealed in a blog post: “We’re excited to announce we’ve been named both the Best Personal Loan Provider and the Best Alternative Finance Provider at the British Bank Awards. These awards are special to us because they are voted for by you, our customers, in a survey at the start of the year. Our goal is to provide people with great value products and excellent service, so it’s fantastic to know our customers believe we’re achieving […]

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LandlordInvest’s Innovative Finance ISA is now flexible

LandlordInvest, having recently launched the first residential mortgage-backed IFISA, has made its IFISA flexible. Flexible ISA means that an investor can replace, in whole or in part, cash the investor has withdrawn, without the replacement counting towards the investor’s subscription limit for a tax year. The flexible ISA was only introduced in the current year and offers savers the ability to move cash between all types of ISAs (cash, stocks & shares and the IFISA). LandlordInvest’s property-backed flexible IFISA lets savers invest up to £15,240 in the current tax year (rising to £20,000 in the next tax year) in peer-to-peer loans secured by residential mortgages, and with the ability to […]

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