Fair Square Financial entered the financial services world a few years ago with two observations about why the world needed another non-bank lender. The first being that the ways credit is underwritten could use a good deal more specificity. The second — according to CEO of Fair Square...
Exactly two weeks ago today (April 25), LendingClub‘s stock hit an all-time low with the announcement of an FTC-backed lawsuit alleging that it loading up its borrowers with hidden fees on loans proffered through its marketplace – and, in some cases, that it attempted to...
After a strong debut on the public markets at $14 per share in its Initial Public Offering (IPO), LendingClub has taken investors on something of a wild ride though the ups and downs of marketplace lending. Today, as the market waits for its Q1 earnings report,...
Ripio has had more than one name in its evolution as a firm – but only a single goal. Originally known as BitPagos at launch, and then rebranding to Ripio in advance of its late 2017 ICO – the Argentina-based firm wants to use the blockchain...
No one gets excited about paying bills. Which, according to SVP of Consumer Channels and General Manager Richard Kang at Handle Financial, is why when it comes to financial services, bill pay doesn’t get a lot of love from innovators. “I feel there is little...
Marketplace lending platforms — Lending Club, OnDeck, Prosper and the like — have inarguably and fundamentally altered the geography of the lending landscape. In the last decade, they’ve gone from being a niche product to representing about a third of unsecured consumer loan volume in...
The financial crisis that rolled through the economic landscape a decade ago was — among many things — a financial reset button. Interest rates plummeted as the Fed held the federal funds rate at zero in the hopes of stimulating lending in an environment where credit went from dangerously...
Debt collectors are historically an unpopular group of people. Even the Bible has shade to throw their way. (Debt collectors, Biblically speaking, share a category with adulterers, swindlers and the unjust.) Part of that is the nature of the beast. Spending money is a good deal...
Despite the nearly continuous drumbeat of doom and gloom from the world of physical retail, there is, according to Affirm CRO Rob Pfeifer, something of a curious side phenomenon unfolding at the same time: Online brands – famous and famously successful online brands – are branching out...
