Greetings and happy new year!
Over the past year, we’ve seen dramatic change both to the marketplace lending sector and our own organization. In many ways, the institutionalization of the category has mirrored our own growth.
We see the transition of consumer credit to the capital markets as a global, secular trend with deep regulatory undercurrents. We expect continued double digit origination growth in 2016.
When we started building our analytics platform, there was not a single rated US P2P unsecured consumer installment loan securitization. All of that has changed.
Now we have a quarterly issuance cadence (soon to be monthly). Size and frequency is accelerating. China is off to the races, and we expect the first Eurozone P2P securitizations in Q1. Our 2015 Q4 securitization tracker, which we release to the public today, shows an acceleration in activity despite wider credit spreads.
Hedge funds are securitizing debt and are increasingly on the issuer side of the roadshow process. There is a proliferation of first-time ABS issuers and, accordingly, a diversity in deal shape and structure.
The growth in players and complexity creates an opportunity for PeerIQ to create transparency and improve liquidity for the category.
We look forward to seeing some of you as we make our way through the conference circuit in the New Year! We will be speaking and moderating at the following conferences:
- China U.S. Credit Conference SF (Jan 27-28)
- Alt Lending Context Summits Miami (Feb 3-5)
- ABS Vegas (Feb 28-March 2)
Let’s get back to work and make it a great 2016!
Ram Ahluwalia, CEO
Hiring Update: Introducing Avner Abrami and Jonathan Hinds!
We are very excited to introduce two new members to our team this month.
- Avner Abrami (Quantitative Strategist): Avner completed his M.S. in Operations Research from Columbia University. He also holds a Diplôme d’Ingénieur in Applied Mathematics from École Centrale Paris. His interests lie in machine learning, predictive modeling and computational finance. Previously, Avner was a summer research intern at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he worked on predictive analytics for Smart Grids. Before joining PeerIQ, Avner was designing P2P credit models for a hedge fund.
- Jonathan Hinds (Software Engineer): We are also excited to introduce Jonathan as the newest addition to the Tech Team. Jonathan joins from CenturyLink Cloud. Jonathan built RESTful API services using Java, Groovy, and Python. Jonathan provided tools to developers, the company’s service support architecture and applications, and developed simple and scalable workflow cloud solutions.
We have a slate of talent joining next month as well, stay tuned!
Sector Update
- The Daily Startup: CommonBond Secures $275 Million for Student Loans (WSJ Blog, 01/05/16) CommonBond announces a $275 MM credit facility and new hire Beth Starr
- Outlook: The Last Innings (Goldman Sachs ISG, 01/01/16, PDF attached) GS Research remains bullish on outlook for equities in the attached 2016 outlook
- Big Banks Embrace Small Lenders Rather Than Compete Against Them (WSJ Blog, 12/31/15) Big banks are on the cusp re-engineering of the small business lending process
- Inside J.P. Morgan’s Deal With On Deck Capital (WSJ, 12/30/15) More on the new partnership between On Deck and JPM
- Want to See Technology Taking Over Finance? Look at China (WSJ, 12/28/15) In several ways, China is leading in FinTech innovation across lending and payment
- Banks still need more capital (Euromoney, 12/21/15) 2016 may see continued pressure from regulators to cut risk-weighted assets
- Credit Outlook 2016: Late Cycle…But How Late? (DB Special Report, 12/14/15, PDF attached) Indications on how late in the cycle we might be and the state of liquidity in the markets