Weekly P2P Update: October 25, 2015

By Vy Phan

October 25, 2015

Before recapping last week’s key news, we highlight that PeerIQ will be exhibiting at the IMN’s Investors’ Conference on Marketplace Lending this coming Thursday (10/29). Come visit us at our booth, as well as join panels at which PeerIQ will be speaking:

Ram is speaking on the “Developments in Securitization” panel @ 11am;
Kevin is speaking on the “Lender’s Perspective” panel @ 4pm.

It promises to be a great conference, with over 700 participants, and a strong focus on asset manager and institutional investors active in marketplace lending. Email us to setup a time to chat and stop by our booth to learn more. We look forward to reconnecting. We're seeing US Treasury RFI inquiry continue to fuel much industry conversation. To further the discussion, we have drafted A Survey of US Treasury RFI Submissions, capturing and summarizing key positions on topics of most interest to institutional investors (i.e. the regulatory imperative, transparency, risk retention). Click here to access a copy of our PeerIQ's original RFI Submission. Now to the news recap, led by more on Blackstone’s big foray into P2P (and the role that securitization will likely play), as well as Funding Circle’s acquisition of German platform Zencap:

Blackstone Project Sparks Big Issuance Plan (AB Alert, 10/23/15, subscription required) Blackstone’s launch of Lending.com has set off predictions for an aggressive securitization program. For prior context, see Steve Schwarzman Wants You to Borrow Money to Buy a Dishwasher (Bloomberg, 10/15/15) Highlighting the launch of Lending.com, which hopes to facilitate $10B in loans in the next 3 years.

Funding Circle snaps up German marketplace lender (FT, 10/20/15) Funding Circle moves into continental Europe by acquiring Zencap, a marketplace lender with operations in Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Goldman adding data scientists, marketers in consumer lending push (Reuters, 10/21/15) New details on the growing GS direct lending team.

Risk retention hits mortgage funds (AB Alert, 10/16/15, subscription required) Reported grumbling from funds that rely on securitization to fund home-loan purchases regarding Dodd Frank’s 5% risk retention requirement (with upcoming Dec. 24^th compliance deadline). Funds point to the mismatch between rules requiring holding to maturity and investor redemption requests.

EU's benchmark rules risk stifling innovation (Risk, 10/20/15, subscription required) CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad voiced concern that recent EU efforts to protect the integrity of existing benchmarks (following the Libor scandal) could discourage new benchmarks and related technologies.