Fintech platform helps brokers tackle business lending
A new online marketplace for business loans can help brokers tackle the growing commercial lending space. Launched in November 2015, Valiant Finance is a comparison website which compares and matches business loans, debtor finance and equipment finance to small businesses. But unlike other comparison websites which largely focus on home loans or personal lending, Valiant co-founder Alex Molloy said it fills a gap in the complex business lending space. “[Small businesses] can go to their business banker – who they might have had three of in the last two years – who will ask them if they have residential security and then say they can’t help them if they don’t,” […]
Turn debts into income
PROFITING from other people’s debts has always been popular way to make money, and investors seeking income are being given more choice than ever before. While interest rates wallow at record lows and are tipped to fall further, a new breed of peer-to-peer — or marketplace — lenders is gaining ground and other income funds are multiplying. Peer-to-peer lending — which removes middlemen such as banks and allows people to lend directly to borrowers via online platforms — is forecast to at least double in size every year for several years to come. RateSetter CEO Daniel Foggo says Australian peer-to-peer platforms funded $50 million of loans last year and that […]
LendingPost closes $100m in loans – set to revolutionise small business finance
Cheaper, faster, more flexible online small business loans – that’s the winning formula that has cemented LendingPost’s position in the finance industry. In fact, LendingPost.com.au has secured over $100m in small business loans in the last 3 years alone, proving their unique online loan matching service is a faster and easier way to get small business finance compared to traditional banking options. Founded as an alternative to big business finance, Aussie-owned LendingPost burst onto the finance scene in late 2013 by directly addressing a pain point of small business owners. “We know small business owners want the best deal but just don’t have the time to research, meet and speak […]
NAB eschews fintech push, keeps online business lending in-house
National Australia Bank has decided against partnering with a “fintech” company for its first automated online business lending product, ensuring a tighter grip on customers as the banks cautiously explore the burgeoning sector that threatens to eat into profits. The bank yesterday revealed QuickBiz Loan, one of the first products from in-house innovation hub NAB Labs, would be launched early this month, offering small businesses up to $50,000 unsecured via a new online application process. The move contrasts with Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, which are working on referral partnerships with business fintech lenders OnDeck and Prospa. NAB business lending division chief Angela Mentis said that while partnerships could be done […]
Celebrate innovation that puts the customer in charge
It’s no secret that the word innovation is in vogue. It’s not just that it’s one of our prime minister’s favourite words, it’s a trend across the English-speaking world. Use of the word has grown steadily since 1943, according to Google’s database of books published from 1800 to 2008. It was used almost twice as much in 2008 as 1969, the year humans first landed on the moon, and it’s a dead cert the past eight years have been no different. But using “innovation” as a mantra doesn’t make you more innovative. Many people feel that it’s become, or becoming, a meaningless catchphrase. It’s time to reclaim it. It’s a […]
SocietyOne shifts from edgy start-up to $100m lender
The nation’s biggest peer-to-peer lender, SocietyOne, is growing up fast, and not in the same way as its renegade US cousin Lending Club. An ASIC search has revealed the stranglehold of the so-called media consortium (News Corp, Kerry Stokes and James Packer’s media-free Consolidated Press Holdings) over SocOne after the recent $25 million Series C capital raising. The consortium, through its vehicle S. One Holding, holds a commanding 37 per cent stake, with the News and Stokes interests believed to be dominant in the S. One Holding structure. Not only that, but Westpac’s in-house venture capital fund, Reinventure, speaks for a further 17 per cent of SocOne. Put the two […]
How banks are running the economy
Alan Kohler, The Australian Two quite innocuous things happened on Tuesday: the federal budget and an RBA rate cut. Neither of these events will do much good, but nor will they do much harm, which is about as much can be hoped from both politics and monetary policy these days. Even RBA Governor Glenn Stevens has been constantly talking about impotence of monetary policy, so it’s likely to be true. Why won’t the budget or the rate cut have much impact? Because the RBA and the government don’t run the economy — the banks do, and there is something much more significant going on in banking land. There is always […]
Fintech a $US1 trillion fight
Consultants Oliver Wyman has been talking to banking clients all around the world over the past few months about the concept of “modular financial services”. It’s the coverline adorning one of the firm’s latest research pieces on the impact of information technology on the future of banking. Even as the equity prices of US fintech poster children like Lending Club and OnDeck are pummelled as capital markets reassess valuations, incumbent banks around the world show no sign of losing interest in fintech. Indeed, if the interim results of three of Australia’s big four banks last week were any guide, thinking about fintech in the C-suite is only accelerating. The earnings […]
