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The S&P500 blip on the news last Friday that the FBI was reopening its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server showed that markets are on edge about the US election. -
Lending Club finally unveiled its auto lending arm this Tuesday, after dropping hints at the LendIt USA conference in April. But auto lending is a whole new ball game, and the platform needs to muster all the ammunition it can to fight for a slice of the market.
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Forward looking statements from officials linked with the US Federal Reserve Board have been a bit of a controversial issue this year and have more often than not be a source of more confusion than clarity.
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A bank masquerading as a start-up in the overcrowded marketplace lending industry seems like overkill, but Goldman Sachs is fighting an uphill battle to win the hearts of US borrowers, especially after being vilified during the 2008 financial crisis.
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The reputation of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as a feared watchdog took a hit last week when a US Court of Appeals ruled against the regulator in a suit brought against it by PHH Mortgage. But opponents of the agency should not be confident that it has been completely defanged.
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Goldman Sachs’s new online lending platform Marcus, which was launched last Thursday, has to prove itself in an industry where the ability to scale and the retention of a loyal customer base determines who gets to stay in the game.
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Insurance companies taking leveraged loan exposure through open ended funds, rather than CLOs, should cause alarm. Given the liquidity risk inherent in the structures, regulators ought to be watchful.
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European banks, especially the Italians, need to solve their non-performing loan problem, agrees everyone from the European Central Bank to the least informed finance hack out there. But the revelations coming out of Royal Bank of Scotland’s restructuring unit show it’s not always a pleasant process.
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With pioneers of peer-to-peer lending tapping more institutional investors and competing to claim how boring their products are, the hype in alternative lending may be fading. That's good news, but only for those that have already reached scale.
