Weekly industry news roundup – May 15, 2017

Financial Well-being

News from around the world

PR Newswire reported that P2P reporting and analytics platform dv01 has bolstered its efforts to bring transparency to the market with a new partnership with Sofi. Institutional investors using dv01 services will now have access to detailed Sofi lending data including student and personal loans. Since their inception dv01 has provided data on $55 billion in marketplace loans.

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Forbes looked at the future of P2P lending in China. The CEO of Creditease, a major marketplace lender in China remarked “The bigger picture is that P2P and fintech help the financial system to become more comprehensive. Eleven years ago we made financing available to students, and today we reach micro businesses, entrepreneurs. These businesses are not traditionally covered by the financial system.”

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The Economic Times explored the idea that the millennial generation is a major driver for the growth and legitimization of the marketplace lending industry. Younger people are looking to the aggressive returns of P2P investment to help growth their wealth at levels necessary to achieve their goals. A large component of borrowers are also young according to some case studies.

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RadioTimes looked at how interest rate cuts by The Bank of England are driving more investors to embrace peer-to-peer lending. As the rate of return on conventional instruments drops more people are accepting the idea of marketplace lending. This movement comes after eight years of already low rates.

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New York Magazine revealed interesting research from U.S. academics analyzing default rates among borrowers. Academics from the University of Delaware and Columbia learned that the use of certain keywords in a loan application signal a greater likelihood of default. Their research showed that the use of words like “God,” and “hospital” negatively correlated to repayment while “debt-free,” and “graduate” positively correlated to repayment.