There’s nothing like that new car smell. And the fun of driving a new car off the dealer’s parking lot. But the process of getting there is anything but fun, especially if one is financing a car. Even when the process has gone swimmingly and the...
Square’s quest to evolve past its original incarnation as a payments processing firm for small merchants is apparently set to expand into consumer lending. According to WSJ reports, CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has begun quietly circulating word among its SMB customers that it is...
According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, the group of workers whose incomes rise and fall by as much as 25 percent over the course of a year is mostly made up of hourly workers in retail and gig economy workers. But while they make up...
It took almost a full decade, but Americans’ debt level has reached a new all-time high, surpassing the $12.68 trillion peak it reached in the fall of 2008 — the same time that the Great Recession was earning its place in the history books. According...
After the rather spectacular fireworks display that Lending Club had going on this time last year, it was not great surprise when the bond buyers who had been snapping up P2P marketplace debt suddenly got a case of cold feet and starting fleeing those marketplace...
Signs of increasing weakness in consumer credit have been mounting for the last several months. Auto lending, particularly to subprime borrowers, has been looking especially concerning as delinquencies and default rates have steadily climbed. Subprime borrowers now account for roughly 20 percent of the $1.2...
A lot has been said and written about payday loans. In fact, there’s been a literal deluge of data on the subject: stacks of studies, reams of regulations, a plethora of public hearings and an otherwise unending series of arguments about whether or not this...
When OnDeck completed its IPO in 2009, it entered the public markets with a massive amount of buzz, ending the day with a share price north of $20 dollars and a valuation around $1.9 billion. “We’ve been operating with the discipline of a public business,” noted...
As an alternative to Federal Plus and private student loans, more students are looking to income share agreements as a way to fund higher education. In an income share agreement, an investor essentially fronts a student’s college tuition under the condition that when the student...