LevelUp Checking Drives LendingClub Account Openings

LendingClub’s third quarter results, released after the market closed Wednesday (Oct. 22), detailed double-digit growth in loan originations and a surge in new account openings tied to its LevelUp checking offering.

The company materials indicated that loan origination growth stood at 37% to $2.6 billion, at the highest level in three years. Revenues of $266 million gained 32% year over year.

During the conference call with analysts, CEO Scott Sanborn said that the loan growth reflected “strong demand from both consumers and loan investors, and our increased marketing efforts,” adding that marketplace revenues were up 75% [to $108 million], and the structured certificate sales topped $1 billion.

LevelUp Momentum

In discussing LevelUp checking, he said that “members are responding positively, with a 7x increase in account openings over our prior checking product. In a recent survey, 84% of respondents said they were more likely to consider a LendingClub Corporation loan given the offer of 2% cash back for on-time payments through LevelUp checking. And what’s really encouraging is that nearly 60% of new accounts being opened are being opened by borrowers.” The digital efforts, Sanborn said, have led to a nearly 50% increase in monthly app logins from borrowers, “and with that engagement, an increasing portion of our repeat loan issuance is now coming through the app.”

CFO Drew LaBenne said, “Leveraging one of the benefits of being a bank, we grew our held-for-sale extended seasoning portfolio to over $1.2 billion, consistent with our strategy to grow our balance sheet.

“We continue to see healthy deposit trends, and total deposits ended the quarter at $9.4 billion, a slight decrease from last year. The change was primarily attributable to a $100 million decrease in brokered deposits, which was mostly offset by an increase in relationship deposits.”

The LevelUp savings product has logged $3 billion in balances, and represented the bulk of deposit growth thus far into 2025. Overall net charge-offs improved modestly to 2.9% as credit trends modernize.

During the question and answer sessions with analysts, Sanborn said, “When the interest rate environment shifted, we were competing more with banks and less with FinTechs. I’d say now we’re competing a bit more with FinTechs and a little bit less with some of the banks, but it’s … certainly not affecting our underwriting standards. We are absolutely in this for the long game.”

Asked about the appetite for loans bought by investors, the CFO said that “I’d say the appetite is still very strong. I don’t think there’s any fade on the appetite at all … for the various vehicles that are out there, whether it’s a structured product, the rated product, or whole loans.”

And in discussing credit metrics, Sanborn said that “in our portfolio, given how we’re underwriting today … there’s talk about [pressures on] consumers earning less than $50k a year. I think that represents 5% of our originations right now. … Same thing with student loans. As you know, we’ve restricted underwriting to that group.”

Shares were up 7% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.