Lend Academy Podcast

I am truly fascinated by the work that many companies are doing in the developing world. The challenges are greater but in many ways the rewards can be greater as well. Certainly, when an innovative company creates a successful operation in the developing world the impact on society can be profound. Our next guest on […] The post Podcast 113: Shivani Siroya of Tala appeared first on Lend Academy.

ZhongAn Insurance has been around for less than five years but in that time they have created an insurance behemoth. By some measures they are the largest insurance company on the planet with a staggering number of customers. They have made their name by connecting with China’s internet economy and issuing literally billions of small […] The post Podcast 112: Jeffrey Chen of ZhongAn Insurance appeared first on Lend Academy.

Credit card companies used to market heavily on college campuses offering all kinds of freebies in return for a completed card application. The Credit CARD Act of 2009 stopped that practice. What this has meant is that students have seen their access to credit curtailed sharply and their ability to start building credit postponed until they’re older. […] The post Podcast 111: Timothy Li of Fluid appeared first on Lend Academy.

Non-accredited investors have always had fewer investment options than accredited investors. That is starting to improve as some companies take advantage of a law called Regulation A+, created as part of the JOBS Act, to do offerings to the general public. Our next guest on the Lend Academy Podcast is a true pioneer in non-accredited […] The post Podcast 110: Ben Miller of Fundrise appeared first on Lend Academy.

The word “insurtech” has only been part of the vernacular for a very short time – just a couple of years really. Short for insurance technology it reflects a growing area of innovation happening in the insurance industry today. Insurtech has quickly become one of the hot new areas of fintech with dozens of startups attracting […] The post Podcast 109: Matthew Wong of CB Insights on Insurtech appeared first on Lend Academy.

We are almost ten years removed from the financial crisis but some of the broader issues that came up back then have still not been resolved. The data was not standard, there was little transparency and most investors had no clue as to the details of the underlying loans that were in these securitizations that were underperforming. […] The post Podcast 108: Perry Rahbar of dv01 appeared first on Lend Academy.

It is hard to pick up a business publication today and not read a story about blockchain. Every major company is looking at this technology and either trying to figure out how it can help them in their business or more often than not they will already have started a proof of concept or pilot […] The post Podcast 107: Alex Tapscott, Co-Author of Blockchain Revolution appeared first on Lend Academy.

In this country there have been three main credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, for many decades. These companies provide most of the consumer data that lenders use today to make a credit decision. However, there are other bureaus that cover different niches within the consumer space and one such company is Clarity Services. My […] The post Podcast 106: Tim Ranney of Clarity Services appeared first on Lend Academy.

The American Bankers Association (ABA) is the trade association for the banking industry representing small, regional and large banks and the 2 million people they employ. It has been around since 1875 and is the leading voice for the banking industry. Robert Morgan is the Vice President of Emerging Technologies at the ABA and he is the […] The post Podcast 105: Robert Morgan of the American Bankers Association appeared first on Lend Academy.

I have always been a big fan of solar energy. I love the idea of getting energy from the sun which led me to install solar panels on my house back in 2006. Also, when Mosaic launched their solar investment offering back in 2013 I was one of the first people to jump in (they no longer […] The post Podcast 104: Bryan Birsic of Wunder Capital appeared first on Lend Academy.

Residential real estate is the oldest and most established of all asset classes. And yet, when it comes to owning equity in homes, that has only ever been available to the individual homeowners. Sure there have been ways to tap this equity including reverse mortgage or home equity loans but there has been no real […] The post Podcast 103: Thomas Sponholtz and Jim Riccitelli of Unison appeared first on Lend Academy.

It was in June of 2015 when we first learned that Goldman Sachs was planning to launch a consumer lending platform. This caused a great deal of buzz in the online lending industry as there was much conjecture about what this meant for everyone. We learned more about this new platform, called Marcus by Goldman […] The post Podcast 102: Omer Ismail of Marcus by Goldman Sachs appeared first on Lend Academy.

The CFPB estimates there are 45 million adults in the US today who have little or no credit history. Consequently, these people are terribly underserved by traditional finance. But some companies are making inroads into this market and are doing so profitably. My guest on Episode 101 of the Lend Academy Podcast is Raul Vazquez, […] The post Podcast 101: Raul Vazquez of Oportun appeared first on Lend Academy.

For our 100th episode I thought we would do something a little different. We decided to bring the Lend Academy team (pictured above) together to get their perspective on their favorite episodes in the first 100 podcasts. But this is more than just a fun retrospective. Like everything we do at Lend Academy the goal here […] The post Podcast 100: A Retrospective With the Lend Academy Team appeared first on Lend Academy.

For many years we have focused on three asset classes in online lending: real estate, small business and consumer loans. There are, of course, many other related or sub-asset classes. One such asset class is litigation finance, something we have not covered on Lend Academy until now. Our next guest on the Lend Academy Podcast […] The post Podcast 99: Milind Mehere of YieldStreet appeared first on Lend Academy.

The new CEO of Prosper, David Kimball, has been around financial services his entire career. With previous stints at Ford Motor Credit and USAA he has the kind of experience that a company like Prosper needs. He was hired as the CFO of Prosper back in March of last year and then took over from […] The post Podcast 98: David Kimball of Prosper appeared first on Lend Academy.

As I have said before China is by far the largest marketplace lending market in the world. In fact, it is so large, the loan volume in the rest of the world combined would not even come to 50% of the volume happening in China today. But it is not just about size. China is […] The post Podcast 97: Yihan Fang of Yirendai appeared first on Lend Academy.

The very first peer to peer lending platform to launch in the world was Zopa in the UK back in 2005. Prosper and Lending Club would come soon after but Zopa was the trailblazer. Today, they are continuing their trailblazing ways by becoming the first platform to start a bank. On my recent visit to […] The post Podcast 96: Jaidev Janardana of Zopa appeared first on Lend Academy.

Grameen America is a different kind of lender. The concept was started by Muhammad Yunus back in the 1970’s in Bangladesh and it has been so successful that he won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Grameen America works on the same principles as the original Grameen: providing small loans to female entrepreneurs to […] The post Podcast 95: Andrea Jung of Grameen America appeared first on Lend Academy.

Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has been a champion for financial innovation for many years. He was one of the driving forces behind the JOBS Act that was signed into law in 2012 and he is working on several pieces of legislation today designed to encourage fintech innovation. He understands fintech better than anyone else in […] The post Podcast 94: Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) appeared first on Lend Academy.