Wednesday November 15 2017, Daily News Digest

News Comments

• Today’s main news: PayPal launches P2P funding platform.True Accord lands $22M in funding.Lendable hits 100M GBP lending milestone.P2P Global Investments fund sees huge reduction in U.S. consumer loan exposure.Yirendai’s Q3 results.Klarna, PPRO partner on credit payment across Europe.
• Today’s main analysis: The latest trends in consumer credit.The corporate bond market suffers indigestion.
• Today’s thought-provoking articles: Marcus is winning the personal loans arms race.Why customer acquisition is difficult for financial startups.

United States

• TransUnion report on latest consumer credit trends. AT: “This is a must-read report concerning credit card, auto, mortgage, and personal loan trends.”
• Corporate bond market suffers a huge bout of indigestion.
• Marcus is winning the personal loans arms race. AT:”We must ask why Marcus seems to be winning. Are the leading alternative lenders losing market share to Marcus’s attack on fees? Is it simply because they’ve got the backing of Goldman Sachs. For sure, there does seem to be a competitive play going on, but is that the total picture?”
• TrueAccord receives $22M in Series B funding. AT: “This is interesting because the product is machine learning applied to debt collections. Congratulations.”
• Why customer acquisition is difficult for financial startups. AT: “Customer acquisition costs are important for long-term profitability. A company can take a short-term loss in exchange for the long-term benefit, but it’s a risky proposition. Interesting that Wealthfront reduces its marketing budget every year.”
• CleanCapital closes $3.7M funding round.
• 196 million consumers have access to a variety of revolving lines of credit.
• A tale of two Fed studies. AT: “Online lenders up in arms over the recent Cleveland Fed study should remember that the study is based on different data than a previous Fed study that was favorable. In truth, one cannot base a conclusion on the study of a single online lender. I think the real picture is what lies beyond both Fed studies.”
• Critics call it predatory lending.
• Kill the airline voucher while you’re at it.
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requests information on free access to credit scores.
• A podcast discussing the Cleveland Fed study on P2P lending.
• Lend360 personal experience: A new era in online lending.
• 2017 holiday budgets by city.
• Magilla Loans ranked as top intermediary by National Real Estate Investor.
• Varde Partners acquires CreditShop.

United Kingdom

• Lendable hits 100M GBP lending milestone. AT: “Congratulations.”
• P2P Global Investments fund sees large reduction in U.S. consumer loan exposure.
• Millennial borrowers’ demands underline need for digital lending.
• Fintech needs a meaningful investment fund.
• 1 in 20 nurses have taken out a payday loan to pay bills.

China

• Yirendai Q3 results.
• Lexin Fintech Holdings is the latest play on tech.
• Hui Ying reports Q3 results.

European Union

• PPRO, Klarna partner on credit payment methods.
• Banco BNI Europa, EDEBEX partner on Portuguese SMEs.
• CreditGate24 expands into Germany.
• Fintech puts power into customer hands.
• Financial services and the generation game.

International

• PayPal launches P2P funding platform. AT: “How long will it be before PayPal moves into equity crowdfunding?”
• Cash in the digital world.
• Capital markets transformation demands evolutionary approach.

Australia/New Zealand

• The effective cost of credit.

India

• How FinMomenta plans to change how financial loans are disbursed.

Canada

• Canadians to use blockchain for digital IDs.

MENA

• Dubai International Financial Center unveils $100M fund for fintech startup investment.

United States

New Q3 2017 TransUnion Industry Insights Report reveals latest consumer credit trends (TransUnion Email), Rated: AAA

With the holiday shopping season officially kicking off during Black Friday next week, TransUnion’s (NYSE: TRU) just released Q3 2017 Industry Insights Report found that 195.9 million consumers now have access to revolving credit such as bank-issued and private label credit cards. According to the report, powered by Prama^SM analytics, this is the highest level of revolving credit access since TransUnion began measuring the variable and is greater than the 192.6 million consumers who had access to such credit products in Q3 2016.

TransUnion also found that, as of Q3 2017, a record 142.5 million consumers had a balance on non-revolving loans. This is up from 140.1 million in Q3 2016. Non-revolving loans are primarily comprised of auto loans, mortgages, student loans and unsecured personal loans.

The number of consumers with the aforementioned credit products, especially revolving lines of credit, will more than likely grow during the upcoming holiday shopping season. In November and December 2016, TransUnion found that average originations for private label credit cards doubled for online (2.00x) and discount store (1.95x) retailers compared to average monthly originations over the rest of the year (January through October)

Total Credit Balances Rise despite Slowdown in New Credit Card Accounts

The addition of FactorTrust’s short-term and small dollar lending data to TransUnion’s suite of credit solutions gives lenders the information they need to offer responsible borrowers a broader range of credit products, supported by TransUnion’s robust data security, technology and customer service infrastructure.

Short-term and other small dollar loans are the largest category of consumer credit obligations not currently part of nationwide credit reporting agency databases.

Adding small dollar loan data to its credit reporting framework also positions TransUnion to help customers streamline compliance with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new small dollar lending rule. The rule is designed to protect consumers from securing short-term and balloon-payment loans without the ability to repay according to the terms of the agreement. With visibility into consumers’ traditional and alternative credit obligations, TransUnion will be able to provide all of the data lenders need to comply.

Q3 2017 Credit Card Trends

Credit Card Lending Metric	Q3 2017	Q3 2016	Q3 2015	Q3 2014
Number of Credit Card Loans	414.3 million	398.5 million	374.2 million	361.2 million
Borrower-Level Delinquency Rate (90+ DPD)	1.68%	1.53%	1.44%	1.35%
Average Debt Per Borrower	$5,483	$5,323	$5,229	$5,251
Prior Quarter Originations*	15.5 million	17.6 million	15.3 million	13.7 million
Average New Account Credit Lines*	$5,307	$5,252	$5,047	$4,920

*Note: Originations are viewed one quarter in arrears to account for reporting lag.

Q3 2017 Credit Card Loan Performance by Age Group

Age/Variable	90+ DPD	Annual Pct. Change	Average Loan Balances Per Consumer	Annual Pct. Change
Gen Z (1995 – present)	2.55%	15.5%	$1,101	28.5%
Millennials (1980-1994)	2.48%	5.6%	$4,028	12.0%
Gen X (1965-1979)	2.10%	7.7%	$6,997	4.9%
Baby Boomers (1946-1964)	1.11%	8.8%	$6,351	0.8%
Silent (Until 1945)	0.74%	10.2%	$3,928	0.2%

 

Q3 2017 Auto Loan Trends

Auto Lending Metric	Q3 2017	Q3 2016	Q3 2015	Q3 2014
Number of Auto Loans	78.6 million	74.8 million	69.8 million	64.6 million
Borrower-Level Delinquency Rate (60+ DPD)	1.40%	1.33%	1.19%	1.20%
Average Debt Per Borrower	$18,567	$18,361	$17,946	$17,351
Prior Quarter Originations*	7.1 million	7.3 million	7.2 million	6.8 million
Average Balance of New Auto Loans*	$20,653	$20,436	$20,097	$19,524

*Note: Originations are viewed one quarter in arrears to account for reporting lag.

Mortgage Delinquency Rates Continue Extended Decline

Q3 2017 Mortgage Loan Trends

Mortgage Lending Metric	Q3 2017	Q3 2016	Q3 2015	Q3 2014
Number of Mortgage Loans	52.7 million	52.3 million	52.9 million	53.6 million
Borrower-Level Delinquency Rate (60+ DPD)	1.91%	2.29%	2.50%	3.51%
Average Debt Per Borrower	$199,417	$193,489	$189,428	$186,577
Prior Quarter Originations*	1.9 million	2.0 million	1.9 million	1.4 million
Average Balance of New Mortgage Loans*	$224,502	$230,120	$221,753	$195,514

*Note: Originations are viewed one quarter in arrears to account for reporting lag.

 Personal Loan Balances Reach All-Time High as Delinquency Rates Decline

Q3 2017 Unsecured Personal Loan Trends

Personal Loan Metric	Q3 2017	Q3 2016	Q3 2015	Q3 2014
Total Balances	$112 billion	$100 billion	$83 billion	$66 billion
Number of Unsecured Personal Loans	17.5 million	16.2 million	14.3 million	12.5 million
Borrower-Level Delinquency Rate (60+ DPD)	3.13%	3.53%%	3.51%	3.61%
Average Debt Per Borrower	$8,017	$7,755	$7,258	$6,673
Prior Quarter Originations*	3.6 million	3.6 million	3.6 million	3.2 million
Average Balance of New Unsecured Personal Loans*	$6,140	$5,475	$5,520	$4,847

*Note: Originations are viewed one quarter in arrears to account for reporting lag.

Corporate bond market suffers bout of indigestion (Morningstar), Rated: AAA

The corporate bond market suffered a bout of indigestion last week. Between absorbing a healthy amount of new issues and profit-taking from early year-end window-dressing, corporate credit spreads widened, albeit from levels that are still near multiyear lows. The average spread of the Morningstar Corporate Bond Index (our proxy for the investment-grade bond market) widened 5 basis points to +104. In the high-yield market, the BofA Merrill Lynch High Yield Master Index widened 24 basis points to end the week at +376.

Energy Companies’ Credit Quality Expected to Continue to Improve;
2018 Oil Forecast $55-$60
A confluence of global events recently drove the crude oil futures price curve into backwardation, a condition in which a commodity’s market price today (or spot price) is higher than the price for further-out month contracts. As of this writing, the spot price for West Texas Intermediate crude is $56.90/barrel and the December 2018 contract is priced at $55.70/barrel. Typically, the oil market trades in contango, which is the opposite of backwardation. In contango, a commodity’s spot price is below the price for further-out month contracts.

See the full Morningstar report here.

Goldman Sachs’ Marcus is winning the personal loans arms race (Tearsheet), Rated: AAA

Marcus by Goldman Sachs said it was going to lend $2 billion to customers by the end of this year. As of late Monday, it had already done that.

Lending Club has reported losses exceeding $200 million over the last six quarters; Prosper has lost $210 million since the start of 2016, despite various cost-cutting measures, and lost its unicorn status. Even OnDeck Capital, which focuses on small businesses, is struggling to become profitable, having reported losses over eight consecutive quarters.

Goldman sees a $13 billion lending opportunity with Marcus over three years, CFO Marty Chavez said Tuesday in remarks at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Future of Financials Conference.

TrueAccord Nabs $ 22M Series B To Bring Machine Learning To Debt Collections (Forbes), Rated: AAA

San Francisco based TrueAccord, announced today that is has closed $22M in additional funding led by Arbor Ventures, with participation from existing and new investors. The Series B funding follows a period of sustained and rapid growth for the company.

Why customer acquisition is so difficult for financial startups (Tearsheet), Rated: AAA

Customer acquisition is expensive. For a large bank it could cost between $1,500 and $2,000 to acquire a retail banking customer, according to Ciaran Rogers, director of marketing at StratiFi, an early stage startup that helps advisors manage portfolio risk. In credit cards the cost could be in the hundreds, not thousands — according to David True, a partner at PayGility Advisors. An expensive customer could be as high as about $800, which would include the cost of teasers and bonus loyalty points. At startups it could be between $5 to about $300 for one customer. Fintechs want to spend less money on that — Wealthfront, for example, decreases its marketing budget year after year.

Partnerships with bigger brands have been one way to bring that cost down. For example, Canada’s fifth largest bank, CIBC, is reportedly in talks with robo-adviser Wealthsimple over a referral deal in which the bank would send some of its customers to the digital investment startup.

At MoneyLion, the cost of customer acquisition is about $5 or less, said chief marketing officer Tim Hong. MoneyLion launched in 2013 and now touts about 1.5 million customers. Earlier this year, Luvleen Sidhu, president and chief strategy officer of the all-digital BankMobile, said it spends about $10 to acquire an account.

Solar Finance Pioneer CleanCapital Closes 3.7M Investment Round to Help Investors Tap Solar Market (EIN Presswire), Rated: A

CleanCapital, an online marketplace for clean energy investing, announced today that it closed its Series A with a total investment of $3.7 million. This investment came through 50 investors to include FinTech and cleantech leaders as well as SeedInvest’s Selections Fund in this latest round.

Over the past five years, the solar market grew an average rate of 72% per year, fueled by regulatory stability and reduced install costs.

As Black Friday Nears, a Record 196 Million Consumers Now Have Access to Various Forms of Credit Cards and Other Revolving Lines of Credit (TransUnion Email), Rated: A

With the holiday shopping season officially kicking off during Black Friday next week, TransUnion’s (NYSE: TRU) just released Q3 2017 Industry Insights Report found that 195.9 million consumers now have access to revolving credit such as bank-issued and private label credit cards. According to the report, this is the highest level of revolving credit access since TransUnion began measuring the variable and is greater than the 192.6 million consumers who had access to such credit products in Q3 2016.

TransUnion’s analysis found that average private label card originations in the holiday season (defined as November and December) for 2016 was 148% of the average originations for the January through October timeframe. This is tracking in line with recent rises observed in 2015 (156%) and 2014 (164%).

Other Consumer Credit Headlines from the Industry Insights Report:

• Total Credit Balances Rise despite Slowdown in New Credit Card Accounts
• Auto Loan Market Shifting Toward Less Risky Consumers
• Mortgage Delinquency Rates Continue Extended Decline
• Personal Loan Balances Reach All-Time High as Delinquency Rates Decline

Online Lending And A Tale Of Two Fed Studies (PYMNTS), Rated: A

In 2010, digital lenders originated $249 million in unsecured personal loans, and by 2016 that number had grown ninety-fold.

Cleveland’s Dark Outlook

That detail alone isn’t necessarily bad news – after all, having more debt doesn’t necessarily mean the online lending customers are doing worse. But paired with other data, the news looks pretty grim. According to the Cleveland Fed survey, the online lending customers also showed lower credit scores on average, more delinquent debt and more total debt outstanding.

The findings further suggest that in some cases, the three- to five-year installment loans of up to $30,000 to $40,000 often offered by online lending sites are not being used for their intended purpose of consolidating credit card debt into a single, lower-interest loan. Instead, customers were using those loans to rack up more debt and maxing out the cards they used to pay off the loans.

Philly, Chicago And A Very Different Result

The earlier report did note that outcomes varied depending on the specific borrower profile and their precise lending requirements. However, because of the expanded and more inclusive credit ranking criteria, consumers who might otherwise be “credit invisible” or appear to have a sub-prime score are able to get a more complete evaluation that considers a wider array of factors.

The lack of regulatory clarity raises concerns, they said, over whether customers are treated fairly, have “equal access to credit, and receive offers that can be easily compared and understood,” suggesting that alt lenders need to compete on a level playing field with their regulated bank counterparts.

Why The Discrepancy?

The Cleveland Fed study examined data from TransUnion for consumers who had been identified as having taken out “online bank-based loans.” That includes a much wider set of businesses and lenders than is technically defined by the more traditional online lenders.

The Philly-Chicago study focused entirely on data from Lending Club, a marketplace lender.

Fintech critics call it predatory lending (CBS News), Rated: A

The Cleveland Fed study goes even further. It claims that P2P lending is a ticking time bomb in which loose lending and cascading defaults could lead to another crash like the one the US suffered in 2008 when the subprime lending bust took down major banks and insurers, disabling the housing market for years.

Astrada points specifically to the high interest rates that prospective borrowers with poor credit could have to pay. Many websites offering P2P loans advertise 5 percent loans with terms of one to five years. This may look good to those who would like to roll their credit card debt of 25 percent into a P2P loan.

But the reality is that for many borrowers, the interest rate is much higher. He emphasizes that one up and coming P2P lender about to go public claims that its average loan portfolio across its business model is nearly 150 percent.

While Killing The Check, Kill The (Airline) Voucher, Too (PYMNTS), Rated: A

In the seventh installment of the “Kill the Check” series, PYMNTS’ Karen Webster sat down with Ingo Money CEO Drew Edwards to get a sense of how airlines can use push payments to quell misfires and compensate passengers for their troubles when things go awry.

The digital nature of push payments also helps airlines as they can better control when, where and how such monies are spent. In addition, Edwards noted, push payments are instantly reconciled with the airline’s own accounting functions as they are being used.

Real Estate Fintech Firm Unison Announces 2018 Expansion Plans (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

On Monday, home ownership investment platform Unison announced 2018 expansion plans.

The platform reported that in 2017 alone it has expanded into five additional states including Illinois, New York, Arizona, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, bringing its total footprint to twelve states plus Washington D.C.

In addition to announcing 2018 expansion plans, Unison also revealed multiple promotions and additions to its management team. These are the following:

• Jim Riccitelli assumed the role of President focusing on facilitating Unison’s rapid expansion and supporting Unison’s trademark focus on consumer education and financial literacy.
• Bill Walker and Brian Elbogen, former Managing Directors, have been promoted to Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Strategy Officer
• Laura Wensley has been brought on as Director of Finance
• Rayan Rafay has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Unison’s investment management business
• John Arens, who is General Counsel at Unison, has taken on additional responsibilities as Managing Director of Business Operations
• Heather Phillips has joined as Associate General Counsel

CFPB requests information on free access to credit scores (American Banker), Rated: A

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking more information about consumers’ experience with free access to credit scores.

In two separate notices published in the Federal Register on Monday, the CFPB said it wants more data on which companies consumers are using to obtain their free scores. The bureau also said it is updating a public list of companies that offer free access to a credit score.

Dave Wilson’s Chart of the Day for Nov. 14 (Bloomberg), Rated: A

GUESTS: David Wilson Stocks Editor Bloomberg News Discussing his Chart of the Day “Here’s a ‘secret’ about tech stocks from Rich Bernstein.”

Julie Verhage Reporter Bloomberg Editorial Discussing the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank slamming the peer-to-peer lending business, calling it predatory and asking for more regulation.

Listen to the podcast here.

Lend360: A New Era in Online Lending (Crowdfund Insider), Rated: A

I can sense that most of the folks attending the conference that got hurt by Operation Chokepoint feels a bit vindicated by the latest roll back of many new proposals laid out by the CFPB, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Just recently the United State senate overruled the CFPB’s arbitration rule. The overruling by CFPB and essentially a no-confidence vote happened about a week after Lend360 concluded in Dallas, Texas.

I attended Dan Quan’s “The Regulator’s View of Fintech” session on the last day of the conference. Dan manages the small dollar lender desk at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at his panel, Dama Brown from FTC and Shamoil Shipchandler from SEC all spoke about an era of collaboration with lenders. The tones from all three regulatory representative is vastly different than that of five years ago where mass regulation and penalties were the topic of discussion.

I feel like the industry has finally evolved from a cat and mouse game with the regulators to a more collaborative marketing participants as this industry continues to mature.

2017 Holiday Budgets by City (WalletHub), Rated: A

The National Retail Federation predicts the average per-person tab this holiday season will reach $967, up nearly 3.4 percent since 2016.

Americans are on track to end 2017 with more than $60 billion in additional credit-card balances, according to WalletHub’s projections. That figure puts us perilously close to the nearly $1 trillion grand total recorded at the height of the Great Recession.

Holiday Budget by City

Overall Rank*	City	Holiday Budget
1	Naperville, IL	$2,381
2	Sugar Land, TX	$2,368
3	Bellevue, WA	$2,367
4	Sunnyvale, CA	$2,360
5	Carmel, IN	$2,330
6	Milpitas, CA	$2,262
7	League City, TX	$2,225
8	Maple Grove, MN	$2,221
9	Allen, TX	$2,163
10	Columbia, MD	$2,032

In order to determine the cities with the biggest holiday budgets, WalletHub’s analysts compared 570 cities across five key metrics: 1) Income, 2) Age, 3) Debt-to-Income Ratio, 4) Monthly Income-to-Monthly Expenses Ratio and 5) Savings-to-Monthly Expenses Ratio.

National Real Estate Investor Ranks Magilla Loans a Top Financial Intermediary with $ 1B in Commercial Loans (PR Newswire), Rated: B

Magilla Loans, a search engine for loans which connects borrowers to banks without requesting personal information, has been recognized by National Real Estate Investor (NREI), a leading authority on trends in the commercial real estate market, as one of the 2017 Top Financial Intermediaries for commercial real estate loans arranged within the last calendar year. The ranking identifies Magilla Loans as a reliable and efficient service which satisfies the needs of commercial real estate developers and executives.

Read our featured analysis on Magilla Loans.

Värde Partners Acquires CreditShop (PR Newswire), Rated: B

CreditShop and Värde Partners today announced that Värde will acquire Austin-based CreditShop.  CreditShop is a specialty finance company focused on providing consumer friendly credit products and personal loans to prime and near-prime consumers.  CreditShop is the 25^th largest MasterCard and Visa credit card issuer in the United States.

In March 2017, CreditShop acquired a $1.6 billion MasterCard credit card portfolio from Barclaycard.  The company expects to launch its own credit card products in 2018.

United Kingdom

Lendable hits £100m lending landmark (P2P Finance News), Rated: AAA

LENDABLE has announced that it has hit the £100m cumulative lending milestone in less than four years since launch.

The peer-to-peer consumer lender said on Monday that it is the third UK consumer lender after Zopa and RateSetter to reach this milestone and that it reached it in the fastest time.

P2P Global Investments fund sees large reduction in US consumer loan exposure (AltFi), Rated: AAA

The £798m P2P Global Investments fund has entered into an agreement to sell a significant proportion of its exposure to US consumer loans.

The transaction represents a reduction of £36.9m net exposure or 4.56 per cent of the fund’s net asset value (NAV) and £167.1m in gross exposure.

Demands of millennial borrowers underline need for digitisation in lending (AltFi), Rated: A

A new report from Equiniti finds that 30 per cent of consumers aged 18-25 have borrowed more than £1,000 over the past year. This equates to approximately 2 million people, according to estimates: the highest proportion of any generational group.

The report draws on data from a survey of 2,001 UK consumers in August 2017. 32 per cent were classified millennials, 34 per cent generation-x and 34 per cent baby boomers. 52 per cent were women, 48 per cent were men.

Since 2015, borrowing (of over £1,000) has increased by 17 per cent among millennials, 9 per cent for generation-x and just 1 per cent for baby boomers.

Fintech sector needs a meaningful investment fund says challenger bank boss (Yorkshire Post), Rated: A

Speaking at a fintech summit in Leeds, Mr Letts also questioned whether the challenger banks were radically different from mainstream banking, positing that some had simply “put new clothes on the emperor”.

“On other the other side are what I call the ‘neobanks’, people coming in with much hurrah and hysteria and telling everyone that the big banks are finished and that they are going to take over the world .

“If you set up a fund, from Government, that invested in fintechs and you had a billion pound fund where do you think businesses will come to? It is very simple.”

More than one in 20 nurses have taken out a payday loan to pay bills, survey claims (ChronicleLive), Rated: A

The Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) workforce survey found that 6% of nurses have been forced to take out one of the high interest rate loans in the last year to meet their daily bills and living expenses.

Meanwhile, one in four has borrowed money from friends, family or their bank, 23% have taken on an additional paid job and half did overtime to cover their bills and expenses, according to the poll of 7,720 nurses from across the UK.

China

Yirendai Reports Third Quarter 2017 Financial Results (PR Newswire), Rated: AAA

Yirendai Ltd. (NYSE: YRD) (“Yirendai” or the “Company”) today announced its unaudited financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2017

	For Three Months Ended
in RMB million	September 30, 2017	June 30, 2017	September 30, 2016	QoQ Change	YoY Change
Amount of Loans Facilitated	12,185.4	8,536.1	5,617.5	43%	117%
Total Net Revenue	1,513.9	1,183.1	876.7	28%	73%
Total Fees Billed (non-GAAP)	2,475.3	1,862.5	1,322.6	33%	87%
Net Income	303.0	269.1	344.3	13%	-12%
Adjusted EBITDA(1) (non-GAAP)	422.4	378.4	220.7	12%	91%
Adjusted Net Income (2) (non-GAAP)	303.0	269.1	192.6	13%	57%

In the third quarter of 2017, Yirendai facilitated RMB 12,185.4 million (US$1,831.5 million) of loans to 192,725 qualified individual borrowers through its online marketplace, representing a year-over-year growth of 117%; 75.7% of the borrowers were acquired from online channels; 57.2% of the loan volume was originated from online channels and nearly 100% of the online volume was facilitated through mobile.

In the third quarter of 2017, Yirendai facilitated 214,967 investors with total investment amount of RMB 13,510.0 million(US$2,030.6 million), 100% of which was facilitated through its online platform and 92% of which was facilitated through its mobile application.

For the third quarter of 2017, total net revenue was RMB 1,513.9 million (US$227.5 million), an increase of 28% from the previous quarter and 73% year-over-year; net income was RMB 303.0 million (US$45.5 million), and increase of 13% from the previous quarter and a decrease of 12% year-over-year. The decrease of net income is mainly because that, in the third quarter of 2016, the Company recognized a tax credit of RMB 151.7 million because one of its subsidiaries became qualified as a software enterprise which makes it eligible for an exemption of enterprise income tax for 2015 and 2016. Excluding the impact of the tax credit, adjusted net income in the third quarter of 2016 was RMB 192.6 million.

Have phone will borrow: Here’s the latest tech play on China’s spendthrift youth (SCMP), Rated: A

An online lender targeting spendthrift 24 to 36 year olds is the latest fintech firm from China to bet on the willingness of Chinese youth to go into debt for the newest smartphone – and on the willingness of US investors to bid up its shares.

Shenzhen-based Lexin Fintech Holdings, which operates an online e-commerce platform offering instalment shopping, is following in the footsteps of Chinese microcredit providers Qudian and Hexindai which raised US$900 million and US$50 million in their US IPOs in October and November, respectively.

They were also out in force for the recent Singles’ Day shopping festival, which saw sales on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms reach 168 billion yuan (US$25.3 billion). During the first hour of the 24 hour shopping spree the number and value of orders on the Fenqile platform rose three and six times respectively compared with the same period last year.

Hui Ying Financial Holdings Corp. Reports Unaudited Third Quarter 2017 Financial Results (PR Newswire), Rated: A

Hui Ying Financial Holdings Corp. (OTCQB: SFHD) (“Hui Ying” or the “Company”), a leading online financial credit facility solution provider servicing Small-to-Medium Enterprises (“SMEs”) and individual borrowers in China, today announced its financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017.

Third Quarter 2017 Highlights

	For the Three Months Ended September 30,
($ millions, except per share data)	2017		2016		% Change
Revenues	$           14.28		$            7.07		101.9%
Loan origination service fee	$             8.39		$            5.11		64.3%
Loan repayment management fee	$             5.25		$            1.97		167.0%
Financing income from entrusted loans	$             0.64		$                  –		NM
Operating income	$             6.41		$            1.92		233.2%
Other income (expenses)	$           (0.24)		$            0.04		-717.6%
Net income	$             4.76		$            1.46		226.3%
EPS – diluted	$             0.06		$            0.02		179.0%

• Total loans facilitated through our platform increased by 73.3% to RMB 2.6 billion for the third quarter of 2017, from RMB 1.5 billion for the same period of last year, as China’s online peer-to-peer lending platform industry continued to grow significantly during the third quarter, coupled with the increased marketing campaign, promotion activities on our platform as well as increased brand awareness of our online marketplace.
• Total revenues more than doubled to $14.28 million for the third quarter of 2017 from $7.07 million for the same period of last year, as a result of increase in loans facilitated through our platform and the contribution from the newly launched entrusted loan business. Revenues from loan origination service fee, loan repayment management fee and financing income from entrusted loans were $8.39 million, $5.25 million and $0.64 million, respectively, for the third quarter of 2017 compared to $5.11 million, $1.97 million and nil, respectively, for the same period of last year.
• Net income was $4.76 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2017, compared to $1.46 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, for the same period of last year.