MoneyPlace, Australia’s newest P2P lending market, has confirmed that it plans to begin trading in the June quarter, joining current popular platforms SocietyOne, RateSetter and ThinCats, according to BankingDay.
The Melbourne-based company will focus on the personal loan market, with a minimum loan of $5,000 on three-year fixed terms. MoneyPlace’s lending platform will be able to process an application to approval in 10 minutes, and follow through with the money the following day. Although investors will carry the credit risk, MoneyPlace will maintain a collections operation.
MoneyPlace CEO Stuart Stoyan said that the company will use a greater variety of collection of information than banks for its credit assessments, including data collected from social media sites and other sources. “Our proposition is that pricing for risk is fairer,” Stoyan added.
BankingDay noted the regulatory uncertainty facing P2P lenders in Australia. Recently, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission moved to establish an innovation hub to help start-ups navigate the regulatory system. And as a recent story in Startup Smart noted, the P2P competition in Australia is heating up.
However, Stoyan noted that Australia’s burgeoning P2P market
actually helps raise the profile of the industry, it helps people understand the disservice that banks are providing; whether it’s unfair pricing, a bad experience or just an unwillingness to lend to customers that are otherwise credit worthy.
Stolen added that building an ecosystem should be the priority, “as opposed to IPOing and being the latest thing.”
BankingDay noted Stoyan’s estimate that total Australian P2P lending was around A$20 million to $25 million, with SocietyOne accounting for $15 million to $20 million, RateSetter accounting for $2 million and ThinCats $1 million.
MoneyPlace’s CEO also said,
In the US, Lending Club and Prosper Marketplace are the dominant P2P lenders but there are lots of niches in areas such as student finance and SMEs. The market is large and it is no different here [in Australia].
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