Bank of Spain names first crowdfunding platform with its licence
The Ministry of Economy has granted the first licence to operate as a payment institution to the crowdlending platform MytripleA. MytripleA is the first Spanish Crowdlending platform to obtain such a licence, ahead of other entities that have been in the sector for some time, such as Communitae, Zänk or Arboribus.
Founded in 2013, MytripleA is based in Soria and is led by Jorge Antón. The current legislation obliges companies providing payment services to have such a licence, which will additionally require them to register as such with the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV).
Agreements between banks and crowdlending platforms
A study by Goldman Sachs claims that in the next 5 years 7% of US banks' profits will be at risk from new forms of credit disintermediation. This has prompted banks to react and sign agreements with platforms.
One of the latest agreements has been signed in France, between Unilend and Groupama. Over the next four years, the bank will lend around 100 million euros to SMEs in France through Unilend's online channel. This is the first time in Europe that such an agreement has been reached between such identities.
Lending Club has already signed several agreements with banks including Titan Bank and the Bank of Congress, two American banks.
In addition, venture capital is also building relationships with P2P platforms, Victory Park Capital will lend $500M to British and American companies through Assetz Capital and Funding Circle.
IPOs are expected in the sector
Following the successful IPO of Lending Club, the world's leading crowdlending platform in terms of transaction volume, it seems logical that other crowdlending platforms will decide to go public. One of those that looks set to go public soon is Prosper, which has just closed a $165M funding round. Others such as OnDeck or SwiftCapital have also taken steps in this direction. Pressure from venture capitalists, many of whom are major investors in this type of platform, has a lot to do with this trend, as they want to benefit from the capital gains that can be made if what happened with Lending Club on Wall Street is replicated.
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