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Journal The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
Recipient of the Apex Awards for Publication Excellence 2002-2013 
The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer 
and Online Direct Lending 
Models: The Impact on Banking 
Cass-Capco Institute Paper Series on Risk 
#39 
04.2014 
Journal 
Article 
Journal 39 
Yvan De Munck
35 
HIGH-LEVEL DEBATE 
The Rapid Ascent of 
Peer-to-Peer and 
Online Direct 
Lending Models: The 
Impact on Banking 
Yvan De Munck – Managing Director iFinTech at R.W. Pressprich and Co 
Abstract 
The Great Recession, increased regulation, regulatory back-lash, 
and the decrease in consumer confidence in the banks 
have led to major disruptive developments in the way people 
and small businesses access credit, an important element to 
the growth of the U.S. economy. Given that more than 70% 
of U.S. GDP is related to consumption, access to credit is 
required for continued growth. As a result of the aforemen-tioned 
events over the past five years, peer-to-peer and 
online direct lending have rapidly emerged as a solid alter-native 
to mainstream banking and lending. It is poised for 
very strong growth and is likely to change the landscape 
fundamentally in a relatively short time. The banking sector 
continues to be one of the few remaining sectors where fun-damental 
disruption can still occur as banks find themselves 
in a unique environment where government related institu-tions 
implement new changes, leaving banks paralyzed and 
unsure how to move forward. As these recent competitive 
forces are unlikely to reverse (barring any legislative action) 
the banks and other intermediaries really only have three op-tions: 
join them, innovate, or die. Given that the latter is not an 
option (though the banking sector has gone through a phase 
of massive consolidation since the early eighties with less 
than half the number of banks left), banks and credit card 
companies are having difficulty determining how they will be 
able to beat the continuing onslaught. Joining the party and 
splitting the spoils to the benefit of all involved is the pre-ferred, 
if not the only, realistic option for most. The concept 
of “collaborative consumption”1 is increasingly pervasive in 
our culture and peer-to-peer and online direct lending, it can 
be argued, is an expression of this new movement in which 
trust is the “new currency.” To win that “currency” back, tradi-tional 
financial services companies will have to think outside 
the box, to regain their place at the top. The issue is timely, 
urgent, and not going away any time soon. 
The views expressed herewith are Yvan De Munck’s personal views, 
and in no way reflect those of R.W. Pressprich & Co. The author would 
like to thank John Donovan, Peter Renton, and Charles Oliver for their 
contribution. 
1 Rachel Botsman is a global thought leader on the power of collaboration 
and sharing through digital technologies that transform the way we live, 
work, and consume. She has inspired a new consumer economy with her 
influential book “What’s Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption 
Is Changing The Way We Live.” TIME Magazine named Collaborative 
Consumption one of the “10 Ideas That Will Change The World.”
36 
Introduction 
“First, small businesses have insufficient access to credit, and that sit-uation 
is worsening. Second, their credit performance as a group sug-gests 
that they should be getting more credit”2 (Renaud Laplanche) 
“Bank 3.0 – Why Banking is no longer somewhere you go, but some-thing 
you do”3 (Brett King) 
As markets are hitting new highs, the Federal Reserve is reluctant to ag-gressively 
taper its stimulus package and the economic outlook is murky 
at best. The Fed must continue to accommodate multiple constituencies, 
even under new leadership. While the Fed continues to see its actions 
as “data-dependent,” risks are ever increasing: inflating financial assets, 
nervous market participants who could respond aggressively upon any 
hint of further tapering, low long rates that could be at a turning point, 
and subpar economic growth rates and unemployment levels close to 
five years after the official end of the recession. All the while, both the 
banking sector and the U.S. Congress are vying for last place in terms of 
popularity4,5 (see Figure 1). 
At the same time, we continue to see that both consumers and small 
businesses have increasing difficulty accessing credit, which seems to 
be one of the reasons this economy is nowhere near its ideal growth 
rate. This is especially odd given that the main banks in the U.S. are once 
again bigger and more flush than ever. So what is happening and why? 
“The funds U.S. banks had available for lending to businesses and 
households increased last month (October 2013) by $95.8 billion to an 
all-time record high of $2.3 trillion. What are the banks doing with that 
enormous liquidity? The answer is: nothing. Banks simply put that money 
back where it came from: at the Federal Reserve (Fed). They chose the 
Fed deposits paying 0.25 percent, instead of earning 4.5 percent on new 
car loans, or 10 percent on two-year personal loans.”6 
Weak bank lending continues to be one of the main culprits for the cur-rent 
situation, with loan growth rates far below where they should be at 
this point in the cycle. At the same time however, non-bank lending is 
growing at close to 10% per year, driven by alternative finance compa-nies, 
credit unions, and, increasingly, peer-to-peer (P2P) and other online 
direct lenders. This is where it gets interesting. This is where we need to 
pay attention. 
“What we have here is a case where the transmission channel between 
the monetary policy and the real economy is clogged up. Instead of fi-nancing 
aggregate demand, the liquidity created by the Fed is being de-posited 
by the banks back at the Fed at an interest rate of 0.25%. With 
every loan banks write, they are taking an investment decision whose 
expected income stream should be profitable. The fact that banks now 
apparently consider that their risk-adjusted return on consumer loans are 
lower than the 0.25% deposit rate at the Fed is a serious indictment of 
the monetary and fiscal policies they have to contend with.”7 
So if banks are not going to change tack any time soon, how can we find 
another way to increase loan volume? Welcome to the new world of peer-to- 
peer and online direct lending. 
Since 2007, U.S. companies such as Lending Club and Prosper Mar-ketplace 
have been slowly but steadily building solid alternatives for 
creditworthy consumers (and small businesses) to deal with the issues 
mentioned, and are now coming to the forefront, with rapid growth and 
massive opportunity all but guaranteed, as we are still at ground zero. 
Considering the following8,9 (see Figure 2). 
Lending Club generates over $250m of unsecured consumer loans every 
month, and is more than doubling its loan volume each year. With $2.2 
billion in outstanding debt, Lending Club already can be considered a 
Top 20 credit issuer (ranked by outstanding debt)10, likely to break into 
the Top 10 next year if current growth rates continue.11 
2 Renaud Laplanche, Founder and CEO Lending Club, in testimony before the Subcommittee 
on Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital Access of the Committee on Small Business United 
States House of Representatives – December 5th, 2013: http://smallbusiness.house.gov/ 
uploadedfiles/12-5-2013_renaud_laplanche_testimony.pdf 
3 Brett King, CEO/Founder of Moven and global bestselling author, speaker and futurist on 
the subject of retail banking innovation: http://www.banking4tomorrow.com/author 
4 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Transforming the Banking System. Available at: http://www. 
lendingmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/1.pdf 
5 http://www.netpromotersystem.com/about/measuring-your-net-promoter-score.aspx 
6 Ivanovitch, M., 2013, “The problem with Fed QE—banks just aren’t lending,” CNBC, 
November 11. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101186133 
7 Ivanovitch, M., 2013, “The problem with Fed QE—banks just aren’t lending,” CNBC, 
November 11. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101186133 
8 Renton, P., LendAcademy.com, March 2014, “Industry Monthly Loan Totals – Combined” 
9 Renton, P., LendAcademy.com, March 2014, “Industry Monthly Loan Totals – Combined” 
10 https://www.lendingclub.com/info/demand-and-credit-profile.action 
11 The Nilson Report, August 2011, Issue 978, p. 11 
80% 
70% 
60% 
50% 
40% 
30% 
20% 
10% 
0% 
Average NPS Scores 
2012 
Other 
industries 
retail 
online services 
technology 
travel/hospitality 
insurance 
telco 
Figure 1 – Average NPS scores 2012. Source: Bain & Company
37 
The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking 
U.S. 
Prosper, the number two player in the market, and under new manage-ment, 
is growing even more rapidly, but from a much lower base. Other 
peer-to-peer and online direct lending platforms are emerging, anticipating 
continued growth in the market and benefitting from a favorable financing 
environment. This new generation of finance companies is being comple-mented 
by dedicated service providers that are helping to scale the in-dustry: 
consultancy firms (Orchard, NoteX360, LendingRobot), law firms 
(a considerable number of with dedicated in-house expertise), secondary 
market platforms (FolioFN), lobbying and industry groups (Crowdnetic/ 
NowStreetWire, CFIRA, Crowdfund Capital Advisors), blogs (LendAcad-emy; 
LendingMemo), and asset managers (Eaglewood, Emerald, Lending 
Club Advisors, Direct Lending Investments, Colchis Capital, etc.), both 
private and soon to be publicly listed vehicles in the U.S. and in Europe. 
Outside the U.S. we see similar developments, but on a smaller scale. 
The U.K. is the most developed marketplace, with Zopa, the first peer-to- 
peer lending company, having developed the concept in 2005, closely 
followed by companies like RateSetter and FundingCircle (small business 
loans). All of these companies are performing well and growing rapidly. 
Even more telling, FundingCircle has been on the international acquisi-tion 
path, announcing its U.S. entry via a merger with Endurance Lending 
Network in October 2013. 
NESTA, a U.K. “innovation charity” has published a comprehensive over-view 
of the current situation in the U.K.12, including details regarding 
market size, market growth, SME finance, and future projections. The 
conclusions are most interesting: 
The U.K. alternative finance market: 
■■ Grew by 91% from GBP 492 million in 2012 to GBP 939 million in 
2013, with an average growth rate of 75.1% over the last three years. 
■■ Contributed GBP 1.74 billion in personal, business and charitable 
financing to the U.K. economy. 
Peer-to-peer lending generated GBP 287 million, peer-to-business takes 
GBP 193 million, and the balance was generated by invoice financing/ 
trading platforms, equity crowd funding, and rewards/donation based 
crowd funding. 
Collectively, with high growth rates year on year, the U.K. alternative fi-nance 
market provided GBP 463 million of early stage growth and work-ing 
capital to over 5,000 start-ups and SMEs between 2011 and 2013. 
It is predicted this will grow to GBP 1.6 billion in 2014 and provide GBP 
840 million of business finance for start-ups and SMEs (see Figure 3). 
We also have emerging players in Germany, Sweden, France, Austra-lia, 
Mexico, China, and many other places, following in the footsteps of 
Lending Club, a clear leader in the industry. 
In the meantime, institutional money is steadily finding its way into this 
newly investable asset class, with good reason. Given the increased fi-nancial 
repression caused by extended ZIRP13 and other policies, many 
yield hungry investors are discovering that there is a place where yield 
can be generated: peer-to-peer and online direct lending. A brief over-view 
of the most recent news flow will illustrate the point: 
■■ “Prosper Raises $25 Million in New Round, Adding BlackRock as a 
Backer”14 (9/24/2013) 
12 Collins, L., R. Swart, and B. Zhang, 2013, The Rise of Future Finance: The UK Alternative 
Finance Benchmarking Report, Nesta. Available at: http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/ 
rise-future-finance 
13 Zero Interest Rate Policies 
14 De La Merced, M. J., 2013, “Prosper Raises $25 Million in New Round, Adding BlackRock 
as a Backer,” The New York Times, September 24. Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes. 
com/2013/09/24/prosper-raises-25-million-in-new-round-adding-blackrock-as-a-backer/?_ 
php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1 
Peer to peer lending in the U.S. since inception 
Competitive landscape 
Small 
business Consumer 
International 
Figure 2 – Peer-to-peer lending in U.S. since inception. Source: Lend 
Academy
38 
The size and growth of the U.K. alternative finance market 
The diversity of the U.K. alternative finance market 
382% 
170% 
1400% 
£310m 
■■ “Community Banks Join the Lending Club Platform”15 (6/20/2013) 
■■ “Old Guard of Banking Sets Out to Disrupt It”16 (12/4/2013) 
■■ “Hedge Fund Marshall Wace Invests in Peer-to-Peer Lender”17 
(10/29/2013) 
■■ “A Step Toward ‘Peer to Peer’ Lending Securitization”18 (10/1/2013) 
■■ “UK Readies Rules for Peer-to-Peer Lending”19 (10/24/2013) 
In the past two years, a relatively marginal development in the alterna-tive 
finance space has developed into the current situation in which both 
retail and institutional interest is enabling the alternative lending business 
to grow at an exponential rate. 
So what is the buzz all about, and why is it important? 
What is peer-to-peer and online direct lending and 
who are the actors? 
Peer-to-peer lending, as it is more commonly known, can be considered 
a subset of a wider phenomenon, known as online direct lending. Online 
direct lending is less well-known than peer-to-peer lending, but potential-ly 
much more important to the development of this new finance industry 
segment, for reasons described below (see Figure 4). 
We should first refer to another rather new development called “crowd 
funding.” With companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, people have be-come 
familiar with the concept: raise large amounts of money in small 
increments to fund upstarts, ideas, causes, etc. by going directly to the 
“crowd” instead of banks or other classic financial intermediaries. This 
involves asking for little amounts from a large number of people, rather 
than one big amount from one big institution. Because borrowing from 
traditional financing sources works relatively well for large companies, but 
not as well for consumers and small businesses, the crowd funding idea 
has taken off and has resulted in many examples of successful campaigns: 
1. Pebble Watch, in May 2012, raised $10.2 million on the Kickstarter 
platform. The Pebble is an e-Paper watch for iPhone and Android.20 
2. Star Citizen, a video game development company, in November 
2012, raised over $2 million via Kickstarter21, and has continued to 
raise additional funds outside of that platform as well. 
3. Oculus Rift, a VR accessory company, finished its raise in September 
2012 on Kickstarter for $2.5 million.22 
4. Scanadu Scout, the first medical tricorder, in July 2013, successfully 
raised $1.7 million through the IndieGogo platform.23 
Crowdfunding, while still relatively new and in full development, can be 
seen as having three distinct subcategories (see chart above – we note 
that there has not yet been a real consensus developed with regards to 
this classification): 
15 Lending Club, 2013, “Community Banks Join the Lending Club Platform,” press release, 
June 20. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130620-905342.html 
16 Dugan, I. J., 2013, “Old Guard of Banking Sets Out to Disrupt It,” The Wall Street Journal, 
December 4. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023037221 
04579238600929163132 
17 Larson, C., 2013, “Hedge Fund Marshall Wace Invests in Peer-to-Peer Lender,” Bloomberg, 
October 29. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/hedge-fund-marshall- 
wace-invests-in-peer-to-peer-lender.html 
18 Eavis, P., 2013, “A Step Toward ‘Peer to Peer’ Lending Securitization,” The New York 
Times, October 1. Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/a-step-toward-peer- 
to-peer-lending-securitization/ 
19 Smith, G. T., 2013, “U.K. Readies Rules for Peer-to-Peer Lending,” The Wall Street Journal, 
October 24. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230479940 
4579155133285408594 
20 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android 
21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_successful_crowdfunding_projects 
22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_successful_crowdfunding_projects 
23 http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scanadu-scout-the-first-medical-tricorder 
Total finance raised in the period 2011 - 2013 
2011 2012 2013 
Excluding donation-based 
crowdfunding and P2P 
charitable fundraising 
Average growth rate: 
£1.74 
billion 
£955 
million 
309 
million 
492 
million 
+59% 
939 
million 
+91% 
75% 
Transaction volumes and average growth rates 
by models 2011-2013 
Donation-based crowdfunding/ 
Peer-to-peer fundraising 
Peer-to-peer lending 
Peer-to-business lending 
Invoice trading 
Equity-based crowdfunding 
Reward-based crowdfunding 
Debt-based securities 
Revenue/profit sharing 
Crowdfunding 
Microfinance/Community shares 
20% 
166% 
371% 
487% 
203% 
107% 
£287m 
£193m 
£97m 
£28m 
£20.5m 
£2.7m 
£1.5m 
£0.8m 
£260m 
£127m 
£62m 
£36m 
£3.9m 
£4.2m 
£1m 
£0.1m 
£0.3m 
£215m 
£68m 
£21m 
£4m 
£1.7m 
£0.9m 
2013 
2012 
2011 
Figure 3 – The diversity of the U.K. alternative finance market. Source: 
Nesta
39 
The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking 
■■ Donation based and rewards based (at times considered two sepa-rate 
categories), 
■■ Equity based crowd funding, 
■■ Debt based (peer-to-peer and online direct lending) crowd funding. 
In the past, it has been donation and rewards based platforms such as 
Indiegogo and Kickstarter that were covered most by the media. More 
recently, however, as the JOBS Act24 came into effect in April 2012, the 
focus has turned to equity crowdfunding. In addition, new regulations on 
the subject are starting to change the landscape radically and fundamen-tally, 
giving companies a potential new way to access (growth) capital in 
a less onerous and more practical way. 
However, it’s been the debt based vertical (peer-to-peer and online direct 
lending) that has silently been the poster child for this radical new way 
of accessing funds for both individuals and businesses. And in the U.S., 
two companies make up more than 95% of the consumer (peer-to-peer) 
lending market: Lending Club and Prosper Marketplace. 
Lending Club, the major player in the space, was started in 2006 by Re-naud 
Laplanche, based on the idea that there must be a better way of 
giving creditworthy borrowers a better deal on interest rates than bank 
offerings to customers at the time. While Zopa in the U.K. had already 
pioneered the idea of matching creditworthy borrowers directly with indi-vidual 
lenders and investors in 2005, Lending Club (and Prosper Market-place, 
which actually started in the U.S. before Lending Club) understood 
quickly that there was a big opportunity to become a leading player in 
the further disruption and disintermediation of a particular segment of 
consumer finance, matching borrowers and lenders directly through an 
online marketplace. It’s no coincidence that Lending Club at times refers 
to its model as the “Ebay” of finance. To show how a transaction works, 
we refer to the illustrations above25,26 (see Figure 5). 
Investor member 
Investor member Investor member 
Purchase price of notes, 
designated to fund a 
selected member loan 
Monthly payments of 
principal and interest 
on corresponding 
member loan 
Notes, providing for payments equal to monthly 
payments received by Lending Club from borrower, 
net of 1.00% service charge 
Non-recourse 
assignment of 
corresponding member 
loan promissory note 
Corresponding 
member loan 
promissory note 
Funding of selected 
corresponding 
member loan 
Borrower member WebBank 
Loan proceeds 
No inherent leverage No branches Use of automation 
Principal + Interest 
Origination Fee 
(Upfront) 
Servicing Fee 
(Ongoing) 
Borrower Investors 
Funding 
Figure 5 – Lending Club transactions. Source: Lending Club 
What started as a small, simple idea has now evolved to a rapidly grow-ing 
industry, with many potential up and coming companies27 getting fi-nancing. 
Also, while the initial focus has been the consumer credit space, 
more recently the model has been adapted for other asset classes. Mort-gages, 
student loans, small business loans, car loans, and other asset 
classes are all increasingly being offered through online direct lending 
platforms, taking out the middleman (the bank) and giving back that mar-gin 
to both the borrower (in the form of a lower rate) and the lender or 
investor (in the form of a higher yield). The following are examples for 
each category: 
Crowdfunding 
Donation and 
rewards based 
Equity 
based 
Debt 
based 
Figure 4 – Crowd funding 
24 http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/jobs-act.shtml 
25 https://www.lendingclub.com/public/steady-returns.action 
26 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Keynote speech, presented at Lendit 2013, a conference held at 
the Convene Innovation Center in New York City on June 20th. Available at: http://www. 
youtube.com/watch?v=DxGLMSYOlsk 
27 According to some, more than 50 debt based platforms are active on a global scale, with 
more than 177 peer-to-peer and/or online direct lending platforms currently active: http:// 
www.thecrowdcafe.com/crowdfunding-platforms/database/
40 
■■ Consumer loans: 
■■ Lending Club, Prosper, Zopa, RateSetter, Auxmoney, Lendico, 
TrustBuddy, Pret-d’Union, Freedom Financial Network 
■■ Small business loans: 
■■ FundingCircle, IOU Central, On Deck Capital, DealStruck, Kabbage, 
Lending Club, Fundation 
■■ Student Loans: 
■■ SoFi, CommonBond 
■■ Mortgages: 
■■ RealtyMogul, LendInvest 
The operating expense ratio for banks servicing a loan portfolio (includ-ing 
items such as rent, salaries, marketing, and legal), is between 5% 
and 7%, while it is below 2% for companies such as Lending Club, and 
declining as the business continues to scale. Needless to say, this is 
a massive difference that is very difficult for traditional banks to easily 
overcome. Importantly, even with the current expense ratio, the tradi-tional 
banking model continues to be a very profitable business, mainly 
because considerable revenues are generated by various types of fees, 
effectively rewarding transactional “friction.” With Lending Club, on 
the other hand, the interest with the customer and consumer is clearly 
aligned, eliminating much of the friction from the transaction, which leads 
to a much lower cost model. 
To understand the difficulty of the task at hand for banks consider the 
following28: according to a recent McKinsey study in which consultants 
analyzed how Lending Club is driving costs out of the system, they con-cluded 
that the company has a 425 basis point advantage over traditional 
banks, primarily driven by operating leverage. It is the main reason why 
Lending Club can offer better rates to both investors and borrowers. 
A second issue is cultural, in that large financial institutions (actually now 
larger than before the Great Recession) cannot react easily, if at all, to the 
change coming from the ground up, driven by lean and mean and legacy 
free upstarts, who redefine how many of their core services are being 
offered. There is the physical branch network to manage and support, 
although the number of transactions that require branches have contin-ued 
to decrease over the years.29 Related to that is the fact that most of 
the classic players have to work with complex legacy systems that are 
increasingly difficult to manage, support, and change to accommodate 
an increasingly mobile population, looking for instant gratification and a 
“wow” factor, including in their financial transactions. This development 
has also given birth to some great new bank franchises like Moven and 
Simple, redefining what a bank is and does in today’s market. 
Brett King, a visionary thought leader on banking disruption and CEO/ 
Founder of Moven, a mobile only digital bank, will tell you that “banking 
is not where you are going, but it’s something you do.” I have had the 
pleasure of speaking with Brett about his vision for the future of banking, 
and have been both shocked and impressed. Shocked, as he puts into 
very clear focus the major issues traditional banks have to solve. And 
impressed as it relates to his vision of the future of banking, which I now 
share. One does not need much imagination to appreciate the potential 
impact of the changes ahead. 
A final point on the issue of culture is the people factor. Both the users 
of the capital (the borrowers) and the providers (the lenders), are increas-ingly 
going “direct” in everything they do. As a result, both are having a 
very difficult time understanding the value proposition of classic inter-mediaries. 
Current leadership and employees at the classic players are 
being bogged down by legacy issues, technological and psychological, 
and are not able to absorb what’s happening in the real world, with a 
younger generation that seeks instant gratification at all times, and will 
not hesitate to switch providers. 
Lending Club’s Renaud Laplanche, in a recent interview,30 when talking 
about the banking culture and why it’s going to be difficult for these big 
banks to make the necessary changes, lists three factors: 
1. Physical infrastructure (branches): with this big cost factor, it is dif-ficult 
to see how they are going to get leaner quickly, 
2. Systems: expensive legacy systems versus lean, state-of-the art, 
purpose built platforms, 
3. Culture: the kind of people that work for a bank are very different in 
mindset compared to people that work for the new platforms, ready 
to change the world. 
How big is the opportunity and what drives its 
growth? 
Most, if not all, of the bigger platforms have been backed by large and 
well known VCs: 
■■ Lending Club: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google, Foundation 
Capital, Canaan Partners, Norwest Venture, Morgenthaler Ventures 
■■ Prosper Marketplace: BlackRock, Sequoia Partners 
■■ Orchard: Spark Capital, Canaan Partners, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, 
Conversion Capital, Vikram Pandit 
28 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Keynote speech, presented at Lendit 2013, a conference held at 
the Convene Innovation Center in New York City on June 20th. Available at: http://www. 
youtube.com/watch?v=DxGLMSYOlsk 
29 “With a 4% average annual decline in branch traffic over the past 16 years, banking is the 
next natural domino to fall … the competition among online banks, particularly from names 
like Ally Bank and ING and Everbank, is likely to cut into margins (…) Chris Skinner – Digital 
Bank, 2013 – p. 41. 
30 Cunningham, S., 2013, “Exclusive: Renaud Laplanche on How JP Morgan Chase is Like 
Blockbuster Video,” Lending Memo, November 20. Available at: http://www.lendingmemo. 
com/lending-club-renaud-laplanche-interview/
41 
The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking 
■■ CommonBond: Vikram Pandit, Tom Glocer, Tribeca Venture Partners 
■■ Freedom Financial Network: Vulcan Capital 
The reason is clear: VCs are looking for ideas that are transformational 
and scalable, and we find these attributes in the new lending platforms. 
Consider the following consumer credit statistics: 
■■ U.S. consumer credit is a $3 trillion market (not including mortgages), 
■■ Credit card debt outstanding at $850 billion (most peer-to-peer loans 
are used to refinance or consolidate credit card debt), 
■■ Peer-to-peer lending (consumer loans only): $4 billion (Lending Club 
and Prosper). 
P2P and online direct lending represents only a very small fraction of a 
very large base. In the first phase, these platforms are focusing exclusively 
on prime and super prime consumers (only a fraction of the total), so one 
could argue that there will be an impressive growth opportunity for years 
to come. The opportunity therefore continues to be nothing short of siz-able, 
with 100% plus growth per annum anticipated, in a very large market 
which continues to grow as well. Another major reason for these numbers 
is the fact that consumer lending in the U.S. is an oligopoly in which four 
banks represent 80% of all unsecured consumer debt, so with very little 
incentive to change an existing and very profitable business model. 
On the small business side, the numbers are equally compelling and 
large31, as discussed by Renaud Laplanche32 in his most recent testi-mony. 
In a survey released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 
August 2013, a grim picture regarding the situation for small business 
lending was illustrated as follows. Out of every 100 small businesses, 70 
desired financing. Of those 70, 29 were too discouraged to apply. Of the 
41 that applied for credit, only 5 received the amount they wanted. 93% 
of these businesses were looking for $1 million or less in capital. 
He continues by pointing out that the situation has deteriorated further, 
with the overall volume of loans of more than $1 million having risen 
slightly since 2008, loans less than $1 million having fallen by 19%, and 
the number of small businesses with a business loan falling by 33% from 
2008 to 2011. The problem is also worst for the smallest businesses, with 
the smallest of them all (businesses with two to four employees) down 
33% from 2008 to 2011. 
However, alternative financing options are increasingly available. From the 
same survey we find that “online lenders and merchant cash advance pro-viders 
are the fastest growing segment of the SMB loan market – recording 
a 64% growth in originations in the last four years.” As many of these com-panies 
charge fees and rates resulting in APRs north of 40%, it is clearly an 
unsustainable and unhealthy situation for companies in both the short and 
long term. Once again, peer-to-peer and online direct lending are coming 
to the rescue. As an asset class, charge-off rates on (secured) small busi-ness 
loans have been below 1% since March 2012 (compared to a peak 
above 10% for consumer credit cards during the financial crisis)33. 
Therefore, the quality of the asset class cannot possibly be the reason why 
classic banks are not lending the way they should. The reason is more 
structural. Incumbents have a legacy cost structure that needs large ticket 
items to be properly amortized which cannot possibly be achieved by ac-tively 
engaging in small business loan sourcing, underwriting and servic-ing. 
Banks still go out of their way to write large loans to large businesses, 
but have lost interest in doing anything else because it’s no longer profit-able. 
And don’t managers have regulators and shareholders to please? 
Again, peer-to-peer and online direct lending come to the rescue. 
So what we’re witnessing is exactly the same as what we’ve seen in 
so many other markets that have already been disintermediated by the 
internet: travel agencies (now Expedia, Travelocity), book stores (from 
Borders to Amazon), record/music stores (Spotify, iTunes), video rental 
market (from Blockbuster to NetFlix), hotels (Airbnb). 
In a keynote speech earlier in the year, the following slide was used to il-lustrate 
exactly how other technologies have been transformational, at first 
being rejected and ignored flat out by incumbents, only to be widely ad-opted 
at maturity. We return to this concept later in the text34 (see Figure 6). 
Where are the banks? 
Many businesses and consumers have lost trust in the banks, but they 
are now bigger than ever, and focused on larger transactions with large 
companies. There are many reasons for this trend: increased regulation 
(Dodd-Frank, Basel 3, Card Act, etc.), risk aversion, and large bank con-solidation 
that began in the early 80s, to name a few. 
“Banks have been exiting the small business loan market for over a de-cade. 
This realignment has led to a steady decline in the share of small 
business loans in banks’ portfolios (the fraction of nonfarm, nonresidential 
31 Regulatory issues make it such that most of that market is actually non-bank lending, at 
least on the unsecured side, driven by alternative lenders such as Capital Access Network, 
Kabbage, On Deck, together with numerous merchant cash advance and factoring 
companies 
32 United States House of Representatives, 2013, “Testimony of Renaud Laplanche, Founder 
& CEO Lending Club before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital 
Access of the Committee on Small Business, United States House of Representatives, 
December 5. Available at: http://smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/12-5-2013_renaud_ 
laplanche_testimony.pdf 
33 United States House of Representatives, 2013, “Testimony of Renaud Laplanche, Founder 
& CEO Lending Club before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital 
Access of the Committee on Small Business, United States House of Representatives, 
December 5. Available at: http://smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/12-5-2013_renaud_ 
laplanche_testimony.pdf 
34 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Transforming the Banking System. Available at: http://www. 
lendingmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/1.pdf
42 
$B Annual, 1997-2012 
70 
60 
50 
40 
30 
20 
10 
Amazon Revenue 
Incumbents and new entrants 
innovate in response 
Amazon 
Local 
Amazon 
MP3 
Kindle 
Nook 
launch 
Kindle 
Fire 
Borders 
bankrupt 
Walma 
Prime 
Walmart.com formed 
ShopSavvy & other price 
comparison apps launch 
Target & Best 
Buy match 
AMZN prices 
during 
holidays 
WalmartLabs 
launch 
loans of less than $1 million – a common proxy for small business lend-ing) 
since 1998, dropping from 51% to 29%. The 15-year-long consoli-dation 
of the banking industry has reduced the number of small banks, 
which are more likely to lend to small businesses. Moreover, increased 
competition in the banking sector has led bankers to move toward big-ger, 
more profitable, loans. That has meant a decline in small business 
loans, which are less profitable (because they are banker-time intensive, 
more difficult to automate, have higher costs to underwrite and service, 
and are more difficult to securitize).”35 
We have shown that traditional lenders are increasingly less present and 
supportive of unsecured consumer credit and secured small business 
lending, two key drivers of the economy. This helps to, at least partially, 
explain why the growth rate of this economy has been below the histori-cal 
trend since the latest recession began in 2008, with substantial long 
term consequences in terms of lost productivity and diminished wealth 
and opportunity. 
We have also shown the effects of alternative players entering the mar-ket, 
rapidly taking the place of established players, and once consum-ers 
and small businesses are introduced to this new financing, they are 
unlikely to go back to traditional financing. And while it’s still very early in 
the process and we’re starting from a very low base, there is still time for 
traditional lenders to adjust, and actively engage in developing the busi-ness, 
in close collaboration with the new market entrants. 
Let’s first analyze more in detail what has ailed the banks and other tradi-tional 
lenders over the last few years. 
Brett King, referred to earlier, is a recognized thought leader on the sub-ject 
of retail banking disruption and evolution. In his most recent book, 
he states the following: “By this new measure, a customer’s assessment 
of a service provider in the retail banking or financial services space will 
not be capital adequacy, branch network, products or rates. It will be how 
simply and easily customers can access banking when they need it, and 
how much they trust the partner or service provider to execute.”36 With 
traditional NPS scores in the tank, it appears banks and other traditional 
financial services providers have a long road ahead just to gain back that 
critical element that is lacking: trust. Those providers continue to value 
large businesses over small businesses and consumers. 
Chris Skinner is another highly regarded visionary with regards to the 
future of companies who serve the financial markets (he is Chairman of 
The Financial Services Club, U.K.). In his most recent book, he goes even 
further stating: “This is the new augmented reality of customer intimacy 
through Big Data analysis, and bank retailing will be based upon the 
competitive differentiation of analyzing mass data to deliver mass per-sonalization.” 
37 In other words, with banks being just bits and bytes38, the 
future lies in the hands of those who understand this radically changed 
landscape. The incumbents must adapt if they want to stay relevant. 
It is worth revisiting a transaction earlier this year involving both Lending 
Club and Google. In May 2013, it was announced that Google was the 
lead investor in a $125m secondary funding round, taking around a 7% 
stake in Lending Club. Importantly the investment was made by Google 
directly, and not through its VC arm, Google Ventures. Google Ventures 
provides seed, venture, and growth-stage funding to companies that 
are not strategic investments for Google. Therefore, their investment in 
Lending Club is strategic in nature. And when one of the most admired 
and powerful companies gets involved with a category killer like Lending 
Club, one can imagine many exciting possibilities. At the time of the deal, 
and even in recent conversations, the CEO of Lending Club indicated 
they were talking about all kinds of “cool stuff” that could be developed 
in a joint effort, without any further detail. He did point out, however, that 
they were intrigued by the kind of disruption Lending Club is causing in 
the banking industry, not dissimilar to what Google has done to disrupt 
advertising by making it more efficient, more transparent and more con-sumer 
friendly.39 
35 Wiersch, A. M. and S. Shane, 2013, “Why Small Business Lending Isn’t What It Used to 
Be,” August 14, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Available at: http://www.clevelandfed. 
org/research/commentary/2013/2013-10.cfm 
36 King, B., 2012, Bank 3.0: Why banking is no longer somewhere you go, but something you 
do, New York: John Wiley & Sons 
37 Skinner, C., 2013, The Digital Bank, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish 
38 “Banking is just bits and bytes.” A quote from then Citibank CEO John Reed, as reported 
by Chris Skinner in Digital Bank (see note 32) 
39 Renton, P., 2013, “New Investment From Google Values Lending Club at $1.55 Billion,” 
Lend Academy, May 1. Available at: http://www.lendacademy.com/new-investment-from-google- 
values-lending-club-at-1-55-billion/ 
Disruptors change their industries for the better 
0 
1997 
1998 
1999 
2000 
2001 
2002 
2003 
2004 
2005 
2006 
2007 
2008 
2009 
2010 
2011 
2012 
Figure 6 – Disruptors change their industries for the better. Source: 
Lending Club
43 
The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking 
The end of “friction” 
One of the biggest upsides of deep disintermediation is the opportunity 
to substantially eliminate most or all of the “friction” that is part of every 
transaction. Eliminate friction as much as you can, and you will come 
close to what can be called the holy grail of marketing and transactions: 
real one-on-one interaction with your qualified customer, anywhere, any 
place, at any time, through any platform. It’s where we are today with a 
good number of services, and it’s where we’ll be in the future with finan-cial 
services. Therefore, all market participants should adapt as soon as 
possible40. 
Imagine the following scenario: 
You are in the market for a new car, but haven’t explicitly expressed this 
desire to the outside world yet. Actually, you may have done so uninten-tionally. 
As you have first researched the market online, the system (most 
likely Google) already knows you are in the market for a car. Next, you are 
planning to go to a local dealer, the address of which has already been 
suggested by Google as it knows where you live and where you travel 
(location based services). When you enter the dealer, you’ll be prompted 
on your smartphone, through a dedicated app, with the latest information 
regarding the car you are considering. This puts the consumer on equal 
footing with the sales person. We have moved on from caveat emptor 
to caveat venditor41, with important implications for the whole sales pro-cess. 
You will know how to ask the right questions and how to negotiate 
because you’ll be coached and armed with relevant data, including the 
dealer’s profit margin. Then, when it’s time to talk about price, your smart-phone 
will ping you and tell you that you are pre-approved, no questions 
asked, for a $15,000 car loan right there, just by pressing the green dot in 
the middle of your screen. 
The whole process is fluid, frictionless, and eerily efficient. In fact, you 
don’t even realize that in the background, it’s effectively a Lending Club 
or Prosper loan that’s being offered to you at the most competitive rate. 
When accepted, the loan is immediately funded by hundreds of peer-lenders 
who are dying to get a piece of your high yielding, secured car 
loan. It all happens in minutes, perhaps even seconds, without friction, at 
the lowest possible cost. No paper, no phone, no desktop nor laptop – 
just a smart phone. That is the kind of experience, or a variation of it, that 
we’ll be having in the very near future, courtesy of a Lending Club/Google 
or other inspired combination. Some will argue this is “creepy.” I would 
argue that, when well executed, it’s the best of all outcomes. The right 
offer at the right time and location, at the best possible terms, designed 
around you and only you, and the Holy Grail for direct marketers who 
now see one to one marketing redefined. 
Another most recent and radical example is the announcement that 
Lending Club is talking to large banks and corporations about opening 
up its platform to offer loans to employees of large companies as part of 
a human resource benefit and a potential recruiting tool42. Indeed, what 
would be better than to have companies offer this novel service as a 
perk to employees who qualify, thereby increasing employee loyalty? 
Employees could use the loans to refinance credit card debt and student 
loans, or otherwise finance discretionary expenses, with payments be-ing 
automatically deducted from paychecks. The companies could finally 
put their large cash balances to work in a more productive way by fund-ing 
these loans, and could price them even more competitively by fund-ing 
the origination fee as well, for example. Lending Club (and others) 
would handle the processing, underwrite, and service the loans, add a 
new business opportunity to their growth story, and continue to redefine 
consumer finance. 
The bottom line is that traditional banks and finance companies are being 
disintermediated quickly, by smaller, more nimble competitors. So how 
should a traditional bank respond? 
What can and must be done by the establishment 
players, if at all possible? 
While it will be difficult for traditional banks to change their practices due 
to general inertia, size constraints, regulation, culture, legacy systems, 
etc., there are ways to participate in this big shift in the landscape. In 
June of this year, two community banks announced that they would team 
up with Lending Club to source new consumer loans, in a clear sign of 
“old meeting new.” Titan Bank from Texas and Congressional Bank in 
Washington began buying loans originated by Lending Club. Titan Bank 
also announced that it would start offering personal loans to its custom-ers 
through the platform. In his most recent recorded testimony, Renaud 
Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, indicated there are now seven such 
entities active on the platform which indicates that five more have joined 
since then. This is only the beginning. Lending Club (and other similar 
players) are bringing a low cost operating model to consumer lending, 
and for reasons mentioned earlier, classic banks do not have the ability 
to successfully compete with this development. What they can and do 
bring to the table is a combination of low cost of funds (that ultimately will 
need an adequate rate of return43) and a captive local customer base (in 
the case of regional/community banks). 
40 For more compelling arguments on why these trends are unstoppable: http://www.youtube. 
com/watch?v=R43OKYmGbhU 
41 Pink, D. H., 2012, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, New York: 
Riverhead Books (p.50: “In a world of information parity, the new guiding principle is caveat 
venditor – seller beware.”). 
42 Del Ray, J., 2013, “A New Perk for Google Employees? It Could Be Low-Interest Personal 
Loans,” All Things D, December 22. Available at: http://allthingsd.com/20131222/a-new-perk- 
for-google-employees-it-could-be-low-interest-personal-loans/ 
43 Gileadi I., and P. Leukert, 2013, The Industrialization Realization, Capco: P4-5
44 
Another way for banks to participate is to utilize these platforms, which 
will in turn drive the growth of loan origination. Platforms like Lending 
Club and Prosper (and others pretty soon to follow) are technology com-panies 
first, interested in scaling the business as quickly and efficiently 
as possible, as they make money on the volumes (through origination 
fees and servicing fees). Highly effective matching machines, they do not 
take balance sheet risk, as the loans are transferred immediately to the 
lender upon funding in a seamless transaction. Instead of these platforms 
taking the entire burden of loan funding upon themselves (customer ac-quisition), 
they are increasingly turning to outside managers to help them 
speed up the process. At this point, we should welcome the institutional 
money or asset managers looking to deploy larger amounts of money, in 
addition to the retail investor base today. 
Let’s compare it with the Apple Store with its app ecosystem. Early on, 
Apple understood the power of a large ecosystem (of apps and develop-ers) 
to exponentially grow the business. It focused on helping “outside 
managers” – in this case, app developers, to develop compelling con-tent 
utilizing the Apple platform. Because they were planning to take a 
30% cut of every transaction, they projected this approach would lead to 
very large profits. This approach has made Apple one of the most highly 
valued companies in the world. And Apple continues to push for more 
developers to develop original, cutting edge, content and apps, as this is 
at the core of its profit model. 
I believe it will be somewhat similar with online direct lending platforms. 
Early on, some of the players understood that in order to scale the busi-ness, 
they would require institutional capital. This is where outside man-agers 
come into play, helping to bring large and reliable money flows 
to these platforms on a consistent basis. Some of these managers are 
directly or indirectly backed by traditional bank assets, and are accessing 
this asset class through another channel. The platforms themselves are 
not concerned with who buys the loans – they simply desire more and 
larger buyers on a consistent basis so as to predictably scale the busi-ness. 
They care about the volumes (and the quality of the assets) first, 
and less about the ultimate buyer. Bigger is better, as the business is very 
scalable, and becomes more profitable as it grows, and can accommo-date 
larger amounts of investment money. Over the last year, the balance 
has dramatically shifted from too many borrowers and not enough lend-ers/ 
investors to the clear opposite. 
Money managers dedicated to online direct lending will see growing 
commitments from institutional investors looking for efficient access, in 
size, to this newly investable asset class, which will drive continued dra-matic 
industry growth for the foreseeable future. 
With banks being just bits and bytes, a lot of what used to be the core 
functions of any banking institution can now be outsourced to third party 
platforms that are each much better at that particular activity, and can 
deliver services more quickly and at a much lower cost44. Banks and 
other classic intermediaries are left with cheap funding, a desperate 
need for return in a quasi-zero real return environment, and in case of 
the regionals, proximity to its core client base. And as we have seen 
earlier, there is a clear opportunity for these players to actively engage 
in the online direct lending space, not by trying to copy the business 
model internally but by proactively seeking out the members of the eco-system 
and starting a conversation about ways they can bring value to 
the table. They can also go directly to the platforms, like some regional 
banks have done. Maybe we’ll see an opportunity for revival of smaller, 
regional banks to come out strong and use the opportunity to take back 
market share. 
One could also consider setting up a new proprietary platform, as the 
market is big enough to accommodate more than the current two large 
players. However, there are some serious barriers to entry: 
■■ High financial and opportunity costs, as it takes time, money, and 
effort to get a competitive platform up and running, and create/vali-date 
a model, 
■■ Regulatory burden – state and federal, 
■■ Cannibalizing their own core business, 
■■ Cultural mismatch (there needs to be a buy-in from senior manage-ment, 
which takes time), 
■■ Lack of “coolness” factor (see NPS scores – many people will never 
again trust banks the way they did before). 
So what can go wrong? 
As the market grows, a number of commentators are sharply criticizing 
these new companies. It is worthwhile to review some of the arguments 
against these new platforms. 
The first argument is that peer-to-peer and online direct lending are gim-micks 
and just another form of “shadow banking.” In positive sense, this 
is not a new business per se, but more a new iteration of an existing 
core activity of a bank, i.e., lending to creditworthy individuals and busi-nesses. 
By taking “friction” out of the transaction, its cost is dramati-cally 
reduced, thereby achieving two goals: lowering costs for borrow-ers 
through lower rates and attracting funding capital from lenders and 
investors through higher rates. Lowering transaction costs while keeping 
the core proposition unchanged is good for all parties involved. 
44 See also Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, talking about three 
trends for the next 10 years: transition from bureaucratic hierarchies to technology driven 
networks; unbundling; and nodes on a network all the time, with money one of the big 
sectors impacted by it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R43OKYmGbhU)
45 
The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking 
Another argument revolves around the concept of “skin in the game.” 
Indeed, at this time, most of the platforms act like match makers and 
don’t keep any of the risk on their books. Critics argue that platforms are 
not concerned about the performance of the loans (though longer term 
reputation is a key element here, which can be seen as a counter argu-ment). 
While a number of players will develop models whereby the loan 
portfolio may (partially) be kept on the books, it’s important to appreciate 
the fact that trust and reputation is more important than ever in this busi-ness. 
It’s comforting to see that these platforms have been extremely 
transparent in terms of the kind of information that they disclose both on 
the corporate level and on the loan detail level. Also, with high visibility 
and scrutiny, these players have been making sure that the performance 
track record (in terms of the performance of their loans) is solid, over a 
multi-year period. 
Thus far, loan performance is strong, supporting the idea that manage-ment 
is ensuring that they continue to be the best at what they do: sourc-ing, 
underwriting, matching, and servicing loans45. Indeed, we see some 
of the best players in the industry in charge of the credit and risk depart-ments 
at these platforms. However, as some of the platforms go public, 
and gain a different set of shareholders, there is always a risk that pru-dent 
underwriting may decrease in order to achieve new growth targets. 
It will be necessary to follow developments in this respect carefully and 
be vigilant about weeding out underperformers. 
From a macro perspective, we must mention the credit cycle. When the 
next recession hits, it will be interesting to see how well the new platform 
credit behaves, primarily influenced by the level of unemployment (in the 
case of consumer credit). It would be good to see a mature and liquid 
secondary market having developed by then, in order to partially hedge 
that risk. There is always regulatory risk as well, though so far, it has been 
well managed. Indeed, the main players in the space have been making 
great efforts over many years to work with the regulators and agree on 
the shape and form of the core business practices. Conceptually, the 
regulators should continue to be supportive of the development of the 
sector, as it is beneficial to both consumers and small businesses (with 
increased access to credit at affordable rates), and lenders or investors, 
in the form of a higher yielding fixed income investments. 
In a recent op-ed46, Sheila Bair, former Chairman of the FDIC, weighs in 
as well, supporting increased regulation at the state level, specifically 
related to the issue of potential fraud and other dangers related to the 
industry. This is a clear sign that the business is maturing. 
Conclusions 
Peer-to-peer and online direct lending have been scaling rapidly in the 
last few years. They are poised to accelerate further this year, on the back 
of a highly anticipated Lending Club IPO (and maybe others overseas), 
further institutional investment interest, and a much higher awareness 
of the opportunity for all other market participants. Brand recognition 
through public awareness will draw more people in, and the concept 
will steadily become more mainstream. Many more interesting business 
models will be developed and funded in an effort to capture the momen-tum, 
with some of them failing to get traction. However, a substantial 
number of them will likely become very successful. An increasing number 
of banks (mostly small and regional banks at the start) will look to partner, 
at times in creative ways, with the leading platforms in the space, which 
will lead to some surprisingly creative business models. (For instance, 
imagine the impact of a Lending Club, a Google, and a Moven combined 
on your smartphone). Expect a slew of ancillary products and services 
to be developed, helpful to those who are looking to get involved and 
need tools. There will be more activity in different asset classes, secu-ritizations, 
secondary trading, indexes, ETFs, new fund variations, mu-tual 
funds, industry publications, blogs, and websites. There will be more 
cross border initiatives and hybrid structures seeing the light of day, and 
the public will slowly but surely realize that something is afoot. Smart 
money has already found a way, but as the sector and the opportunity 
grows, more investors will get involved. 
Banks and other classic financial institutions, still frozen after five years 
of recovery, may start to look at the opportunity set and research ways 
to participate. For reasons explained throughout, they will likely find it 
difficult to come up with in-house solutions and conclude that there are 
better alternative ways to get into the action. Low funding costs coupled 
with customer connectivity at the local level is a powerful combination, 
so teaming up in some shape or form (white labeled or not) with some 
of the platforms seems likely. In the near future, today’s children will not 
be on the lookout for a bank branch just as today’s teens are no longer 
familiar with the alien concept of “landlines”. 
45 Ceresnie, A., 2014, “Loan Quality for 2013: Prosper,” Orchard, January 6. Available at: 
http://www.orchardplatform.com/loan-quality-for-2013-prosper/ 
46 Bair, S., 2013, “P2P lending: What’s to worry?”, CNN Money, December 22. Available at: 
http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/20/pf/p2p-lending.moneymag/
46
Journal 
The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation 
Recipient of the Apex Awards for Publication Excellence 2002-2013 
Editor 
Prof. Damiano Brigo, Editor of the Capco Journal of Financial Transformation and 
Head of the Mathematical Finance Research Group, Imperial College London 
Head of the Advisory Board 
Dr. Peter Leukert, Head of the Capco Institute, Head of the Editorial Board of the 
Capco Journal of Financial Transformation, and Head of Strategy, FIS 
Advisory Editor 
Nick Jackson, Partner, Capco 
Editorial Board 
Franklin Allen, Nippon Life Professor of Finance, The Wharton School, 
University of Pennsylvania 
Joe Anastasio, Partner, Capco 
Philippe d’Arvisenet, Group Chief Economist, BNP Paribas 
Rudi Bogni, 
Bruno Bonati, Strategic Consultant, Bruno Bonati Consulting 
David Clark, 
advisor to the FSA 
Géry Daeninck, former CEO, Robeco 
Stephen C. Daffron, former Global Head of Operations, Morgan Stanley 
Douglas W. Diamond, Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, 
Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago 
Elroy Dimson, Professor Emeritus, London Business School 
Nicholas Economides, Professor of Economics, Leonard N. Stern School of 
Business, New York University 
Michael Enthoven, 
José Luis Escrivá, Group Chief Economist, Grupo BBVA 
George Feiger, Executive Vice President and Head of Wealth Management, 
Zions Bancorporation 
Gregorio de Felice, Group Chief Economist, Banca Intesa 
Hans Geiger, Professor of Banking, Swiss Banking Institute, University of Zurich 
Peter Gomber, Full Professor, Chair of e-Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt 
Wilfried Hauck, 
International GmbH 
Pierre Hillion, de Picciotto Chaired Professor of Alternative Investments and 
Shell Professor of Finance, INSEAD 
Thomas Kloet, 
Mitchel Lenson, former Group Head of IT and Operations, Deutsche Bank Group 
Donald A. Marchand, Professor of Strategy and Information Management, 
IMD and Chairman and President of enterpriseIQ® 
Colin Mayer, Peter Moores Dean, Saïd Business School, Oxford University 
Steve Perry, Executive Vice President, Visa Europe 
Derek Sach, Head of Global Restructuring, The Royal Bank of Scotland 
ManMohan S. Sodhi, Professor in Operations & Supply Chain Management, 
Cass Business School, City University London 
John Taysom, Founder & Joint CEO, The Reuters Greenhouse Fund 
Graham Vickery, Head of Information Economy Unit, OECD
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The rapid ascent of peer to peer and online direct lending models: the impact on banking.

  • 1. Journal The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation Recipient of the Apex Awards for Publication Excellence 2002-2013 The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking Cass-Capco Institute Paper Series on Risk #39 04.2014 Journal Article Journal 39 Yvan De Munck
  • 2. 35 HIGH-LEVEL DEBATE The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking Yvan De Munck – Managing Director iFinTech at R.W. Pressprich and Co Abstract The Great Recession, increased regulation, regulatory back-lash, and the decrease in consumer confidence in the banks have led to major disruptive developments in the way people and small businesses access credit, an important element to the growth of the U.S. economy. Given that more than 70% of U.S. GDP is related to consumption, access to credit is required for continued growth. As a result of the aforemen-tioned events over the past five years, peer-to-peer and online direct lending have rapidly emerged as a solid alter-native to mainstream banking and lending. It is poised for very strong growth and is likely to change the landscape fundamentally in a relatively short time. The banking sector continues to be one of the few remaining sectors where fun-damental disruption can still occur as banks find themselves in a unique environment where government related institu-tions implement new changes, leaving banks paralyzed and unsure how to move forward. As these recent competitive forces are unlikely to reverse (barring any legislative action) the banks and other intermediaries really only have three op-tions: join them, innovate, or die. Given that the latter is not an option (though the banking sector has gone through a phase of massive consolidation since the early eighties with less than half the number of banks left), banks and credit card companies are having difficulty determining how they will be able to beat the continuing onslaught. Joining the party and splitting the spoils to the benefit of all involved is the pre-ferred, if not the only, realistic option for most. The concept of “collaborative consumption”1 is increasingly pervasive in our culture and peer-to-peer and online direct lending, it can be argued, is an expression of this new movement in which trust is the “new currency.” To win that “currency” back, tradi-tional financial services companies will have to think outside the box, to regain their place at the top. The issue is timely, urgent, and not going away any time soon. The views expressed herewith are Yvan De Munck’s personal views, and in no way reflect those of R.W. Pressprich & Co. The author would like to thank John Donovan, Peter Renton, and Charles Oliver for their contribution. 1 Rachel Botsman is a global thought leader on the power of collaboration and sharing through digital technologies that transform the way we live, work, and consume. She has inspired a new consumer economy with her influential book “What’s Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption Is Changing The Way We Live.” TIME Magazine named Collaborative Consumption one of the “10 Ideas That Will Change The World.”
  • 3. 36 Introduction “First, small businesses have insufficient access to credit, and that sit-uation is worsening. Second, their credit performance as a group sug-gests that they should be getting more credit”2 (Renaud Laplanche) “Bank 3.0 – Why Banking is no longer somewhere you go, but some-thing you do”3 (Brett King) As markets are hitting new highs, the Federal Reserve is reluctant to ag-gressively taper its stimulus package and the economic outlook is murky at best. The Fed must continue to accommodate multiple constituencies, even under new leadership. While the Fed continues to see its actions as “data-dependent,” risks are ever increasing: inflating financial assets, nervous market participants who could respond aggressively upon any hint of further tapering, low long rates that could be at a turning point, and subpar economic growth rates and unemployment levels close to five years after the official end of the recession. All the while, both the banking sector and the U.S. Congress are vying for last place in terms of popularity4,5 (see Figure 1). At the same time, we continue to see that both consumers and small businesses have increasing difficulty accessing credit, which seems to be one of the reasons this economy is nowhere near its ideal growth rate. This is especially odd given that the main banks in the U.S. are once again bigger and more flush than ever. So what is happening and why? “The funds U.S. banks had available for lending to businesses and households increased last month (October 2013) by $95.8 billion to an all-time record high of $2.3 trillion. What are the banks doing with that enormous liquidity? The answer is: nothing. Banks simply put that money back where it came from: at the Federal Reserve (Fed). They chose the Fed deposits paying 0.25 percent, instead of earning 4.5 percent on new car loans, or 10 percent on two-year personal loans.”6 Weak bank lending continues to be one of the main culprits for the cur-rent situation, with loan growth rates far below where they should be at this point in the cycle. At the same time however, non-bank lending is growing at close to 10% per year, driven by alternative finance compa-nies, credit unions, and, increasingly, peer-to-peer (P2P) and other online direct lenders. This is where it gets interesting. This is where we need to pay attention. “What we have here is a case where the transmission channel between the monetary policy and the real economy is clogged up. Instead of fi-nancing aggregate demand, the liquidity created by the Fed is being de-posited by the banks back at the Fed at an interest rate of 0.25%. With every loan banks write, they are taking an investment decision whose expected income stream should be profitable. The fact that banks now apparently consider that their risk-adjusted return on consumer loans are lower than the 0.25% deposit rate at the Fed is a serious indictment of the monetary and fiscal policies they have to contend with.”7 So if banks are not going to change tack any time soon, how can we find another way to increase loan volume? Welcome to the new world of peer-to- peer and online direct lending. Since 2007, U.S. companies such as Lending Club and Prosper Mar-ketplace have been slowly but steadily building solid alternatives for creditworthy consumers (and small businesses) to deal with the issues mentioned, and are now coming to the forefront, with rapid growth and massive opportunity all but guaranteed, as we are still at ground zero. Considering the following8,9 (see Figure 2). Lending Club generates over $250m of unsecured consumer loans every month, and is more than doubling its loan volume each year. With $2.2 billion in outstanding debt, Lending Club already can be considered a Top 20 credit issuer (ranked by outstanding debt)10, likely to break into the Top 10 next year if current growth rates continue.11 2 Renaud Laplanche, Founder and CEO Lending Club, in testimony before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital Access of the Committee on Small Business United States House of Representatives – December 5th, 2013: http://smallbusiness.house.gov/ uploadedfiles/12-5-2013_renaud_laplanche_testimony.pdf 3 Brett King, CEO/Founder of Moven and global bestselling author, speaker and futurist on the subject of retail banking innovation: http://www.banking4tomorrow.com/author 4 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Transforming the Banking System. Available at: http://www. lendingmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/1.pdf 5 http://www.netpromotersystem.com/about/measuring-your-net-promoter-score.aspx 6 Ivanovitch, M., 2013, “The problem with Fed QE—banks just aren’t lending,” CNBC, November 11. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101186133 7 Ivanovitch, M., 2013, “The problem with Fed QE—banks just aren’t lending,” CNBC, November 11. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101186133 8 Renton, P., LendAcademy.com, March 2014, “Industry Monthly Loan Totals – Combined” 9 Renton, P., LendAcademy.com, March 2014, “Industry Monthly Loan Totals – Combined” 10 https://www.lendingclub.com/info/demand-and-credit-profile.action 11 The Nilson Report, August 2011, Issue 978, p. 11 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Average NPS Scores 2012 Other industries retail online services technology travel/hospitality insurance telco Figure 1 – Average NPS scores 2012. Source: Bain & Company
  • 4. 37 The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking U.S. Prosper, the number two player in the market, and under new manage-ment, is growing even more rapidly, but from a much lower base. Other peer-to-peer and online direct lending platforms are emerging, anticipating continued growth in the market and benefitting from a favorable financing environment. This new generation of finance companies is being comple-mented by dedicated service providers that are helping to scale the in-dustry: consultancy firms (Orchard, NoteX360, LendingRobot), law firms (a considerable number of with dedicated in-house expertise), secondary market platforms (FolioFN), lobbying and industry groups (Crowdnetic/ NowStreetWire, CFIRA, Crowdfund Capital Advisors), blogs (LendAcad-emy; LendingMemo), and asset managers (Eaglewood, Emerald, Lending Club Advisors, Direct Lending Investments, Colchis Capital, etc.), both private and soon to be publicly listed vehicles in the U.S. and in Europe. Outside the U.S. we see similar developments, but on a smaller scale. The U.K. is the most developed marketplace, with Zopa, the first peer-to- peer lending company, having developed the concept in 2005, closely followed by companies like RateSetter and FundingCircle (small business loans). All of these companies are performing well and growing rapidly. Even more telling, FundingCircle has been on the international acquisi-tion path, announcing its U.S. entry via a merger with Endurance Lending Network in October 2013. NESTA, a U.K. “innovation charity” has published a comprehensive over-view of the current situation in the U.K.12, including details regarding market size, market growth, SME finance, and future projections. The conclusions are most interesting: The U.K. alternative finance market: ■■ Grew by 91% from GBP 492 million in 2012 to GBP 939 million in 2013, with an average growth rate of 75.1% over the last three years. ■■ Contributed GBP 1.74 billion in personal, business and charitable financing to the U.K. economy. Peer-to-peer lending generated GBP 287 million, peer-to-business takes GBP 193 million, and the balance was generated by invoice financing/ trading platforms, equity crowd funding, and rewards/donation based crowd funding. Collectively, with high growth rates year on year, the U.K. alternative fi-nance market provided GBP 463 million of early stage growth and work-ing capital to over 5,000 start-ups and SMEs between 2011 and 2013. It is predicted this will grow to GBP 1.6 billion in 2014 and provide GBP 840 million of business finance for start-ups and SMEs (see Figure 3). We also have emerging players in Germany, Sweden, France, Austra-lia, Mexico, China, and many other places, following in the footsteps of Lending Club, a clear leader in the industry. In the meantime, institutional money is steadily finding its way into this newly investable asset class, with good reason. Given the increased fi-nancial repression caused by extended ZIRP13 and other policies, many yield hungry investors are discovering that there is a place where yield can be generated: peer-to-peer and online direct lending. A brief over-view of the most recent news flow will illustrate the point: ■■ “Prosper Raises $25 Million in New Round, Adding BlackRock as a Backer”14 (9/24/2013) 12 Collins, L., R. Swart, and B. Zhang, 2013, The Rise of Future Finance: The UK Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report, Nesta. Available at: http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/ rise-future-finance 13 Zero Interest Rate Policies 14 De La Merced, M. J., 2013, “Prosper Raises $25 Million in New Round, Adding BlackRock as a Backer,” The New York Times, September 24. Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes. com/2013/09/24/prosper-raises-25-million-in-new-round-adding-blackrock-as-a-backer/?_ php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1 Peer to peer lending in the U.S. since inception Competitive landscape Small business Consumer International Figure 2 – Peer-to-peer lending in U.S. since inception. Source: Lend Academy
  • 5. 38 The size and growth of the U.K. alternative finance market The diversity of the U.K. alternative finance market 382% 170% 1400% £310m ■■ “Community Banks Join the Lending Club Platform”15 (6/20/2013) ■■ “Old Guard of Banking Sets Out to Disrupt It”16 (12/4/2013) ■■ “Hedge Fund Marshall Wace Invests in Peer-to-Peer Lender”17 (10/29/2013) ■■ “A Step Toward ‘Peer to Peer’ Lending Securitization”18 (10/1/2013) ■■ “UK Readies Rules for Peer-to-Peer Lending”19 (10/24/2013) In the past two years, a relatively marginal development in the alterna-tive finance space has developed into the current situation in which both retail and institutional interest is enabling the alternative lending business to grow at an exponential rate. So what is the buzz all about, and why is it important? What is peer-to-peer and online direct lending and who are the actors? Peer-to-peer lending, as it is more commonly known, can be considered a subset of a wider phenomenon, known as online direct lending. Online direct lending is less well-known than peer-to-peer lending, but potential-ly much more important to the development of this new finance industry segment, for reasons described below (see Figure 4). We should first refer to another rather new development called “crowd funding.” With companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, people have be-come familiar with the concept: raise large amounts of money in small increments to fund upstarts, ideas, causes, etc. by going directly to the “crowd” instead of banks or other classic financial intermediaries. This involves asking for little amounts from a large number of people, rather than one big amount from one big institution. Because borrowing from traditional financing sources works relatively well for large companies, but not as well for consumers and small businesses, the crowd funding idea has taken off and has resulted in many examples of successful campaigns: 1. Pebble Watch, in May 2012, raised $10.2 million on the Kickstarter platform. The Pebble is an e-Paper watch for iPhone and Android.20 2. Star Citizen, a video game development company, in November 2012, raised over $2 million via Kickstarter21, and has continued to raise additional funds outside of that platform as well. 3. Oculus Rift, a VR accessory company, finished its raise in September 2012 on Kickstarter for $2.5 million.22 4. Scanadu Scout, the first medical tricorder, in July 2013, successfully raised $1.7 million through the IndieGogo platform.23 Crowdfunding, while still relatively new and in full development, can be seen as having three distinct subcategories (see chart above – we note that there has not yet been a real consensus developed with regards to this classification): 15 Lending Club, 2013, “Community Banks Join the Lending Club Platform,” press release, June 20. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130620-905342.html 16 Dugan, I. J., 2013, “Old Guard of Banking Sets Out to Disrupt It,” The Wall Street Journal, December 4. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023037221 04579238600929163132 17 Larson, C., 2013, “Hedge Fund Marshall Wace Invests in Peer-to-Peer Lender,” Bloomberg, October 29. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/hedge-fund-marshall- wace-invests-in-peer-to-peer-lender.html 18 Eavis, P., 2013, “A Step Toward ‘Peer to Peer’ Lending Securitization,” The New York Times, October 1. Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/a-step-toward-peer- to-peer-lending-securitization/ 19 Smith, G. T., 2013, “U.K. Readies Rules for Peer-to-Peer Lending,” The Wall Street Journal, October 24. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230479940 4579155133285408594 20 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android 21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_successful_crowdfunding_projects 22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_successful_crowdfunding_projects 23 http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scanadu-scout-the-first-medical-tricorder Total finance raised in the period 2011 - 2013 2011 2012 2013 Excluding donation-based crowdfunding and P2P charitable fundraising Average growth rate: £1.74 billion £955 million 309 million 492 million +59% 939 million +91% 75% Transaction volumes and average growth rates by models 2011-2013 Donation-based crowdfunding/ Peer-to-peer fundraising Peer-to-peer lending Peer-to-business lending Invoice trading Equity-based crowdfunding Reward-based crowdfunding Debt-based securities Revenue/profit sharing Crowdfunding Microfinance/Community shares 20% 166% 371% 487% 203% 107% £287m £193m £97m £28m £20.5m £2.7m £1.5m £0.8m £260m £127m £62m £36m £3.9m £4.2m £1m £0.1m £0.3m £215m £68m £21m £4m £1.7m £0.9m 2013 2012 2011 Figure 3 – The diversity of the U.K. alternative finance market. Source: Nesta
  • 6. 39 The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking ■■ Donation based and rewards based (at times considered two sepa-rate categories), ■■ Equity based crowd funding, ■■ Debt based (peer-to-peer and online direct lending) crowd funding. In the past, it has been donation and rewards based platforms such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter that were covered most by the media. More recently, however, as the JOBS Act24 came into effect in April 2012, the focus has turned to equity crowdfunding. In addition, new regulations on the subject are starting to change the landscape radically and fundamen-tally, giving companies a potential new way to access (growth) capital in a less onerous and more practical way. However, it’s been the debt based vertical (peer-to-peer and online direct lending) that has silently been the poster child for this radical new way of accessing funds for both individuals and businesses. And in the U.S., two companies make up more than 95% of the consumer (peer-to-peer) lending market: Lending Club and Prosper Marketplace. Lending Club, the major player in the space, was started in 2006 by Re-naud Laplanche, based on the idea that there must be a better way of giving creditworthy borrowers a better deal on interest rates than bank offerings to customers at the time. While Zopa in the U.K. had already pioneered the idea of matching creditworthy borrowers directly with indi-vidual lenders and investors in 2005, Lending Club (and Prosper Market-place, which actually started in the U.S. before Lending Club) understood quickly that there was a big opportunity to become a leading player in the further disruption and disintermediation of a particular segment of consumer finance, matching borrowers and lenders directly through an online marketplace. It’s no coincidence that Lending Club at times refers to its model as the “Ebay” of finance. To show how a transaction works, we refer to the illustrations above25,26 (see Figure 5). Investor member Investor member Investor member Purchase price of notes, designated to fund a selected member loan Monthly payments of principal and interest on corresponding member loan Notes, providing for payments equal to monthly payments received by Lending Club from borrower, net of 1.00% service charge Non-recourse assignment of corresponding member loan promissory note Corresponding member loan promissory note Funding of selected corresponding member loan Borrower member WebBank Loan proceeds No inherent leverage No branches Use of automation Principal + Interest Origination Fee (Upfront) Servicing Fee (Ongoing) Borrower Investors Funding Figure 5 – Lending Club transactions. Source: Lending Club What started as a small, simple idea has now evolved to a rapidly grow-ing industry, with many potential up and coming companies27 getting fi-nancing. Also, while the initial focus has been the consumer credit space, more recently the model has been adapted for other asset classes. Mort-gages, student loans, small business loans, car loans, and other asset classes are all increasingly being offered through online direct lending platforms, taking out the middleman (the bank) and giving back that mar-gin to both the borrower (in the form of a lower rate) and the lender or investor (in the form of a higher yield). The following are examples for each category: Crowdfunding Donation and rewards based Equity based Debt based Figure 4 – Crowd funding 24 http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/jobs-act.shtml 25 https://www.lendingclub.com/public/steady-returns.action 26 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Keynote speech, presented at Lendit 2013, a conference held at the Convene Innovation Center in New York City on June 20th. Available at: http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=DxGLMSYOlsk 27 According to some, more than 50 debt based platforms are active on a global scale, with more than 177 peer-to-peer and/or online direct lending platforms currently active: http:// www.thecrowdcafe.com/crowdfunding-platforms/database/
  • 7. 40 ■■ Consumer loans: ■■ Lending Club, Prosper, Zopa, RateSetter, Auxmoney, Lendico, TrustBuddy, Pret-d’Union, Freedom Financial Network ■■ Small business loans: ■■ FundingCircle, IOU Central, On Deck Capital, DealStruck, Kabbage, Lending Club, Fundation ■■ Student Loans: ■■ SoFi, CommonBond ■■ Mortgages: ■■ RealtyMogul, LendInvest The operating expense ratio for banks servicing a loan portfolio (includ-ing items such as rent, salaries, marketing, and legal), is between 5% and 7%, while it is below 2% for companies such as Lending Club, and declining as the business continues to scale. Needless to say, this is a massive difference that is very difficult for traditional banks to easily overcome. Importantly, even with the current expense ratio, the tradi-tional banking model continues to be a very profitable business, mainly because considerable revenues are generated by various types of fees, effectively rewarding transactional “friction.” With Lending Club, on the other hand, the interest with the customer and consumer is clearly aligned, eliminating much of the friction from the transaction, which leads to a much lower cost model. To understand the difficulty of the task at hand for banks consider the following28: according to a recent McKinsey study in which consultants analyzed how Lending Club is driving costs out of the system, they con-cluded that the company has a 425 basis point advantage over traditional banks, primarily driven by operating leverage. It is the main reason why Lending Club can offer better rates to both investors and borrowers. A second issue is cultural, in that large financial institutions (actually now larger than before the Great Recession) cannot react easily, if at all, to the change coming from the ground up, driven by lean and mean and legacy free upstarts, who redefine how many of their core services are being offered. There is the physical branch network to manage and support, although the number of transactions that require branches have contin-ued to decrease over the years.29 Related to that is the fact that most of the classic players have to work with complex legacy systems that are increasingly difficult to manage, support, and change to accommodate an increasingly mobile population, looking for instant gratification and a “wow” factor, including in their financial transactions. This development has also given birth to some great new bank franchises like Moven and Simple, redefining what a bank is and does in today’s market. Brett King, a visionary thought leader on banking disruption and CEO/ Founder of Moven, a mobile only digital bank, will tell you that “banking is not where you are going, but it’s something you do.” I have had the pleasure of speaking with Brett about his vision for the future of banking, and have been both shocked and impressed. Shocked, as he puts into very clear focus the major issues traditional banks have to solve. And impressed as it relates to his vision of the future of banking, which I now share. One does not need much imagination to appreciate the potential impact of the changes ahead. A final point on the issue of culture is the people factor. Both the users of the capital (the borrowers) and the providers (the lenders), are increas-ingly going “direct” in everything they do. As a result, both are having a very difficult time understanding the value proposition of classic inter-mediaries. Current leadership and employees at the classic players are being bogged down by legacy issues, technological and psychological, and are not able to absorb what’s happening in the real world, with a younger generation that seeks instant gratification at all times, and will not hesitate to switch providers. Lending Club’s Renaud Laplanche, in a recent interview,30 when talking about the banking culture and why it’s going to be difficult for these big banks to make the necessary changes, lists three factors: 1. Physical infrastructure (branches): with this big cost factor, it is dif-ficult to see how they are going to get leaner quickly, 2. Systems: expensive legacy systems versus lean, state-of-the art, purpose built platforms, 3. Culture: the kind of people that work for a bank are very different in mindset compared to people that work for the new platforms, ready to change the world. How big is the opportunity and what drives its growth? Most, if not all, of the bigger platforms have been backed by large and well known VCs: ■■ Lending Club: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google, Foundation Capital, Canaan Partners, Norwest Venture, Morgenthaler Ventures ■■ Prosper Marketplace: BlackRock, Sequoia Partners ■■ Orchard: Spark Capital, Canaan Partners, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Conversion Capital, Vikram Pandit 28 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Keynote speech, presented at Lendit 2013, a conference held at the Convene Innovation Center in New York City on June 20th. Available at: http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=DxGLMSYOlsk 29 “With a 4% average annual decline in branch traffic over the past 16 years, banking is the next natural domino to fall … the competition among online banks, particularly from names like Ally Bank and ING and Everbank, is likely to cut into margins (…) Chris Skinner – Digital Bank, 2013 – p. 41. 30 Cunningham, S., 2013, “Exclusive: Renaud Laplanche on How JP Morgan Chase is Like Blockbuster Video,” Lending Memo, November 20. Available at: http://www.lendingmemo. com/lending-club-renaud-laplanche-interview/
  • 8. 41 The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking ■■ CommonBond: Vikram Pandit, Tom Glocer, Tribeca Venture Partners ■■ Freedom Financial Network: Vulcan Capital The reason is clear: VCs are looking for ideas that are transformational and scalable, and we find these attributes in the new lending platforms. Consider the following consumer credit statistics: ■■ U.S. consumer credit is a $3 trillion market (not including mortgages), ■■ Credit card debt outstanding at $850 billion (most peer-to-peer loans are used to refinance or consolidate credit card debt), ■■ Peer-to-peer lending (consumer loans only): $4 billion (Lending Club and Prosper). P2P and online direct lending represents only a very small fraction of a very large base. In the first phase, these platforms are focusing exclusively on prime and super prime consumers (only a fraction of the total), so one could argue that there will be an impressive growth opportunity for years to come. The opportunity therefore continues to be nothing short of siz-able, with 100% plus growth per annum anticipated, in a very large market which continues to grow as well. Another major reason for these numbers is the fact that consumer lending in the U.S. is an oligopoly in which four banks represent 80% of all unsecured consumer debt, so with very little incentive to change an existing and very profitable business model. On the small business side, the numbers are equally compelling and large31, as discussed by Renaud Laplanche32 in his most recent testi-mony. In a survey released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in August 2013, a grim picture regarding the situation for small business lending was illustrated as follows. Out of every 100 small businesses, 70 desired financing. Of those 70, 29 were too discouraged to apply. Of the 41 that applied for credit, only 5 received the amount they wanted. 93% of these businesses were looking for $1 million or less in capital. He continues by pointing out that the situation has deteriorated further, with the overall volume of loans of more than $1 million having risen slightly since 2008, loans less than $1 million having fallen by 19%, and the number of small businesses with a business loan falling by 33% from 2008 to 2011. The problem is also worst for the smallest businesses, with the smallest of them all (businesses with two to four employees) down 33% from 2008 to 2011. However, alternative financing options are increasingly available. From the same survey we find that “online lenders and merchant cash advance pro-viders are the fastest growing segment of the SMB loan market – recording a 64% growth in originations in the last four years.” As many of these com-panies charge fees and rates resulting in APRs north of 40%, it is clearly an unsustainable and unhealthy situation for companies in both the short and long term. Once again, peer-to-peer and online direct lending are coming to the rescue. As an asset class, charge-off rates on (secured) small busi-ness loans have been below 1% since March 2012 (compared to a peak above 10% for consumer credit cards during the financial crisis)33. Therefore, the quality of the asset class cannot possibly be the reason why classic banks are not lending the way they should. The reason is more structural. Incumbents have a legacy cost structure that needs large ticket items to be properly amortized which cannot possibly be achieved by ac-tively engaging in small business loan sourcing, underwriting and servic-ing. Banks still go out of their way to write large loans to large businesses, but have lost interest in doing anything else because it’s no longer profit-able. And don’t managers have regulators and shareholders to please? Again, peer-to-peer and online direct lending come to the rescue. So what we’re witnessing is exactly the same as what we’ve seen in so many other markets that have already been disintermediated by the internet: travel agencies (now Expedia, Travelocity), book stores (from Borders to Amazon), record/music stores (Spotify, iTunes), video rental market (from Blockbuster to NetFlix), hotels (Airbnb). In a keynote speech earlier in the year, the following slide was used to il-lustrate exactly how other technologies have been transformational, at first being rejected and ignored flat out by incumbents, only to be widely ad-opted at maturity. We return to this concept later in the text34 (see Figure 6). Where are the banks? Many businesses and consumers have lost trust in the banks, but they are now bigger than ever, and focused on larger transactions with large companies. There are many reasons for this trend: increased regulation (Dodd-Frank, Basel 3, Card Act, etc.), risk aversion, and large bank con-solidation that began in the early 80s, to name a few. “Banks have been exiting the small business loan market for over a de-cade. This realignment has led to a steady decline in the share of small business loans in banks’ portfolios (the fraction of nonfarm, nonresidential 31 Regulatory issues make it such that most of that market is actually non-bank lending, at least on the unsecured side, driven by alternative lenders such as Capital Access Network, Kabbage, On Deck, together with numerous merchant cash advance and factoring companies 32 United States House of Representatives, 2013, “Testimony of Renaud Laplanche, Founder & CEO Lending Club before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access of the Committee on Small Business, United States House of Representatives, December 5. Available at: http://smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/12-5-2013_renaud_ laplanche_testimony.pdf 33 United States House of Representatives, 2013, “Testimony of Renaud Laplanche, Founder & CEO Lending Club before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access of the Committee on Small Business, United States House of Representatives, December 5. Available at: http://smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/12-5-2013_renaud_ laplanche_testimony.pdf 34 LaPlanche, R., 2013, Transforming the Banking System. Available at: http://www. lendingmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/1.pdf
  • 9. 42 $B Annual, 1997-2012 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Amazon Revenue Incumbents and new entrants innovate in response Amazon Local Amazon MP3 Kindle Nook launch Kindle Fire Borders bankrupt Walma Prime Walmart.com formed ShopSavvy & other price comparison apps launch Target & Best Buy match AMZN prices during holidays WalmartLabs launch loans of less than $1 million – a common proxy for small business lend-ing) since 1998, dropping from 51% to 29%. The 15-year-long consoli-dation of the banking industry has reduced the number of small banks, which are more likely to lend to small businesses. Moreover, increased competition in the banking sector has led bankers to move toward big-ger, more profitable, loans. That has meant a decline in small business loans, which are less profitable (because they are banker-time intensive, more difficult to automate, have higher costs to underwrite and service, and are more difficult to securitize).”35 We have shown that traditional lenders are increasingly less present and supportive of unsecured consumer credit and secured small business lending, two key drivers of the economy. This helps to, at least partially, explain why the growth rate of this economy has been below the histori-cal trend since the latest recession began in 2008, with substantial long term consequences in terms of lost productivity and diminished wealth and opportunity. We have also shown the effects of alternative players entering the mar-ket, rapidly taking the place of established players, and once consum-ers and small businesses are introduced to this new financing, they are unlikely to go back to traditional financing. And while it’s still very early in the process and we’re starting from a very low base, there is still time for traditional lenders to adjust, and actively engage in developing the busi-ness, in close collaboration with the new market entrants. Let’s first analyze more in detail what has ailed the banks and other tradi-tional lenders over the last few years. Brett King, referred to earlier, is a recognized thought leader on the sub-ject of retail banking disruption and evolution. In his most recent book, he states the following: “By this new measure, a customer’s assessment of a service provider in the retail banking or financial services space will not be capital adequacy, branch network, products or rates. It will be how simply and easily customers can access banking when they need it, and how much they trust the partner or service provider to execute.”36 With traditional NPS scores in the tank, it appears banks and other traditional financial services providers have a long road ahead just to gain back that critical element that is lacking: trust. Those providers continue to value large businesses over small businesses and consumers. Chris Skinner is another highly regarded visionary with regards to the future of companies who serve the financial markets (he is Chairman of The Financial Services Club, U.K.). In his most recent book, he goes even further stating: “This is the new augmented reality of customer intimacy through Big Data analysis, and bank retailing will be based upon the competitive differentiation of analyzing mass data to deliver mass per-sonalization.” 37 In other words, with banks being just bits and bytes38, the future lies in the hands of those who understand this radically changed landscape. The incumbents must adapt if they want to stay relevant. It is worth revisiting a transaction earlier this year involving both Lending Club and Google. In May 2013, it was announced that Google was the lead investor in a $125m secondary funding round, taking around a 7% stake in Lending Club. Importantly the investment was made by Google directly, and not through its VC arm, Google Ventures. Google Ventures provides seed, venture, and growth-stage funding to companies that are not strategic investments for Google. Therefore, their investment in Lending Club is strategic in nature. And when one of the most admired and powerful companies gets involved with a category killer like Lending Club, one can imagine many exciting possibilities. At the time of the deal, and even in recent conversations, the CEO of Lending Club indicated they were talking about all kinds of “cool stuff” that could be developed in a joint effort, without any further detail. He did point out, however, that they were intrigued by the kind of disruption Lending Club is causing in the banking industry, not dissimilar to what Google has done to disrupt advertising by making it more efficient, more transparent and more con-sumer friendly.39 35 Wiersch, A. M. and S. Shane, 2013, “Why Small Business Lending Isn’t What It Used to Be,” August 14, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Available at: http://www.clevelandfed. org/research/commentary/2013/2013-10.cfm 36 King, B., 2012, Bank 3.0: Why banking is no longer somewhere you go, but something you do, New York: John Wiley & Sons 37 Skinner, C., 2013, The Digital Bank, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish 38 “Banking is just bits and bytes.” A quote from then Citibank CEO John Reed, as reported by Chris Skinner in Digital Bank (see note 32) 39 Renton, P., 2013, “New Investment From Google Values Lending Club at $1.55 Billion,” Lend Academy, May 1. Available at: http://www.lendacademy.com/new-investment-from-google- values-lending-club-at-1-55-billion/ Disruptors change their industries for the better 0 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Figure 6 – Disruptors change their industries for the better. Source: Lending Club
  • 10. 43 The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking The end of “friction” One of the biggest upsides of deep disintermediation is the opportunity to substantially eliminate most or all of the “friction” that is part of every transaction. Eliminate friction as much as you can, and you will come close to what can be called the holy grail of marketing and transactions: real one-on-one interaction with your qualified customer, anywhere, any place, at any time, through any platform. It’s where we are today with a good number of services, and it’s where we’ll be in the future with finan-cial services. Therefore, all market participants should adapt as soon as possible40. Imagine the following scenario: You are in the market for a new car, but haven’t explicitly expressed this desire to the outside world yet. Actually, you may have done so uninten-tionally. As you have first researched the market online, the system (most likely Google) already knows you are in the market for a car. Next, you are planning to go to a local dealer, the address of which has already been suggested by Google as it knows where you live and where you travel (location based services). When you enter the dealer, you’ll be prompted on your smartphone, through a dedicated app, with the latest information regarding the car you are considering. This puts the consumer on equal footing with the sales person. We have moved on from caveat emptor to caveat venditor41, with important implications for the whole sales pro-cess. You will know how to ask the right questions and how to negotiate because you’ll be coached and armed with relevant data, including the dealer’s profit margin. Then, when it’s time to talk about price, your smart-phone will ping you and tell you that you are pre-approved, no questions asked, for a $15,000 car loan right there, just by pressing the green dot in the middle of your screen. The whole process is fluid, frictionless, and eerily efficient. In fact, you don’t even realize that in the background, it’s effectively a Lending Club or Prosper loan that’s being offered to you at the most competitive rate. When accepted, the loan is immediately funded by hundreds of peer-lenders who are dying to get a piece of your high yielding, secured car loan. It all happens in minutes, perhaps even seconds, without friction, at the lowest possible cost. No paper, no phone, no desktop nor laptop – just a smart phone. That is the kind of experience, or a variation of it, that we’ll be having in the very near future, courtesy of a Lending Club/Google or other inspired combination. Some will argue this is “creepy.” I would argue that, when well executed, it’s the best of all outcomes. The right offer at the right time and location, at the best possible terms, designed around you and only you, and the Holy Grail for direct marketers who now see one to one marketing redefined. Another most recent and radical example is the announcement that Lending Club is talking to large banks and corporations about opening up its platform to offer loans to employees of large companies as part of a human resource benefit and a potential recruiting tool42. Indeed, what would be better than to have companies offer this novel service as a perk to employees who qualify, thereby increasing employee loyalty? Employees could use the loans to refinance credit card debt and student loans, or otherwise finance discretionary expenses, with payments be-ing automatically deducted from paychecks. The companies could finally put their large cash balances to work in a more productive way by fund-ing these loans, and could price them even more competitively by fund-ing the origination fee as well, for example. Lending Club (and others) would handle the processing, underwrite, and service the loans, add a new business opportunity to their growth story, and continue to redefine consumer finance. The bottom line is that traditional banks and finance companies are being disintermediated quickly, by smaller, more nimble competitors. So how should a traditional bank respond? What can and must be done by the establishment players, if at all possible? While it will be difficult for traditional banks to change their practices due to general inertia, size constraints, regulation, culture, legacy systems, etc., there are ways to participate in this big shift in the landscape. In June of this year, two community banks announced that they would team up with Lending Club to source new consumer loans, in a clear sign of “old meeting new.” Titan Bank from Texas and Congressional Bank in Washington began buying loans originated by Lending Club. Titan Bank also announced that it would start offering personal loans to its custom-ers through the platform. In his most recent recorded testimony, Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, indicated there are now seven such entities active on the platform which indicates that five more have joined since then. This is only the beginning. Lending Club (and other similar players) are bringing a low cost operating model to consumer lending, and for reasons mentioned earlier, classic banks do not have the ability to successfully compete with this development. What they can and do bring to the table is a combination of low cost of funds (that ultimately will need an adequate rate of return43) and a captive local customer base (in the case of regional/community banks). 40 For more compelling arguments on why these trends are unstoppable: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=R43OKYmGbhU 41 Pink, D. H., 2012, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, New York: Riverhead Books (p.50: “In a world of information parity, the new guiding principle is caveat venditor – seller beware.”). 42 Del Ray, J., 2013, “A New Perk for Google Employees? It Could Be Low-Interest Personal Loans,” All Things D, December 22. Available at: http://allthingsd.com/20131222/a-new-perk- for-google-employees-it-could-be-low-interest-personal-loans/ 43 Gileadi I., and P. Leukert, 2013, The Industrialization Realization, Capco: P4-5
  • 11. 44 Another way for banks to participate is to utilize these platforms, which will in turn drive the growth of loan origination. Platforms like Lending Club and Prosper (and others pretty soon to follow) are technology com-panies first, interested in scaling the business as quickly and efficiently as possible, as they make money on the volumes (through origination fees and servicing fees). Highly effective matching machines, they do not take balance sheet risk, as the loans are transferred immediately to the lender upon funding in a seamless transaction. Instead of these platforms taking the entire burden of loan funding upon themselves (customer ac-quisition), they are increasingly turning to outside managers to help them speed up the process. At this point, we should welcome the institutional money or asset managers looking to deploy larger amounts of money, in addition to the retail investor base today. Let’s compare it with the Apple Store with its app ecosystem. Early on, Apple understood the power of a large ecosystem (of apps and develop-ers) to exponentially grow the business. It focused on helping “outside managers” – in this case, app developers, to develop compelling con-tent utilizing the Apple platform. Because they were planning to take a 30% cut of every transaction, they projected this approach would lead to very large profits. This approach has made Apple one of the most highly valued companies in the world. And Apple continues to push for more developers to develop original, cutting edge, content and apps, as this is at the core of its profit model. I believe it will be somewhat similar with online direct lending platforms. Early on, some of the players understood that in order to scale the busi-ness, they would require institutional capital. This is where outside man-agers come into play, helping to bring large and reliable money flows to these platforms on a consistent basis. Some of these managers are directly or indirectly backed by traditional bank assets, and are accessing this asset class through another channel. The platforms themselves are not concerned with who buys the loans – they simply desire more and larger buyers on a consistent basis so as to predictably scale the busi-ness. They care about the volumes (and the quality of the assets) first, and less about the ultimate buyer. Bigger is better, as the business is very scalable, and becomes more profitable as it grows, and can accommo-date larger amounts of investment money. Over the last year, the balance has dramatically shifted from too many borrowers and not enough lend-ers/ investors to the clear opposite. Money managers dedicated to online direct lending will see growing commitments from institutional investors looking for efficient access, in size, to this newly investable asset class, which will drive continued dra-matic industry growth for the foreseeable future. With banks being just bits and bytes, a lot of what used to be the core functions of any banking institution can now be outsourced to third party platforms that are each much better at that particular activity, and can deliver services more quickly and at a much lower cost44. Banks and other classic intermediaries are left with cheap funding, a desperate need for return in a quasi-zero real return environment, and in case of the regionals, proximity to its core client base. And as we have seen earlier, there is a clear opportunity for these players to actively engage in the online direct lending space, not by trying to copy the business model internally but by proactively seeking out the members of the eco-system and starting a conversation about ways they can bring value to the table. They can also go directly to the platforms, like some regional banks have done. Maybe we’ll see an opportunity for revival of smaller, regional banks to come out strong and use the opportunity to take back market share. One could also consider setting up a new proprietary platform, as the market is big enough to accommodate more than the current two large players. However, there are some serious barriers to entry: ■■ High financial and opportunity costs, as it takes time, money, and effort to get a competitive platform up and running, and create/vali-date a model, ■■ Regulatory burden – state and federal, ■■ Cannibalizing their own core business, ■■ Cultural mismatch (there needs to be a buy-in from senior manage-ment, which takes time), ■■ Lack of “coolness” factor (see NPS scores – many people will never again trust banks the way they did before). So what can go wrong? As the market grows, a number of commentators are sharply criticizing these new companies. It is worthwhile to review some of the arguments against these new platforms. The first argument is that peer-to-peer and online direct lending are gim-micks and just another form of “shadow banking.” In positive sense, this is not a new business per se, but more a new iteration of an existing core activity of a bank, i.e., lending to creditworthy individuals and busi-nesses. By taking “friction” out of the transaction, its cost is dramati-cally reduced, thereby achieving two goals: lowering costs for borrow-ers through lower rates and attracting funding capital from lenders and investors through higher rates. Lowering transaction costs while keeping the core proposition unchanged is good for all parties involved. 44 See also Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, talking about three trends for the next 10 years: transition from bureaucratic hierarchies to technology driven networks; unbundling; and nodes on a network all the time, with money one of the big sectors impacted by it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R43OKYmGbhU)
  • 12. 45 The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation The Rapid Ascent of Peer-to-Peer and Online Direct Lending Models: The Impact on Banking Another argument revolves around the concept of “skin in the game.” Indeed, at this time, most of the platforms act like match makers and don’t keep any of the risk on their books. Critics argue that platforms are not concerned about the performance of the loans (though longer term reputation is a key element here, which can be seen as a counter argu-ment). While a number of players will develop models whereby the loan portfolio may (partially) be kept on the books, it’s important to appreciate the fact that trust and reputation is more important than ever in this busi-ness. It’s comforting to see that these platforms have been extremely transparent in terms of the kind of information that they disclose both on the corporate level and on the loan detail level. Also, with high visibility and scrutiny, these players have been making sure that the performance track record (in terms of the performance of their loans) is solid, over a multi-year period. Thus far, loan performance is strong, supporting the idea that manage-ment is ensuring that they continue to be the best at what they do: sourc-ing, underwriting, matching, and servicing loans45. Indeed, we see some of the best players in the industry in charge of the credit and risk depart-ments at these platforms. However, as some of the platforms go public, and gain a different set of shareholders, there is always a risk that pru-dent underwriting may decrease in order to achieve new growth targets. It will be necessary to follow developments in this respect carefully and be vigilant about weeding out underperformers. From a macro perspective, we must mention the credit cycle. When the next recession hits, it will be interesting to see how well the new platform credit behaves, primarily influenced by the level of unemployment (in the case of consumer credit). It would be good to see a mature and liquid secondary market having developed by then, in order to partially hedge that risk. There is always regulatory risk as well, though so far, it has been well managed. Indeed, the main players in the space have been making great efforts over many years to work with the regulators and agree on the shape and form of the core business practices. Conceptually, the regulators should continue to be supportive of the development of the sector, as it is beneficial to both consumers and small businesses (with increased access to credit at affordable rates), and lenders or investors, in the form of a higher yielding fixed income investments. In a recent op-ed46, Sheila Bair, former Chairman of the FDIC, weighs in as well, supporting increased regulation at the state level, specifically related to the issue of potential fraud and other dangers related to the industry. This is a clear sign that the business is maturing. Conclusions Peer-to-peer and online direct lending have been scaling rapidly in the last few years. They are poised to accelerate further this year, on the back of a highly anticipated Lending Club IPO (and maybe others overseas), further institutional investment interest, and a much higher awareness of the opportunity for all other market participants. Brand recognition through public awareness will draw more people in, and the concept will steadily become more mainstream. Many more interesting business models will be developed and funded in an effort to capture the momen-tum, with some of them failing to get traction. However, a substantial number of them will likely become very successful. An increasing number of banks (mostly small and regional banks at the start) will look to partner, at times in creative ways, with the leading platforms in the space, which will lead to some surprisingly creative business models. (For instance, imagine the impact of a Lending Club, a Google, and a Moven combined on your smartphone). Expect a slew of ancillary products and services to be developed, helpful to those who are looking to get involved and need tools. There will be more activity in different asset classes, secu-ritizations, secondary trading, indexes, ETFs, new fund variations, mu-tual funds, industry publications, blogs, and websites. There will be more cross border initiatives and hybrid structures seeing the light of day, and the public will slowly but surely realize that something is afoot. Smart money has already found a way, but as the sector and the opportunity grows, more investors will get involved. Banks and other classic financial institutions, still frozen after five years of recovery, may start to look at the opportunity set and research ways to participate. For reasons explained throughout, they will likely find it difficult to come up with in-house solutions and conclude that there are better alternative ways to get into the action. Low funding costs coupled with customer connectivity at the local level is a powerful combination, so teaming up in some shape or form (white labeled or not) with some of the platforms seems likely. In the near future, today’s children will not be on the lookout for a bank branch just as today’s teens are no longer familiar with the alien concept of “landlines”. 45 Ceresnie, A., 2014, “Loan Quality for 2013: Prosper,” Orchard, January 6. Available at: http://www.orchardplatform.com/loan-quality-for-2013-prosper/ 46 Bair, S., 2013, “P2P lending: What’s to worry?”, CNN Money, December 22. Available at: http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/20/pf/p2p-lending.moneymag/
  • 13. 46
  • 14. Journal The Capco Institute Journal of Financial Transformation Recipient of the Apex Awards for Publication Excellence 2002-2013 Editor Prof. Damiano Brigo, Editor of the Capco Journal of Financial Transformation and Head of the Mathematical Finance Research Group, Imperial College London Head of the Advisory Board Dr. Peter Leukert, Head of the Capco Institute, Head of the Editorial Board of the Capco Journal of Financial Transformation, and Head of Strategy, FIS Advisory Editor Nick Jackson, Partner, Capco Editorial Board Franklin Allen, Nippon Life Professor of Finance, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Joe Anastasio, Partner, Capco Philippe d’Arvisenet, Group Chief Economist, BNP Paribas Rudi Bogni, Bruno Bonati, Strategic Consultant, Bruno Bonati Consulting David Clark, advisor to the FSA Géry Daeninck, former CEO, Robeco Stephen C. Daffron, former Global Head of Operations, Morgan Stanley Douglas W. Diamond, Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago Elroy Dimson, Professor Emeritus, London Business School Nicholas Economides, Professor of Economics, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University Michael Enthoven, José Luis Escrivá, Group Chief Economist, Grupo BBVA George Feiger, Executive Vice President and Head of Wealth Management, Zions Bancorporation Gregorio de Felice, Group Chief Economist, Banca Intesa Hans Geiger, Professor of Banking, Swiss Banking Institute, University of Zurich Peter Gomber, Full Professor, Chair of e-Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt Wilfried Hauck, International GmbH Pierre Hillion, de Picciotto Chaired Professor of Alternative Investments and Shell Professor of Finance, INSEAD Thomas Kloet, Mitchel Lenson, former Group Head of IT and Operations, Deutsche Bank Group Donald A. Marchand, Professor of Strategy and Information Management, IMD and Chairman and President of enterpriseIQ® Colin Mayer, Peter Moores Dean, Saïd Business School, Oxford University Steve Perry, Executive Vice President, Visa Europe Derek Sach, Head of Global Restructuring, The Royal Bank of Scotland ManMohan S. Sodhi, Professor in Operations & Supply Chain Management, Cass Business School, City University London John Taysom, Founder & Joint CEO, The Reuters Greenhouse Fund Graham Vickery, Head of Information Economy Unit, OECD
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