Marketplace consumer lending (Prosper, Lending Club, SoFi), SMB lending (Funding Circle, Kabbage, OnDeck) and merchant installment plans (Klarna, Affirm, Financeit) have all generated traction by rapidly growing loan books and raising large funding rounds.
"The money supply is not growing; loans are not increasing.
But, after scaling back its original high street presence, it failed to grow loan numbers as expected and, in 2013 and 2014, it reported operating losses of more than £2.1m.
While businesses faced revenue headwinds, we grew loans and deposits in our core businesses and gained wallet share among our target clients," said Citi's boss, Michael Corbat.
"Most of these banks have already hit the limits to their lending, so the only way to grow loans is to acquire more deposits, which may lead to cutthroat price competition on deposits".
We are all aware of the growing student loan crisis -- $1.2 trillion in student loans, alarming default rates and average debt amounts rising every year.
There is a huge disconnect between the Wonga management's view of these services and the view from beyond its headquarters, where campaigners against the rapidly growing payday loan industry describe them as "immoral and unjust" and "legal loan sharks".
They show that "lenders that lobby more intensively on these specific issues have (i) more lax lending standards measured by loan-to-income ratio, (ii) greater tendency to securitize, and (iii) faster growing mortgage loan portfolios".
"Abuse Growing in Loan Option for the Elderly" (front page, Oct. 15), about reverse mortgages, is an unfair snapshot of a financial product that has afforded a better life to more than 700,000 American senior citizens.
And to stop the debt growing, the loan is tied to the strict implementation of an austere fiscal policy, approved by Argentina's Congress last month, whose aim is to balance the budget.
The business is growing fast, loan terms vary widely and many lenders are working out the kinks.
