LendingClub

Not to be confused with LendingTree.

LendingClub Corporation
Company typePublic
IndustryFinancial services
Founded2006; 18 years ago (2006)[1]
Founders
Headquarters595 Market Street
San Francisco,[4] California, U.S.
Key people
Scott Sanborn, CEO & president[1]
Services
RevenueDecrease US$865 million (2022)[5]
Decrease US$54.6 million (2023)[5]
Decrease US$38.9 million (2023)[5]
Total assetsIncrease US$8.83 billion (2023)[5]
Total equityIncrease US$1.25 billion (2023)[5]
Number of employees
1,025 (2023)[5]
SubsidiariesLendingClub Bank
Websitelendingclub.com

LendingClub is a financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California.[6] It was the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading on a secondary market. At its height, LendingClub was the world's largest peer-to-peer lending platform.[7] The company reported that $15.98 billion in loans had been originated through its platform up to December 31, 2015.[8]

LendingClub enabled borrowers to create unsecured personal loans between $1,000 and $40,000. The standard loan period was three years. Investors were able to search and browse the loan listings on LendingClub website and select loans that they wanted to invest in based on the information supplied about the borrower, amount of loan, loan grade, and loan purpose. Investors made money from the interest on these loans. LendingClub made money by charging borrowers an origination fee and investors a service fee.

LendingClub also makes traditional direct to consumer loans, including automobile refinance transactions, through WebBank, an FDIC-insured, state-chartered industrial bank that is headquartered in Salt Lake City. The loans are not funded by investors but are assigned to other financial institutions.

The company raised $1 billion in what became the largest technology IPO of 2014 in the United States. Though viewed as a pioneer in the fintech industry and one of the largest such firms, LendingClub experienced problems in early 2016, with difficulties in attracting investors, a scandal over some of the firm's loans and concerns by the board over CEO Renaud Laplanche's disclosures leading to a large drop in its share price and Laplanche's resignation.

In 2020, LendingClub acquired Radius Bank and announced that it would be shutting down its peer-to-peer lending platform. Existing account holders will continue to collect interest on existing notes until each loan is paid off or goes into default, but no new loans are available for individual investing. It is also no longer possible to sell existing loans through a secondary marketplace, as was once the case.

  1. ^ a b Armstrong, Robert (March 17, 2021). "Investors warm to Lending Club, the fintech that became a bank". Financial Times. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  2. ^ Levy, Ari (September 16, 2018). "The founder of LendingClub, ousted two years ago, pledges not to make the same mistakes with his new company". CNBC.
  3. ^ Levy, Ari (December 18, 2014). "Dianrong: The start-up that's building China's banking system". CNBC.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference forbes11 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b c d e f "LendingClub Corporation 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. February 16, 2024.
  6. ^ McBride, Sarah (December 4, 2014). "AvantCredit Raises $225 Million From Tiger Global, Peter Thiel". Business Insider. United States. Business Insider Inc. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  7. ^ Schumpeter Peer review The Economist January 5, 2013; Accessed March 22, 2013.
  8. ^ "Lending Club Statistics". Lending Club.