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Heavier second-quarter marketing expenses at OnDeck Capital highlight a concern throughout the marketplace lending industry: the high cost of customer acquisition as competition from banks and nonbank startups heats up.
August 4 -
Heavier second-quarter marketing expenses at OnDeck Capital highlight a concern throughout the marketplace lending industry: the high cost of customer acquisition as competition from banks and nonbank startups heats up.
August 4 -
Companies like OnDeck and Lending Club are under pressure to keep finding new borrowers, but there are signs that customer acquisition costs are rising amid heavier competition.
May 6
Lending Club reported a small quarterly loss on Tuesday as the marketplace lender stuck with its strategy of pursuing growth rather than near-term profitability.
The San Francisco firm's loan originations reached $1.9 billion in the quarter, which was up 90% from the same period a year ago. Revenue climbed to $96 million, a 98% increase from the second quarter of 2014. Meanwhile, operating expenses rose by 77% to $101 million.
Overall, the company lost $4.1 million in the second quarter, down from a $9.2 million loss in the same period a year earlier.
Lending Club, which went public in December, is pursuing a strategy of growth before profits that has previously been used by tech companies like Amazon.
The Silicon Valley lender, which was founded in 2006, now has more than 1,000 employees. It currently specializes in personal loans to consumers and small-business loans, but Chief Executive Officer Renaud Laplanche says the firm is planning to
As the marketplace lending industry has grown, competition for borrowers has picked up, which has led to
Lending Club reported Tuesday that sales and marketing expenses accounted for 2.01% of its loan originations in the second quarter. That figure was up from the second quarter of last year, when sales and marketing costs accounted for 1.85% of originations, but it was down slightly from the first quarter of this year, when the comparable figure was 2.04%.
Lending Club raised its revenue guidance for fiscal year 2015 to $405 million-$409 million, up from a previous estimate of $385 million-$392 million.
The company also announced Tuesday that Sandeep Bhandari will join Lending Club as its chief credit officer later this month. He will take over responsibility for credit risk management from Chaomei Chen, who plans to retire later this year.
Bhandari has spent the last 15 years at Capital One Financial.
