Posted by Scott :: September 28, 2012 @ 9:00 amNew listing times
Lending Club currently lists new loans on its website four times per day – 2AM, 6AM, 10AM and 2 PM Pacific Time. Many of you have asked that we adjust these times to be more in line with the ordinary business day. With this release, we’ve changed the new listing windows to 6am, 10am, 2pm, and 6pm Pacific Time.
For those of you using our downloadable data to make your investment decision please be advised that listing updates to the Browse Notes downloadable file will now correspond to the new listing windows.
New credit attributes
Lending Club receives more than 100 credit attributes for each borrower application. We currently expose what we believe to be the most relevant and impactful 27 of these attributes in our Browse Notes downloadable file. At your request, we are adding 4 new attributes to the Browse Notes file as outlined below:
- IN28 – Total installment high credit / credit limit
- BI20 – Months since oldest bank installment account opened
- RE01 – Number of revolving accounts
- BC36 – Months since most recent bankcard delinquency
Definitions for all attributes in the Browse Notes downloadable file can be found in the data glossary. Please email us at data@lendingclub.com if you have questions or would like to see new attributes added.
Whole loans
Certain institutional investors have indicated a preference to be able to purchase loans in their entirety to try and obtain legal and accounting treatment specific to their situation. This process would also provide a great borrower experience that can enable “instant” funding. To accommodate these requests and while insuring that all investors continue to have access to a large number of loans of equal quality, a randomized subset of loans by grade will be available to purchase as a whole loan (i.e. not in $25 increments) only for a brief time period (12 hours), while all other loans will be immediately available for fractional purchase. If the loans are not purchased as whole loans in the specified time period, they will become available for purchase in the standard, fractional manner. Some things to note:
- While we anticipate most investors will continue to prefer investing in fractional loans, we will make whole loans available to anyone requesting it by sending an email to investing@lendingclub.com (please put Whole Loan Access Request in the subject line).
- To reflect the additional option of whole loans, a new data point has been added to the browse notes and historical download file called “initial listing status”. This data point has two possible settings –“F” for fractional, “W” for whole.
- A filter on the Browse Notes page for “Initial listing status” will also be available.
Narrower credit score ranges
Lending Club displays the Borrower’s credit score range for every issued loan in order to enable analysis of historical loan performance. Lending Club also provides this information on new loan listings, together with the capability to filter these listings by the provided credit score range. Up until now, the credit score ranges were displayed in varying bands, ranging from 18 points at the lower end of our investment spectrum (660 – 678) to as wide as 70 points at the upper end (780+).
In response to your requests for more granular data, credit score ranges will now be published in 5 point bands on our historical and browse notes loan files. A corresponding change to the Credit Score filter on browse notes has also been made allowing you to easily filter by the new ranges. Note: If you use credit score set as one of your Saved Filters, please check to make sure the new settings match your desired criteria.
Thanks again for your ideas, and keep the feedback coming (feedback@lendingclub.com)!
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8 Comments
Whole loans go totally against who we are. You are totally
forgetting the premise of how Lending Club came to be. If your
institutions want bigger chunks of loans have them bid on the last
50% or 60% of a loan. That would satisfy even the borrower who
would end up with a possible lower mixed rate. No how you word it,
we are going to feel left out of certain more desirable loans. I
just read on FB how we have had another record month. Aren't we
doing just fine without your whole loans? Once again, you forget
the little guy. And, if you want to add parameters to your loan
descriptions, you should conside adding a borrowers occupation or
position within a company or organization. Is she a kitchen aid or
a principal in the Dept of Education. Is He a nurse or a coder or a
doctor with the Hospital. Gives us better insight to stability.
I critique LC's addition of new variables. Good: Thank you for
making FICO into smaller bands; may as well take the next step and
publish the score. Also, the new variables are worthy of
consideration. Bad: What good are the new variables (in28, bi20,
re01, bc36) if you do not also include them for study in the
historical extract? In fact here is a list of interesting variables
in the "Browse Notes" file that are not in the historical extract.
Please include them! acc_open_past_24mths bc_open_to_buy
percent_bc_gt_75 bc_util mths_since_recent_inq mths_since_recent_bc
mort_acc total_bal_ex_mort total_bc_limit in28 bi20 re01 bc36
initial_list_status Finally, please, for the sanity of the
programmers out there, use consistent variable names between the
"Browse Notes" file and the "Loan Stats" file (historical extract).
Cheers!
Also, your variable "initial_list_status" is good and well-defined.
However, please consider making a variable "current_list_status" as
those of us who are still fractional loan investors need to be able
to eliminate loans that are _currently_ only available for whole
purchases.
The issue is that what begins as a loan only available for full
investment ("W") may still become available for fractional
investment if an institution doesn't pick it up ("F"). We need a
way to know at any given time what is currently available for
fractional/whole investment (not just what it started at).
Both are useful.
This is too easy!! Just make all new loan listings 14 day listings!
the first listed day for new loans will be exclusively for
Institutional -whole loan investors, The very next day all the
remainder loans are listed as usual as new 13 day listings! All the
Borrower Members automatically get an EXTRA DAY's exposure and each
Borrower Member has more than a LOTTO chance of an IMMEDIATE
FUNDING! There won't be a single Borrower Member OBJECTING!
Q.E.D.PLASTICMAN
Im new here and just checking things out before I invest. So the
big money will have first shot at the best loans? Can someone
already fund the whole loan by just putting in the whole amount of
the loan?
Yeah great idea. First dibs for big money. Shove the duds to the
little guy.
I've just come on board as a borrower and an investor. This is
exciting because I have not ventured into the "investors" realm
before, but feel "Lending Club" to be the perfect platform to
pursue very safe investing. As a borrower, I wonder, though, if
Lending Club is beginning to turn into an "exclusive" organization
by shutting out more and more low end borrowers (people borrowing
amounts less than $2,000.00) who are hoping to rebuild a
financially stable foundation for themselves without all the
"hoops" and "snares" financial institutions typically force upon
clients struggling in this horrendous economy. It is well-known
that being "poor" is absolutely the most expensive circumstance in
which individuals and families can be thrown. I would hope those
steering the Lending Club ship will consider whatever excellent
payment record an individual may have established through Lending
Club loan payoffs as a priority factor in extending future loans
with more favorable interest rates to that individual even if
credit scores are not so favorable, especially since scores are
fragile and subject to oft-times capricious and arbitrary
institutional practices as well as onslaughts of unscrupulous
happenstances - i.e. identity theft.
I agree with other posters. It appears that bigger investors will
get the best pick of the fruit and we will be left with what they ,
with their better investment resources, deem to be less viable.
Thus it will be the smaller investor who will potentially suffer
from a higher default rate. This needs to be clarified .