The so-called Big Four accounting firms provide a myriad of services to large banks but they are all starting to get involved now in marketplace lending. Probably the first mover here, at least in this country, has been KPMG.

David Haber, the CEO and co-founder of Bond Street wants to help small business owners, not just to get a loan, but to understand their businesses better. He believes that as marketplace lending gets more competitive it is the companies who provide more than just a loan that will thrive.

Sasha Orloff, the CEO and co-founder of LendUp, is our next guest on the Lend Academy podcast. LendUp is different to every other company that has appeared on the podcast in that they are firmly entrenched in the subprime area. They are completely focused on serving those customers that traditional financial institutions will not or cannot serve.

James Gutierrez is one of the more interesting people I have come across in this industry. He has already started one alternative lender, Progreso Financiero (now Oportun) focused on the Latino market and now he is looking to expand lending across a much broader cross section of this country.

David Klein, the CEO and Co-founder of CommonBond is on a mission. He wants to not only shake up student lending, that has been renowned for its poor customer experience, he wants to create a company that gives back to the community as part of a larger social mission.

The world’s leading industry self-regulatory body is, in my opinion, the Peer to Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) in the UK. From their establishment in 2011 the P2PFA have been very influential in implementing sensible regulation that supports the growth of the industry and they were also instrumental in getting a new kind of retirement account established in the UK: the Innovative Finance ISA.

Jed Simon is the CEO and Founder of FastPay, a company that has built quite a reputation in the invoice finance sector of marketplace lending. Jed has quietly built a leading company that will cross a billion dollars of total loans originated before the end of the year.

We have not discussed impact investing at all on the podcast until now. Our guest in episode 46 is Jacob Haar, the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Community Investment Management (CIM), who has been on mission to bring awareness of impact investing to the marketplace lending industry. His company is focused on providing responsible and transparent financing to small business. His fund invests in small business loans originated by marketplace lending platforms but he is very selective on which platforms he will work with. Listen to the full podcast to find out more.

We have not discussed impact investing at all on the podcast until now. Our guest in episode 46 is Jacob Haar, the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Community Investment Management (CIM), who has been on mission to bring awareness of impact investing to the marketplace lending industry. His company is focused on providing responsible and transparent financing to small business. His fund invests in small business loans originated by marketplace lending platforms but he is very selective on which platforms he will work with. Listen to the full podcast to find out more.

LendingHome have been in business for less than 18 months but in that short time they have come to be the market leader for online real estate lendng. With some big name backers they have scaled very quickly and have now issued several hundred million dollars in loans.