Lending Club nets $4.3 million in Q4 profits

Wants to buyback shares for $150 million.

Online lending marketplace Lending Club earned $4.3 million in profits in Q4 last year and facilitated loans worth $8.4 billion to small businesses and consumers in 2015.

The San Francisco-based P2P lender’s revenue grew in Q4 grew by 93 percent to $134.5 million compared to $69.6 million in the comparable period a year ago. Loan originations also grew to $2.58 billion from $1.41 billion in 2014.

The company,  which was the first P2P lender to register its offerings as securities with the SEC is gung ho about its growth prospects.  “We have earned the trust of 1.4 million customers,” said founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche. “We have considerable room to grow our existing products, and intend to continue to expand both our product line and addressable population going forward.”

The company which  announced that it will also buyback shares worth $150 million through open market operations or in private transactions in compliance with Securities and Exchange Act Rule 10b-18.

This comes amidst doubts raised about the company’s algorithm-based lending model. A Bloomberg report last week questioned Lending Club models with data to show that its actual defaults (7 to 8 percent) were higher than forecasts (4 to 6 percent). The company responded to the report explaining the data and reassuring investors that the loan performance is within expectations.