http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?trk=jobs_search_public_seo_page&jobId=5285963&viewJob=Vice President, Small Business Credit
Job Description
Lending Club is looking to hire an innovative, hands-on credit strategy leader who can help drive Lending Club's entry into the Small Business Lending market and create a low friction, high value product for small business customers. The initial focus will be on smaller companies within the Small Business segment.
The VP of Small Business Credit will report to the Chief Risk Officer, and to begin with will not have a team. He or she will be responsible for developing the credit strategy & policy for Lending Club's Small Business products, as well as helping to drive the implementation of new operations and technology to support Small Business customers. The successful candidate with have a passion for launching new products (rather than optimizing existing ones), and a willingness to pitch in and take on a broad range of tasks to drive the business forward. He or she will be expected to work with existing policies and systems were applicable, to achieve objectives as efficiently as possible.
•Create Small Business credit policy and strategy
•Create Small Business collections policy
•Identify data and technology resources required to effectively underwrite small business
•Work with technology and credit operations teams to implement credit policy, application funnel, underwriting process and collections operations
•Contribute to strategy and implementation of new Small Business products
•Assist in negotiation of Small Business partnerships and technology solutions
•Other hands-on work as required to launch Small Business products
Desired Skills & Experience Requirements
•8+ years credit policy experience
•Proven expertise in small business credit policy, with experience across the customer lifecycle from modeling to underwriting to servicing
•Understanding of small business banking/loan/credit market
• A hands-on, results-oriented approach to business with a 'can-do' attitude
•Detail oriented with strong analytical abilities and problem-solving skills
•Excellent oral and written communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills with demonstrated ability to work effectively with business and technology leaders
•Must be self-directed, able to work independently, as well as work in a team-oriented and fast paced environment
Company Description
Lending Club utilizes technology and innovation to reduce the cost of traditional banking and offer borrowers better rates and investors better returns. Over $1.5 billion in personal loans have been issued through the Lending Club platform, which has more than doubled annual loan volume each year since launching in 2007. The Company has been prominently recognized as a leader for its growth and innovation, including being named one of Forbes' America's Most Promising Companies in 2011 and 2012, a 2012 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, and one of The World's 10 Most Innovative Companies in Finance by Fast Company in 2013. Lending Club is based in San Francisco, California. More information is available at:
http://www.lendingclub.com.
Additional Information
Posted: April 23, 2013
Type: Full-time
Experience: Director
Functions: Finance
Industries: Financial Services
Job ID: 5285963
Small business loans are a whole other animal. I'm not sure if I'd even touch it despite having a bit of experience in the credit function of banks who do small business loans. But I'm sure plenty of people who know nothing about them will jump right in, which is scary IMO.
But it is interesting they are going to try.
Agreed - I think this would be very risky! It will be interesting to see what they offer...
I recently invested in the small business credit segment (not through LendingClub). When I saw the approach of how the small businesses were vetted, the repayment method, and the effective interest rates, I was impressed. I think small businesses need access to credit and are willing to pay good returns not to disrupt their business. If done right LendingClub could have a good additional segment.
Just look at the proliferation of BDC's and it's apparent that the small business loan segment holds a ton of opportunity for yield seekers. A friend of mine is a small business owner and when he told me what he pays on his term loans I was shocked at what banks can charge in terms of interest rates (very high). I guess the key is the vetting as small business lending is generally a relationship business and it will be interesting to see how P2P handles this without letting lenders tour the operations, review books, meet management, etc.
Nice find Edward. I had heard this was in the pipeline but didn't realize it was at this stage of development.
I invested in the same fund that Bryce did for similar reasons. People should keep in mind that most small business lending is not done to startup businesses, that most of the platforms that are starting to emerge are focused on established and profitable businesses. What has surprised me about this segment is that the default rates are lower than consumer p2p lending but interest rates are about the same which leads to a higher ROI for the investor. I am going to be focusing quite a bit on small business lending in coming months.
There has been a much publicized dearth of small business lending by banks so it is only natural that others are filling in the void.
Are you guys referring to specific small business lending or general? To clarify, there's are many business finance functions. It could so a new restaurant can buy a new oven, purchase order financing, factoring receivables etc. I think it is a very interesting space, one in which I have a good friend who runs a small family fund. Needless to say, they do exceedingly well and are nicely secured overall.
Very interesting.
Banks have access to incredibly low cost capital in the form of deposits. Massive scale to process payments etc heps too.
All of this debate good vs bad is kinda silly as we don't know what LC plans to do (neither do they I'd bet).
If you work in a bank, then you know that bank structures vary tremendously based on their strategy. There are banks with dozens of branches to develop non-maturity deposit (NMD) relationships, including teller lines and ATMs. Then there are other banks that don't have one branch or one ATM. Just an operation center, funded by brokered CDs, and have loan production centers to make consumer loans . Then there are other banks that are funded by non-brokered CDs and only make small business loans, with no branch or ATMs. And then you have Andy Beal's bank who just makes a killing doing crazy stuff. The "average" community bank isn't LC competition, it's the non-traditional banks. And there are quite a few of them.
Yea I think SBA would be the smart way. It'd be like having a securitized pool with an external credit enhancement.