Lendico was a multinational company, operating a

peer-to-peer lending Peer-to-peer lending, also abbreviated as P2P lending, is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and ...

platform. It was taken over by Dutch bank

ING Groep The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...

in early 2018 and now operates as a subsidiary. The international online marketplace for business and consumer lending was founded in December 2013 by the incubator and venture capitalist,

Rocket Internet Rocket Internet SE is a German Internet company headquartered in Berlin. The company builds startups and owns shareholdings in various models of internet retail businesses. The company model is known as a startup studio or a venture builder. It ...

. After launching in Germany, the company expanded into Spain, Poland, Austria, South Africa, the Netherlands and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Using the

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

model, the company based in Berlin, Germany, directly connects investors and private and business borrowers. Lendico is led by Friedrich Hubel and co-founder Clemens Paschke. Currently, Lendico

still exists but is an independent company from Lendico Global Services.

History

Founded in December 2013 in Berlin, Lendico's idea was to take to Germany, and to all of Europe, a lending model that was successful in the United States, peer to peer lending, or lending between people. Inspired by the business model of the US peer-to-peer lending platform

Lending Club LendingClub is a financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading o ...

and UK based company

Zopa Zopa is a British financial services company which offers deposit accounts and credit cards. It began as the world's first peer-to-peer lending company in 2005 and gained a full banking licence in 2020. The peer-to-peer side of its business cl ...

, Lendico is a marketplace that enables the link between borrowers and investors. During the first 20 months, the company established itself in Austria, Brazil, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and South Africa, replicating the expansion plan usually used by its creator, Rocket Internet.

Business Model

The

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

s are personal loans or SME loans and range between €1,000 - €150,000 in Germany. The interest fee is calculated on the basis of the borrower’s

credit score A credit score is a numerical expression based on a level analysis of a person's credit files, to represent the creditworthiness of an individual. A credit score is primarily based on a credit report, information typically sourced from credit bu ...

credit history :''This article deals with the general concept of the term credit history. For detailed information about the same topic in the United States, see Credit score in the United States.'' A credit history is a record of a borrower's responsible repay ...

, desired loan amount and the borrower’s

debt-to-income ratio In the consumer mortgage industry, debt-to-income ratio (often abbreviated DTI) is the percentage of a consumer's monthly gross income that goes toward paying debts. (Speaking precisely, DTIs often cover more than just debts; they can include pri ...

. Lendico determines whether the borrower is creditworthy and assigns to its approved loans a credit grade that determines the payable interest rate and the fees. The loan period can range between 1 and 5 years and be repaid at any time. Only 10% of applications are received on the platform. Lendico operates completely online with no branch network and relies on proprietary technology to reduce costs and optimize the handling of loan applications. Lendico has repeatedly been nominated as best credit marketplace. In August 2015

Deutsche Börse Deutsche Börse AG () or the Deutsche Börse Group, is a German company offering marketplace organizing for the trading of shares and other securities. It is also a transaction services provider. It gives companies and investors access to glo ...

br>Venture Network
selected Lendico to become member of its programme of growth companies and national and international investors.

References

{{Peer-to-peer lending companies German companies established in 2013 Peer-to-peer lending companies

History

Business Model

See also

References