LendingClub Corporation (LendingClub) operates as a digital company focuses on building lifetime lending relationships with its members.
LendingClub operates a leading, nationally chartered, digital marketplace that leverages data and technology to increase access to credit, lower borrowing costs, and improve returns on savings. The company offers a suite of deposit and loan products through a smart, simple, and rewarding digital experience. The company retains a portion of the loans it origina...
LendingClub Corporation (LendingClub) operates as a digital company focuses on building lifetime lending relationships with its members.
LendingClub operates a leading, nationally chartered, digital marketplace that leverages data and technology to increase access to credit, lower borrowing costs, and improve returns on savings. The company offers a suite of deposit and loan products through a smart, simple, and rewarding digital experience. The company retains a portion of the loans it originates and sells the remainder to marketplace investors including banks, credit unions, asset managers, and private credit funds.
Loan Origination and Deposit Gathering Model
The company's sales and marketing efforts are designed to efficiently attract and retain members, build brand awareness, and support member satisfaction. The company attracts and retains members directly through its website and mobile app, using channels, such as online affiliate partners, direct mail, paid search engines, online display advertising, email, social media, and strategic relationship referrals.
The company's primary loan products include unsecured personal loans, patient and education finance loans, and secured auto refinance loans (Consumer Loans). The company offers borrowers multiple features to lower their cost of debt and enhance their financial position, including balance transfers (where a borrower’s existing credit card debt(s) are directly paid down and the debt is consolidated into a fixed-rate term loan), joint applications, and the recently introduced TopUp product (where borrowers can easily combine their existing LendingClub loan with additional loan proceeds into a new single payment loan). These loan products are intended to directly address the core borrowing needs of the company's members and are underpinned by its scalable technology platform and capabilities.
The company's commercial lending business is primarily focused on small businesses, and it participates in the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) lending programs, which guarantee a portion of the loan in the case of borrower default. Commercial loans are sourced through relationships with businesses across the country. The company underwrites loans based on the creditworthiness of businesses, including an assessment of cash flows, and on the underlying value of any collateral. In the first quarter of 2023, the company ceased originating commercial real estate loans and equipment leases and intends to retain the existing loan portfolios to maturity.
The company's deposit business includes sourcing deposits directly from customers and from third-party marketing channels and deposit brokers. For consumer depositors, the company offers FDIC-insured high-yield savings accounts, checking accounts, and certificates of deposit (CDs). The company's high-yield savings accounts allow members to enhance their savings by earning a competitive interest rate on their entire balance. In addition, the company recently launched a new product, LevelUp Savings, to reward members with its best interest rates for engaging in positive savings behavior. The checking accounts deliver an award-winning digital experience and member-friendly features, such as ATM fee rebates, no overdraft fees, and early direct deposits.
Marketplace
The company's Consumer Loans are either sold to marketplace investors or retained by LC Bank. The company's commercial loans are generally retained by LC Bank.
Loan Sales (Marketplace Activity): The company sells loans to marketplace investors through its innovative and proprietary marketplace. The composition of these investors varies from time to time, but can include banks, institutional funds, private credit funds, asset managers, and insurance companies. The company's marketplace loan sales are executed as either loan sales shortly after origination or through its Extended Seasoning program, or Structured Program transactions.
In 2023, the company launched Structured Certificates – a new type of private Structured Program transaction. In this structure, the company has primarily retained the senior securities at a fixed rate, along with the amount required pursuant to the U.S. Risk Retention Rules, and it sells the residual certificates to marketplace investors. This structure, developed by LendingClub and enabled by its marketplace bank model, delivers a transaction that benefits both marketplace investors and LendingClub. Marketplace investors earn compelling levered returns (without the need for the financing typically required for a whole loan purchase), and LendingClub earns an attractive yield with remote credit risk on its retained senior securities.
Also in 2023, as part of its Extended Seasoning program, the company began accumulating loans into the held for sale portfolio to meet marketplace investor demand for seasoned loans. Under this program, the company earns interest income on the loans during the holding period.
The company also facilitates loan sales through LCX, its real-time electronic platform and settlement technology. This proprietary platform allows for dynamically priced loans at scale and can easily be customized to meet the needs of individual marketplace investors, making transactions on the company's marketplace fast, easy, and repeatable.
LendingClub Bank: LC Bank retains loans and funds those loans directly with its own capital and deposits. The company retains these loans as held for investment (HFI) or held for sale (HFS).
Loan Purchases: From time to time, the company may opportunistically purchase loans, including portfolios of loans that it previously originated and sold to marketplace investors.
Seasonality
Historically, borrower demand for the company's loans is generally lower in the first and fourth quarters of the year (for the year ended December 31, 2024), which can result in lower origination volume and contribute to fluctuations in its operating results.
Revenue
The company sells Consumer Loans to marketplace investors, which generates a majority of related revenue immediately upon sale, or by using its own capital to hold the loans for investment, which generates revenue over the life of the loan.
Regulation and Supervision
As a bank holding company, the company is subject to the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (BHCA) and is subject to ongoing and comprehensive supervision, regulation, examination, and enforcement by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB).
As a national bank, LC Bank is subject to ongoing and comprehensive supervision, regulation, examination, and enforcement by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
LC Bank’s deposits are insured by the DIF of the FDIC up to applicable legal limits. As an FDIC-insured depository institution, LC Bank is subject under certain circumstances to supervision, regulation, and examination by the FDIC.
The company is subject to the disclosure and regulatory requirements of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act, both as administered by the SEC. The company's common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the trading symbol ‘LC’ and therefore it is also subject to the rules of the NYSE for listed companies.
LC Bank is subject to periodic examination under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) by the OCC.
The company and LC Bank are each subject to generally similar capital requirements adopted by the FRB and the OCC, respectively.
The company is subject to a wide range of laws related to anti-money laundering (AML), anti-corruption, anti-bribery, economic sanctions, and prevention of financial crime, including the Bank Secrecy Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, and economic sanctions programs. The company is required to, among other things, maintain an effective anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist compliance program, identify and file suspicious activity and currency transaction reports, and block or reject transactions with sanctioned persons or jurisdictions. Compliance with these laws requires significant investment of management attention and resources. These laws are enforced by a number of federal and state regulatory and enforcement authorities, including the FRB, OCC, Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Internal Revenue Service.
The company is also subject to laws and regulatory requirements related to information technology and cybersecurity. For example, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which a council comprises the primary federal banking regulators, has issued guidance and supervisory expectations for banking organizations with respect to information technology and cybersecurity.
The company’s partner banks for education and patient finance loans were NBT Bank and Comenity Capital Bank, which originate and service such loans. NBT Bank is subject to oversight by the OCC and was phased out as a partner in 2021. Comenity Capital Bank is subject to oversight by the FDIC and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, and continues to be a partner. These authorities impose obligations and restrictions on the company’s activities and the loans facilitated through its lending marketplace through issuing and partner banks.
History
LendingClub Corporation was founded in 2006. It was incorporated in 2006.