When established card networks such as Charge, American Express and Mastercard start investing in fintech lending platforms such as Divido and ChargeAfter – as well as in the fintech lenders themselves such as Klarna and Vyze – it’s a clear signal that the future of unsecured personal loans may not be delivered by banks.
In justifying its 2019 purchase of Vyze, Mastercard cited an Accenture group study that claimed that the U.S. installment lending market represents a $1.8 trillion opportunity. It may also be one of the reasons U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg decided to invest in more than just his singing career by purchasing a stake in Klarna a year ago.
Today, installment loans cover a variety of uses ranging from purchasing t-shirts and jeans to debt consolidation and alternatives to credit cards. According to TransUnion, the market for unsecured installment loans of all types in the U.S. topped $161 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019.
There has been a clear shift to unsecured installment loans over the last five to six years. In 2013, banks held 40% of personal loan balances ,while credit unions held 31% and fintechs were practically an afterthought at just a 5% market share position, according to TransUnion. At the time, the Louis noted that personal loans balances were just $49 billion.
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By 2018, share position shifted with fintechs owning 38% of balances, compared to banks at 28% and credit unions at 21%. Lire la suite