New Partnership Promises Better Data for Marketplace Loan Buyers

The credit reporting firm TransUnion has unveiled a new partnership that is designed to provide more thorough data to investors in marketplace loans.

The deal with PeerIQ, a New York-based data provider, comes at a time of unease for many banks and other would-be investors in marketplace loans.

Firms such as Lending Club and Prosper Marketplace, which were enjoying rapid growth as recently as last year, have more recently been on the defensive.

Those companies make online loans to consumers, and then sell those loans to investors, including banks and hedge funds. Over the last year, as credit quality in the sector has been weakening, institutional loan buyers have been demanding better information about the risks they are shouldering.

Ram Ahluwalia, PeerIQ's chief executive officer, said that the TransUnion partnership should allow investors to make more accurate projections about the performance of particular pools of loans.

The deal's financial terms were not disclosed.

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