Best Egg Will Broaden to Financing Purchases in 2018

EXCLUSIVE—Marketplace lender Best Egg will move towards financing consumer purchases, including home improvements, as it looks to expand in 2018, the company told Bank Innovation.

The company will be focusing on offering loans and services that will “create a stronger relationship” with the customer, Sabrina Basht, chief strategy officer for Best Egg, said.

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Best Egg, which was launched in 2014, has issued “just over $4 billion” in loans since its start, Basht said. That figure is over about 320,000 loans, with the average loan amount hovering around $15,000.

Best Egg, which partners with Cross River Bank to originate its loans, managed to survive 2017 without the battle scars companies like Lending Club and SoFi are now sporting because the company has kept itself a little under the radar, Basht said.

The company’s upcoming focus on financing will be a shift from previous years, when most of its loans fell under the category of debt consolidation, Basht said.

“We have nicely stable sources of capital, and we are operating profitably, which is a big deal considering our industry,” Basht said, adding that the company’s low-key marketing style “allowed us to focus on how we can consistently serve the loan customer.”

Aside from looking at new loan categories and new products in 2018, the company will not be shifting that consumer focus. The average loan customer for Best Egg is about 40 years old — so they are, excitingly, not millennials — with an average individual income of $90,000, and a FICO score in the 700s, according to Basht.

With those customers in mind, Best Egg may be switching its focus, but will stay away from some lending categories: for instance, “student [loan] lending is not in the near-term for Best Egg,” Basht said.

To learn more about the latest developments in online and marketplace lending, join us on March 5-6, 2018 at the Parc 55 in San Francisco for Bank Innovation 2018. Click here to request an invitation.