Ranger Specialty Income Fund Expands Into New Loan Markets By Teaming Up With Upstart
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) May 05, 2014 -- The Ranger Specialty Income Fund will begin investing in consumer loans though Upstart’s new lending platform. Upstart, which focuses on identifying quality loan applicants based on education-related metrics, recently launched a lending platform offering three-year term loans in amounts of $5,000 to $25,000. Upstart specializes in “thin-file” borrowers – individuals who have yet to establish a long credit history, but who exhibit levels of education, employability and earnings potential that has historically resulted in high repayment rates.
“The Upstart team has identified a borrower class that is currently not being serviced by either traditional or online lenders," said Bill Kassul a principal of the Ranger Specialty Income Fund. “Investing through Upstart’s platform allows our fund to reduce investment risk through diversification with the potential to generate even higher returns through increased loan selection.”
The Ranger Specialty Income Fund seeks to provide both domestic and foreign investors with attractive yield and monthly cash flow attributable to investments in the peer-to-peer lending space. The arrangement with Upstart will allow the Fund to further diversify its investments, while expanding opportunities to invest at attractive yields. The fund has been investing in peer-to-peer loans since its inception in November 2013.
“Better data means better underwriting,” said Dave Girouard, founder and CEO of Upstart. “so we’re pleased to work with Ranger on this new approach to identifying and servicing high quality borrowers."
Upstart’s lending model complements credit and financial information with education-related data, such as schools attended, area of study, GPA, and test scores that predict the borrower’s ability and propensity to repay a loan.
About peer-to-peer lending
The burgeoning peer-to-peer asset class has a low correlation to equity and traditional fixed-income investments, and returns on these investments have generally been higher than many other types of fixed-income products. These returns are possible, in part, because the peer-to-peer lending marketplace attracts borrowers underserved by traditional banking sources. This development led to the rise of online peer-to-peer lending platforms that join investors and creditworthy borrowers.
About Ranger Specialty Income Fund
The Ranger Specialty Income strategy uses a proprietary artificial intelligence system known as TruSight Technology™ to evaluate, select and invest in many of the peer-to-peer loans in the Ranger Specialty Income Fund portfolio. Developed by Portfolio Manager Gary Melara exclusively for investing in peer-to-peer loans, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms generated by TruSight evaluate data and hundreds of borrower credit fields from the peer-to-peer lending platforms. TruSight algorithms seek to identify the important criteria of loans with the highest potential returns on investment. Ranger Specialty Income’s TruSight Technology and approach to peer-to-peer investing has been actively used for almost four years.
For more information about the Ranger Specialty Income Fund, please contact Bill Kassul at 214-871-5270 or bkassul(at)rangercap(dot)com.
About Ranger Capital Group
The Ranger Specialty Income Fund, LP is advised by Ranger Alternative Management II, LP, a registered investment advisor which is affiliated and controlled by Ranger Capital Group. Ranger Capital Group is an employee-owned holding company for registered investment advisors offering traditional and alternative investment opportunities to institutional and high net worth individual investors. Currently, Ranger affiliated investment advisers manage over $3 billion in assets. Additional information regarding Ranger Capital Group and its affiliated investment advisers may be obtained on-line at http://www.rangercap.com.
For more information, visit: http://www.rangerspecialtyincome.com.
About Upstart
Founded by ex-Googlers, Upstart goes beyond the FICO score to finance people based on signals of their potential, including schools attended, area of study, academic performance, and work history. Upstart’s proprietary underwriting model identifies high quality borrowers despite limited credit and employment experience. Upstart loans can be used for almost anything, including starting a business, paying for a coding bootcamp, eliminating student debt or paying off credit cards.
For more information, visit http://www.upstart.com.
Bill Kassul, Ranger Specialty Income Fund, http://www.rangerspecialtyincome.com, +1 2148715270, [email protected]
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