LendKey Secures Partnership with Banks

LendKey has agreed a partnership with the Western Independent Bankers (WIB), a trade association of more than 130 community banks, as its exclusive auto-lending partner.

LendKey already has an exclusive endorsed partnership with WIB for student lending and now WIB will endorse LendKey’s auto lending solution to community banks across the Western States of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and the US Territories.

Betty House, senior vice president of product development and CTO, WIB, commented:

"We are thrilled to expand LendKey's role as a WIB Endorsed Program partner. We've been working with LendKey since 2014, and have witnessed how seamlessly they can launch and manage online lending programs for our member banks. We're expanding our relationship not only because of LendKey's industry-­leading technology, but also for the marketing and customer service channels they provide to lenders. It's really a full-­scale, end-­to-­end solution."

LendKey’s platform is used by more than 300 originators, including credit unions, community banks, and other financial institutions. The platform currently provides private student loans, student loan refinancing, home improvement loans and auto loans. The company has a slightly different model from a traditional P2P platform as it connects borrowers with local banks and credit unions.

As part of the partnership WIB will provide marketing support and endorse the auto-lending program to its members through direct mail, online, in its member magazine and annual conferences. 

Vince Passione, chief executive officer of LendKey, added:

"We're honored to expand our relationship with WIB and its member banks. Our mission is to enable community financial institutions to enter and succeed in online lending. We're doing this by arming banks with our turn-­key lending platform, our customer support centers and our marketing expertise."

Earlier this year Prosper also partnered with WIB, in a partnership that gives the member banks unprecedented access to affordable consumer loans through the Prosper platform. WIB obviously sees the value in partnering with alternative lending platforms. We are seeing a variety of banks in the US becoming involved in P2P lending through partnerships with banks, ranging from the smaller community banks to Lending Club’s recent partnership with Citi.