Google partners with Lending Club

Lending Club has announced the launch of a new pilot program in partnership with Google to facilitate low-interest financing to eligible Google partners.

The program takes advantage of Lending Club’s ability to provide access to credit in an automated and highly efficient manner. It allows Google to purchase the loans, thus investing its own capital in its partner network to drive business growth. Lending Club will be servicing the loans.

This partnership will allow eligible Google partners to have access to financing with low interest rates and no fees. This will enable the partner businesses to grow, hire new staff and to plan for future expansion.

Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club, commented:

"This first of its kind program enables Google to invest its own capital in the growth of its partners. This is a new delivery model for financial services; this program opens up many possibilities for Lending Club partners to enable credit for consumers and business owners."

Google’s initiative, Google for Work, has built up a network of more than 10,000 partners in recent years. This includes resellers, consultants, and systems integrators, which helps Google to distribute its applications and services. Google recently launched a new incentive program for partners, which rewards the top members and the Lending Club partnership is part of this expanded incentive initiative.

However, there is a strict eligibility criteria for partners that want to utilize the Lending Club offering. The eligible partners can obtain two-year loans of up to $600,000 to invest in growth initiatives. With an interest-only structure on the first year and a fully amortizing second year, the loan payback schedule is designed to match the cash-flow profile of growth investments.

Matt Burton, CEO of Orchard Platform, explained:

"Lending Club's partnership with Google further legitimizes marketplace lending and shows that the addressable market for the space is massive." 

This partnership is already the third that Lending Club has announced this year. The platform recently partnered with the US Women’s Chamber of Commerce, with the aim of providing credit to female owned businesses. It has also partnered with SCORE, in order to service a greater number of small businesses. This string of partnerships demonstrates Lending Club’s desire to hit the ground running in 2015 – maintaining the momentum of its landmark IPO.