NowStreet Brings Wall Street Closer to Crowdfunding and P2P-Lending through Free May Crowdfunding Webinars

Free Crowdfunding webinars to ensure that broker-dealers, investment bankers, financial advisors, issuers and investors of all sizes capitalize on imminent Wall Street transformation.

By Robert Hoskins

NowStreet Media announced its “Capitalizing on Financial Innovation” webinar series, aimed at helping broker-dealers, investment bankers, financial advisors, issuers and investors of all sizes succeed in a financial industry that is in the midst of extraordinary change.

NowStreet Crowdfunding Webinars

“As the popularity for neoteric crowd-financing methods such as P2P lending and crowdfunding continues to mount, we are witnessing the rapid disintermediation of Wall Street. As a result, traditional banking and brokerage revenue models are becoming obsolete, conventional capital raising techniques are no longer viable, and investor demand for alternative assets is escalating. The objective of our webinar channel is to ensure that both the financial community as well as the investing public are properly prepared to capitalize on the imminent market transformation,” stated Dara Albright, NowStreet’s CEO.

NowStreet’s ground-breaking webinar channel features trendsetting discussions and indispensable insight from the very individuals who are shaping tomorrow’s capital markets. As part of an educational outreach program, the webinars are free to all participants.

May 16, 2013, 1pm EST

“Pre-JOBS Act Crowdfunding – The Intrastate Exemption”
Learn how intrastate crowdfunding is on the verge of setting the national crowdfunding precedent, uniting communities and inspiring local economic growth. Presented by Douglas S. Ellenoff, Partner at Ellenoff, Grossman & Schole; *Richard J. Salute, CPA, Consultant with extensive expertise in capital markets and securities regulations; Jeff Bekiares and Megan Johnson, Co-Founders of SparkMarket, the nation’s first bonafide crowdfunding portal allowing unaccredited investors to legally crowdfund via intrastate exemption.

May 30, 2013, 1pm EST

“An Inside Look at the Explosive Growth of P2P & Online Lending”
Recognized P2P thought leader, Peter Renton, Founder of Lend Academy & author of The Lending Club Story, will discuss the rapid growth of P2P & Online Lending as well as the economic implications of Google’s recent investments into Lending Club & On Deck Capital. He will also show participants how to maximize P2P returns and capitalize on the proliferation of the industry.

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Crowdfunding Expected to Drive Alternative Financing Market to More than $150 Billion by End of Year 2015

By Robert Hoskins

The TABB Group has released a new crowdfunding research report entitled “Capital Reformation: Alternative Financing and the Fate of Intermediaries,” which examines the emerging business models that are enabling smaller investors to provide short- and long-term funding for small- and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) that account for over 99% of the companies in most economies.

Crowdfunding Expected to Drive Alternative Financing Market to More than $150 Billion by 2015

“Wall Street is no longer a protected class,” says Adam Sussman, a TABB partner, director of research and co-author with contributing analyst Deepali Nigam. “Intermediaries’ roles and business models are shifting, focusing on platforms, aggregation and agency, resulting in a reformation in how capital markets will function, with alternative financing stepping up.”

The new research study explores the intersection of the SME funding market and emerging alternative financing mechanisms. It reviews the causes of declines in the bank loan sector, the regulatory changes enabling new forms of financing and the impact of those changes on traditional capital markets intermediaries, including investment banks and exchanges.

TABB currently estimates that alternative methods have raised $47 billion for SME’s globally, but “this is a small fraction of the overall SME market,” says Nigam. Current regulatory and secular trends are expected to drive this market to over $150 billion by EOY 2015. At the heart of this capital reformation is a mechanism that allows investors to connect with each other and to the issuer, a trend called crowdfunding.

Under the new JOBS Act in the US, crowd funding allows a company to pool up to $1 million from investors without registering with the SEC, or up to $2 million if the firm provides the SEC with audited financial statements reducing costs for issuance, as long as they raise funds through a registered funding portal.

Limited in the US now to rewards- or charity-based projects, crowdfunding is a non-recourse, pre-payment mechanism, but its premise is to attract investors to different types of SMEs – start up, growth, expansion and rebirth. Different existing and emerging crowdfunding platforms serve different types of investing strategies, such as reward, debt and equity. The TABB report lists eight leading sites in the US, the UK, Germany and globally.

Alternative financing poses some of the same challenges to the primary markets that automated trading posed to the secondary market, Sussman says. In the secondary market, when transaction sizes shrunk and volumes exploded, automating the workflow became a necessity. “With alternative financing, it will be necessary to automate processes because liquidity will come from a very long tail of small investors, not a few large institutions. With a large number of very small initial offerings, an efficient, fixed-cost infrastructure will be critical.”

Capital reformation is necessary, in part, Sussman says, because the capital markets are perceived to have become too focused on the secondary market, i.e. trading, rather than the primary market where the actual capital is raised. “As the exchanges and other businesses focus more on the trading of prices instead of investing in and financing businesses, the long-term needs of investors and issuers have become a less attractive market for the entire financial services industry.”

Become a Crowdfunding Advocate

To learn more about the Crowdfunding industry and startup local Crowdfunding community outreach programs, please join our free American Crowdfunding Center on LinkedIn.com or Meetup.com and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. Both social media sites allow platform owners and crowdfunding campaign managers to post their news and press releases into the discussion forums.

This will help us find new and exciting crowdfunding stories to cover.  We are currently covering crowdfunding topics such as Business , Cities, Communities, Crowdfunding Platforms, Education, Film, Music, Entertainment, Games, Videos, Social Good, Solar, Renewable Energy and Software, Hardware, Technology Gadget crowdfunding PR campaigns.

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Lend Academy and NowStreet Media to Host LendIt Peer-to-Peer Lending Conference in New York

By Robert Hoskins

Lend Academy, the preeminent resource for the P2P lending industry, and NowStreet Media, producer of acclaimed financial events that highlight Wall Street transformations, are pleased to announce LendIt, the first global conference for the burgeoning P2P and online lending industry. Peer-to-Peer and online lending (collectively, “online lending”) is a relatively new asset class that is rapidly revolutionizing the credit markets and transforming the global banking industry.

Industry Influencers Introduce LendIt, the Inaugural Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Online Lending Conference

Online lending seeks to exploit the structural mispricing and funding inefficiencies in the traditional banking sector. Through the use of technology, online lenders are able to compress the cost of originating, servicing, and funding traditional loans. As a result, borrowers receive a lower interest rate while lenders receive a very attractive rate of return. Online lending marketplaces have emerged globally for personal loans, student loans and small business loans. With interest rates at all-time lows and big banks hording cash, online lending marketplaces have tapped into a variety of investor sources ranging from large pension funds all the way down to self-directed individual investors.

LendIt is being held at the prestigious Convene Innovation Center in Manhattan on Thursday, June 20, 2013. The day will bring together the industry’s most influential leaders including: Renaud Laplanche, Lending Club‘s CEO, the largest peer-to-peer lending company as well as Ron Suber, Head of Global Institutional Sales for Prosper Marketplace, the nation’s second largest. Combined, these companies have already originated more than $2 billion in loans.

In addition to a powerful lineup of keynote presentations, interactive panels discussions and extensive networking, the event will feature the world’s first exhibit of peer-to-peer and peer-to-business lending portals.

Attendees will include institutional investors, private wealth managers, family offices and individual investors. Admission tickets can be obtained directly at http://lendit2013.eventbrite.com/. Complimentary press passes will be provided to pre-approved journalists and editorial staff.

Peter Rention,  Lend Academy’s CEO said, “There has never been a more opportune time to launch the LendIt Conference. The recent rapid growth of online lending has captured the attention of large and small investors alike. We look forward to introducing the investing community to the leading online lending platforms, the providers serving the sector as well as the Wall Street firms that are providing innovative financing structures and capital to this new asset class.”

“It is an enormous privilege to be working with Peter whose work is so highly regarded within the P2P industry. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to, once again, break new ground in the Wall Street convention space with the launch of another cutting-edge industry conference,” stated Dara Albright, NowStreet’s CEO.

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Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) to Host 2nd Annual Crowdfund Investing Innovation Forum in August

By Robert Hoskins

The Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) will host its 2nd Annual Crowdfund Investing Innovation Forum on August 8-9, 2013 in Orlando, FL. The forum has established itself as the must-attend conference for leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers who are committed to fostering capital formation and job creation.

Crowdfunding Professional Association Hosts Crowdfunding trade show in Florida

Luan Cox, CfPA Governing Board Member and Founder of Crowdnetic, states, “Our vision is simple, yet ambitious—we want to educate the crowd on how to raise capital, spurring job growth for startup and emerging companies. We are dedicated to redefining success for businesses and the economy through facilitating a vibrant, credible and growing crowdfunding community globally.”

Presented by the association of crowdfunding pioneers that helped write the JOBS Act, expert financial services professionals, and innovative services providers, current issues will be addressed through intimate discussions and breakout sessions.

The CfPA is the industry’s pioneering, nonprofit trade organization established by the thought leaders who founded the crowdfund investing movement in the United States, those who wrote the framework for President Obama’s Jumpstart Our Business Startup Act (JOBS Act) and the dedicated individuals who lobbied for its passage, which was signed into law on April 5th, 2012.

The Forum, sponsored by CrowdClear and Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP, will address key topics through a unique and interactive format, including crowd investing and Wall Street, the legal and regulatory environment and the crowdfunding ecosystem and innovative technologies.

CfPA’s 2nd Annual Crowdfund Investing Innovation Forum will spark change, challenge and debate conventional thinking and unleash new perspectives in the pursuit of real solutions.

2nd Annual Crowdfund Investing Innovation Forum
Location: Caribe Royale Orlando, Orlando, Florida
Date: August 8 – 9, 2013
Price: $395 – Early Bird Special for the first 200 attendees, $489 – Post Early Bird

The Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) is dedicated to facilitating a vibrant, credible and growing Crowdfunding community while advocating for an industry view versus a single company perspective. Uniting a broad-based coalition of industry participants, the association is committed to ensuring the credible development of the industry, including a commitment to the highest ethical standards.