IOU definitely on the right trackI recently got the chance to listen to the IOU Financial pitch during their roadshow to raise $3.5M. Most fintechs landing on my desk usually have somewhat unrealistic cost assumptions built into their projections so I was surprised to learn about IOU's different approach, namely focusing on the appropriate lending volumes to control defaults, and focusing on reducing opex. Most of the online lending companies I see can't even make a real educated guess about their delinquincies so this was interesting to see - take note MOGO.
I was even more surprised to hear that IOU is underwriting USD $9M per month!? Just to put this in perspective, I was recently speaking to a person-in-the-know about his investment into Borrowell, a well-publicized, Canadian, VC-backed B2C lender. He reckoned that since 2014, Borrowell had originated CAD $20M total in loans - yet Borrowell's private market valuation is in the $25M range? IOU's public market cap is $16M...methinks that there may be too much private money chasing anything "fintech"...
Finally, compared to their direct competitor On Deck Capital (google "On Deck Capital activist"), I think IOU is probably much, much closer to profitability, which should be a major catalyst for the stock.
We'll see what happens with IOU but they are definitely on the right track.