Media

Harmoney 'absolutely confident' of fees position amid Commerce Commission probe, keen to work with banks, nears Aussie launch

10:54 am, 10 September 2015

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Harmoney is "absolutely confident" its fees shouldn't be covered by the fee provisions of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA) as the Commerce Commission considers whether they should be. "We're absolutely confident of our position regarding fees (and) no one is suggesting we've not done the right thing," Harmoney founder and CEO Neil Roberts said at a media briefing celebrating the first anniversary of Harmoney's official launch.

Harmoney racks up $NZ100m in loans

10:53 am, 10 September 2015

PEER-TO-PEER lender Harmoney says it has facilitated $NZ100 million ($A91 million) of personal loans in its first year, which is 10 times better than any of its Australian peers achieved when they started up.

HARMONEY Celebrates 1st Birthday and Achieves $100m Lending Milestone

11:58 am, 9 September 2015

Peer to peer marketplace Harmoney celebrates a successful first year as New Zealand's only operating P2P lender, achieving unprecedented growth, creating jobs in New Zealand, Australia and Fiji and preparing to launch in Australia.

HARMONEY Celebrates 1st Birthday and Achieves $100m Lending Milestone

10:58 am, 9 September 2015

Peer to peer marketplace Harmoney celebrates a successful first year as New Zealand's only operating P2P lender, achieving unprecedented growth, creating jobs in New Zealand, Australia and Fiji and preparing to launch in Australia.

Harmoney Celebrates One Year in Business and NZ$100 Million in Loan Volume

10:57 am, 9 September 2015

You could fit the entire population of New Zealand (4.5 million people) in the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. It is not a big country and certainly not where you would expect to find one of the emerging world leaders in marketplace lending. But Harmoney, celebrating their first year in business, is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Gareth Vaughan says a year after peer-to-peer lending reached NZ's shores there are more reasons than ever to watch the sector closely

10:54 am, 9 September 2015

So a year on from Harmoney's official launch what has been achieved, and what might be next? Harmoney, thanks to its institutional funders including Heartland Bank and Blue Elephant Capital Management, is likely to have met its target of facilitating at least $100 million of lending via its online platform within 12 months. This appears a given as in late July chairman Rob Campbell said Harmoney had facilitated $86 million of lending by then.

Your personal loan options

12:12 pm, 24 June 2015

Armchair shopping for personal loans is now considerably easier. But there are a large number of lenders seeking your business, depending on your credit worthiness and how fast you want the money.

In general, the lower your credit worthiness, the more interest you pay, though there are a range of prices out there and it is easy to overpay for personal debt.

Is the $2M equity crowdfunding limit too low?

15:28 pm, 17 June 2015

Josh Daniell, co-founder of Snowball Effect, says the $2 million limit placed on those raising money through equity crowdfunding is a "good place to start" but will probably be revised over time.

The $2 million cap in one year was raised today during a discussion on new platforms for raising capital at the Conferenz financial markets law conference in Auckland. The panel included Mr Daniell, Neil Roberts from peer-to-peer lender Harmoney, and NZX head of funds management Aaron Jenkins, who has been heavily involved in setting up the new NXT market, which launches tomorrow with the compliance listing of G3 Group.

Elizabeth Kerr responds to being called a hypocrite, updates us on her experiment and faces-off four common objections

16:36 pm, 9 June 2015

Without a doubt one of my most popular columns has been the Harmony Peer to Peer Lending experiment.

I regularly get emails from people asking how it has gone.

So, I thought this week was a good time to give a little update.

Three innovations to watch for in consumer and small business lending

17:06 pm, 30 May 2015

Many of the biggest and most controversial innovations in finance are now coming in the lending space. Tech companies are creating entirely new financial systems in emerging and developed markets, from mobile wallets to loans that get approved based on your social media scores to new kinds of payroll systems — which in turn could facilitate lending.

Harmoney passes $50m In Loans

09:50 am, 28 May 2015

HARMONEY PASSES $50 MILLION. Peer-to-peer lender Harmoney says it passed a significant milestone this month with more than $50 million having now been lent via its online platform with more than 1.4 million transactions facilitated to date. Harmoney says this makes it the fastest growing peer-to-peer lending marketplace in Australasia.

Further Reading:

Popular loan types available on the Harmoney platform:

• Car loans - Walk onto the car lot with the confidence to negotiate a cash price. Get loan estimates using our calculator.   
• Holiday loans - Have the holiday you always wanted, rather than the budget version. 
• Wedding loans - A loan through Harmoney can take the stress out of managing your wedding budget. 

The moxie sessions: I don’t want your money, honey, i want your block chain database.

13:41 pm, 24 May 2015

2013’s Financial Markets Conduct Act [...] has opened the door to some of the world’s most innovative finance businesses. One of them (you might know it for its reads-both-ways logo) is Harmoney. Harmoney describes itself as a peer-to-peer lending service, connecting people with money to lend to others wanting to borrow it (although a proportion of the site’s book is funded by institutional lenders.) ...

Capital markets: crowding in on the honeymoon

09:52 am, 14 May 2015

IN HARMONY WITH HARMONEY

The biggest player in the new world of crowd funding is Harmoney, which launched in September last year with big backers, TV advertising and big plans to lend $100 million in its first year on its peer-to-peer lending platform.

Hoping to follow in the fast-growing footsteps of the likes of Lending Club in the United States and Zopa in Britain, Harmoney lent $30 million in personal loans in its first six months, although it is also looking to enter the mortgage market

Harmoney CEO 'getting excited' about potential move into the residential mortgage market.

13:45 pm, 26 February 2015

Neil Roberts, Harmoney's CEO and majority owner, told interest.co.nz in a Double Shot interview his firm is looking "long and hard" at entering the mortgage market, where banks are competing fiercely for business and where the Reserve Bank has placed restrictions on high loan-to-value ratio lending. Roberts said plotting a possible move into mortgages was currently a greater priority for Harmoney than entering the SME market ...

NZ's first p2p lender takes on more key staff; plans operations across the ditch within six months.

13:43 pm, 11 February 2015

The aggressively-growing peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Harmoney has announced three new employee appointments, including two appointments apparently aimed at a targeted expansion into Australia.

Harmoney, which was NZ's first licenced P2P lender, has been in operation only since last September, but ...

The P2P revolution: why are banks lagging?

09:55 am, 5 February 2015

Traditional banks cannot compete with burgeoning Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platforms who place community interaction at the heart of the modern lending experience, according to MoneyPlace CEO Stuart Stoyan.

Stoyan said the nature of banking today revolves around a culture of “accepted profits”, arguing there has been no “real innovation” in how customers lend and invest.

How Harmoney is disrupting the traditional finance market

16:56 pm, 30 January 2015

Sites such as Harmoney, the New Zealand based peer-to-peer lending service that was launched last September, are said to be disrupting traditional banks and are changing the face of financing as we know it.

In 1994 Bill Gates said, “Retail banks are dinosaurs,” and it is only now becoming apparent how online lending sites will impact significant change on the banking sector.

Peer to peer lending

09:39 am, 29 January 2015

There’s a new way of borrowing and investing in town. Harmoney is the first New Zealand peer-to-peer lender to be licensed by the Financial Markets Authority. But more may be coming. We look at what you should know.

NZ disrupters making a splash

09:41 am, 17 January 2015

At one end of the scale are the big disrupters — the Ubers, the Alibabas and Tinders of a connected world.

And then there are the modest operators getting traction in New Zealand, giving established players a run for their money and appealing to a younger demographic willing, for instance, to take a punt on a novel form of investment.

Peer to peer lender Harmoney raises $10 million as Trade Me leads with 15% stake in company

09:44 am, 13 January 2015

Harmoney, New Zealand’s first peer to peer lending platform, has raised $10 million in new funding to support the company’s growth. The decision to raise capital was said to be “in response to customer demand that has driven rapid month-on month growth since the launch of the Harmoney platform”. Harmoney is the first, and presently only, P2P lender to receive a licence by New Zealand’s Financial Market Authority.