Meet the Boss – Exclusive Interview with Lendoit CEO Ori Erez
Daniel
Lendoit is a peer-to-peer lending platform connecting lenders and borrowers across the globe.
Lendoit makes use of smart contracts and the blockchain technology. With the smart loan contract, the need for a third party is eliminated.
The blockchain technology allows users to connect with other users from all around the world. What this does it that it allows arbitraging the different country loan interest rates to the best of the users’ advantage.
For added security, the platform serves as a monitoring intermediary where borrowers are required to be verified and scored using major reputable score providers. The loan applications are posted on the marketplace where lenders bid the interest rate they are willing to give on loan.
Lendoit lenders are able to process loan transactions without the need to register or fill out any personal details. This protects their identity and makes the transaction anonymous. When a lender wants to leave a loan-contract, all they have to do is to sell it on a secondary market.
We recently sat down with Ori Erez, the CEO of Lendoit to have a chat with him about the project as well as finding out his thoughts and insights.
Hi, Ori. Thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us more about yourself and Lendoit?
I’m a 32 years old entrepreneur from Israel, the “start-up nation”, with a decade of experience in the Fintech industry, leading technological projects and development teams in the field of trading Systems, process analysis, automation, algo-trading and portfolio management in global companies such as invest.com and Tradency.
I’m a true believer of the decentralized economy, and I’m sure that the world that we know today will look much different in 10 years from now due to the Blockchain revolution.
Lendoit is a Decentralized P2P lending platform, which connects borrowers and lenders from all over the world in a trusted, fast and easy way using the advantages of Smart Contracts and the Blockchain technology.
Our goal and vision is to establish a fair and decentralized lending alternative to the banking system and to enable lenders to lend funds with minimal risk and high rewards, on the other hand, we are aiming for borrowers get better rates. It will serve the people around the globe and be the gateway to the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency world.
With an already working alpha version, Lendoit is the pioneer of P2P lending platforms over the Blockchain, and its purpose is to change the way people give and receive loans. Lendoit aims to create a more accessible loan process and move the P2P Lending over the Blockchain from the POC level to a real application.
First off, why did you decide to use the blockchain in building Lendoit? What can the blockchain do that other technologies cannot?
In contrast to other projects in the space, Lendoit solution can’t exist without the Blockchain. The Blockchain removes the intermediaries, using the Smart Loan Contract, both borrowers and lenders can eliminate the need for any 3rd party to deal with each other. They can simply interact through their wallets using the platform as the monitoring intermediary.
Tell us about how you came up with the idea of Lendoit.
Did you face a problem within the lending industry or do you think there is a gap in the market for Lendoit to fill?
The Co-Founders of Lendoit share almost 100 years of experience in the financial market. We identified the problem of inefficiency in the lending market and realized that for the first time in the history there is a technology that can help solve this issue.
What do you think is the biggest problem Lendoit will solve and why is it important?
The lending industry is not efficient because it’s controlled by centralized financial organizations that set the interest rates according to their own interest. It’s not fair that honest borrower from Brazil is paying 60% interest rate while borrower from Japan pays around 1%.
Using the Blockchain and our own experience we came out with a unique approach that will fix this inefficiency in the next decade.
Where do you see the lending industry moving in the future?
Are consumers and businesses going to move away from traditional lending systems like loans from banks in favor of P2P lending?
Why do you think so?
More and more businesses and individuals will realize that they have a much better alternative than the banks. Today if you put your money in the bank the money value is decreasing, but if you want to take money from the bank, you will pay an outrageous premium.
The banks will fight hard but eventually, every individual will become a private bank, and the bank will be relevant only for limited services.
Can you explain what “score” is in Lendoit? Also, what are score providers exactly?
A credit score is a statistical number that evaluates a consumer’s creditworthiness and is based on credit history. Lenders use credit scores to evaluate the probability that an individual will repay his or her debts.
There are thousands of companies around the globe that specialize in giving credit score.
Lendoit uses three types of scoring:
Local rating provided by a local supplier from the borrower’s state. Lendoit is working to create cooperation with some entities in various countries to provide this service.
International scoring providers that are using innovative methods such as scanning social networks and scanning the borrower’s e-mail.
Lendoit is working to create cooperation with these International entities.
We have already signed / in the process of signing with several companies in the scoring area, such as FriendlyScore, BLOOM, LENNO, and others, as noted in Lendoit’s WhitePaper.
In the Lendoit eco-system platform, there is a special Smart Contract: a Reputation contract that retroactively checks each borrower who takes a loan, and set reputation score according to his or her historical activities within the platform
Over time, the platform will collect more and more customers information based on their activity history, and we will provide this additional information to the lenders (in addition to professional score providers).
Today’s economic climate is changing rapidly and so is the technology surrounding it. This change can be seen clearly in the financial services industry which traditionally has been centralized by banks and other institutions; financial services today, however, are starting to become more and more decentralized. An example of this
How do debts work in cryptocurrencies? Is it even possible to take legal action against someone who owes cryptocurrencies? How do they work regarding the law?
Lendoit’s vision is that in the next few years the loan market based on Blockchain technology will grow exponentially.
In the not-too-far future, we will probably see residential mortgage loans, small business factors, private loans between borrowers and lenders from different countries – all of that will be possible due to the use of Blockchain technology.
Lendoit stands at the forefront of the Peer-To-Peer loans field and is a pioneer in front of the camp.
Since most of the countries still do not have full and clear reference to the subject of cryptographic currencies in particular, and to the Blockchain domain in general, Lendoit adjusts itself and examines the regulatory situation in various countries on a day-to-day basis.
Even a 1000-mile journey begins with one tiny step. Lendoit makes the first step, and in the process of constantly reviewing the legal situation, we’ve decided that the first loans to be provided via our platform will be MICRO LOANS and will be given only in cryptographic currencies rather than FIAT currencies.
At this stage, when the laws are still unclear, this distinction allows us making loans without any legal concern with Crypto-Currencies only.
Of Course, this decision has been taken after receiving legal advice at the state of the establishment (Gibraltar).
Lendoit is a platform that integrates applications and protocols. Lendoit does not grant or initiate any loan, does not constitute the role of the underwriter for the provided loans, does not constitute a role of loan collector, and in fact provides technological service that connects borrowers and lenders in a completely decentralized manner.
The interest rate is determined by agreement between borrowers and lenders in the form of a tender using a smart contract over the Blockchain network.
In the first stage, the service will be based on the Ethereum network, which supports ERC-20 currencies.
Shortly, however, the platform is planned to run on other Blockchain networks such as RSK and ZEN Protocol.
We hold various stages of discussions with different organizations and several Blockchain networks in order to co-operate the Lendoit platform.
Although Lendoit is a technological platform which provides services, and as such does not participate in the loan themselves, the regulatory issue stands in front of our sight, and we’re examining the development and regulation changes in various countries. Lendoit platform will adapt itself at any stage to any change in regulation in the area in which it will occur.
For any regional change, in any form at any country, the platform will adjust itself accordingly in order to apply all needed regulation rules.
For example:
If a particular country announces that the granting of loans in cryptographic currencies must apply the terms of a FIAT loan Lendoit will adapt itself to these conditions in that specific country of the borrower and the terms and conditions of the loan will fit the regulations of the borrower’s country of origin.
Please remember that the state of the borrower is the one that determines the applied regulation, and if for example, a collector is required for a debt in a particular country – he must be operated under an appropriate license – which means that only licensed collectors will be able to participate in a tender which is held in that country.
Although at first glance it seems that the unclear legal situation is an obstacle, we at Lendoit see this as a huge advantage, and we welcome any change in recognition of cryptographic currencies in particular, and of the Blockchain network in general, because when the laws will be clear – we at Lendoit will adapt the platform as well (which is really easy for us to do).
Thus, we will be able to grant larger loans in FIAT to a large number of customers and even realize the vision of providing a mortgage loan from a Japanese citizen to a Russian citizen under optimal conditions in a decentralized and risk-free manner, using the advantages of the Blockchain network.
I love the idea of using smart contracts on the Lendoit platform.
What do you think are the biggest advantages of smart contracts over traditional lending agreements?
The Smart Contract is replacing centralized functions of the traditional world such as trust accounts and is much more cost efficient because it doesn’t require humans to operate.
Moving on to more personal stuff, what does a typical day in your life look like?
Waking up around 06:00, taking my dog for a walk, make coffee for my wife and me, grab something to eat and take a train to Lendoit’s office. While on the train I like to interact with our community via Telegram.
Arriving at Lendoit’s office around 08:00 and get home around 23:00 every night.
Can you express one personal opinion of yours about the blockchain? It doesn’t matter if it’s negative or positive, we just want to hear your thoughts on it.
The Blockchain is here to stay and it is going to change the world in a way that we can’t imagine.
Finally, what other personal goals (besides your career) do you have in life? Is there anything else in life you want to achieve?
I want a big and happy family, and I want to decrease animals suffering in the world, I love animals.
We’ll be scheduling even more exclusive interviews like this in the coming weeks to delve into the minds of what makes a blockchain startup tick as well asking the questions you want to know the most.
To make sure you don’t miss out on our exclusive interviews, go ahead and sign-up to our mailing list and subscribe to our social media channels.
Get in touch to let us know who you want us to interview as well as the questions you want us to asks.
You’ll get notifications on the latest exclusive articles as soon as they appear on our website – we won’t and will never spam you.
