Marketplace Lender CommonBond Expands Student Loan Refis

CommonBond has expanded its student loan refinancing program to more than 2,000 universities at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

The expansion, from 200 schools previously, follows a recent announcement that the marketplace lending platform had raised $35 million in Series B funding. CommonBond aims to provide personalized loans with lower interest rates than traditional lenders.

The New York company also debuted a refinancing program Tuesday that refinances federal Parent PLUS loans that parents take out to fund their children's undergraduate education.

"While student loan debt weighs heavily on millennials, we also saw a big need in the market to provide a new option for parents who carry student debt on behalf of their children," David Klein, co-founder and chief executive of CommonBond, said in a news release Tuesday.

The company said that it is on track to originate more than $500 million in loans by the end of 2015 and to exceed $1 billion in loans funded in 2016.

It made its first trip to the securitization market in June, raising approximately $100 million.

CommonBond's refinance loans pose a risk to investors in securitizations of federally guaranteed student loans, because the borowers that it targets are among the strongest in these pools. Taking them out leaves an even higher concentration of borrowers who are either delinquent, in forbearance, or in an income-based repayment plan.