Entries from January 2008 ↓

Love and Marriage—The Zopa Way

January 31st, 2008 — Editorial, Fun from Shane @ Zopa Blog USA

Fall in love. Get married. What could be more human? It’s one of the oldest and most beautiful one-two combinations that we have. It’s even older then the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. Okay, maybe not that old. But it’s certainly older than Zopa.
And we’re okay with that, because Zopa, [...]

No news from new agency test

January 31st, 2008 — bad loans, deadbeats from j9359 @ j9359 (my prosper experience)

I’ve got one loan in the “new agency test”.And I replied to the e-mail from Prosper about whether or not I wanted to be bought out or continue to participate in the “test”. I decided to stay in and pass on the $4.12 that was offered. I was expecting …

Lending Club Update #3

January 31st, 2008 — Lending Club, Update, goals from Jeff & Heather @ My Microfinance

LendingClub.com? No controversy or complaints here… That is why I love LendingClub.com! I have been with the ‘club’ for nearly three months and have grown the account to $2,415.11 and have 98 loans under our belt. What really impresses me with LendingClub.com is the communication! Their blog is truly world-class as it isn’t just about [...]

7 Greatest Tech/Web Super Bowl Ads of All Time

January 31st, 2008 — 1984, 1984, Financial Education, Lending Club, bowl, dotcom, promotion, size, spots, super from DebtKid @ Better Rates. Together.

This year, for Super Bowl XLII, a handful of companies will spend millions of dollars hoping to impress America in 30 seconds.
Some dotcom and tech companies’ Super Bowl spots have been flops (Apple’s 1985 “Lemmings” comes to mind), but others will continue to impress and amuse us for many years to come. Here’s to [...]

Tracking Prosper’s Portfolio Plan Performance

January 31st, 2008 — Portfolio Plans, Prosper.com, ROI, Standing Orders, Strategy from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

At the moment, there is no way for a Prosper lender to track the performance of the Portfolio Plans (PP) unless the lender is actually using them. One could use the performance page with criteria from the PP credit segments, but there is no way to filter out by interest rate - the results would include loans where the PP’s were bid off.

Fortunately for us, a relatively new lender stated on the

Prosper’s biggest month since May 2007

January 31st, 2008 — Prosper from zcommodore @ Posts from all blogs

Today, Prosper will begin verifying loans that will originate on February 1st. This means that for all practical purposes, January, 2008 is over, which means we can take a look at the performance numbers for how many loans originated this month alre…

Continue reading → Prosper’s biggest month since May 2007

Month by Month Evaluation

January 31st, 2008 — Defaults, Prosper.com, Strategy, late from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

I spent some time the other day evaluating my Prosper portfolio. Part of the reason for doing this was to see where I’ve been and to help determine where I’ll go in the marketplace.

I took a different approach this time, and looked at originations by month:

I also broke the months into quarters and added a dollar amount column:

Observation 1: Only a few bad decisions will hurt a lot.

First anniversary of Boober

January 31st, 2008 — Boober, Netherlands from wiseclerk @ P2P-Banking.com

A year ago Boober.nl launched as first peer to peer lending service in the Netherlands. While Boober faced some hardship (especially on regulation issues) the first year of Boober can be called a success for the company. So far Boober has funded over 2 million Euro in loans in the Netherlands. Compare this to the 1 [...]

Morning Chimp Movie - Austin Powers

January 31st, 2008 — chimps from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

Site maintenance tomorrow morning (1st February 2008)

January 31st, 2008 — General from Justin @ Zopa blog

We’ll be performing site maintenance tomorrow morning from 6am for around 2 hours. The site will be unavailable while the IT team are busy tinkering. Thank you for your patience and understanding while the work takes place.

Your Personal Financial Football Team

January 31st, 2008 — Finances from Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money

I have mentioned in the past that I’m a huge fan of professional football. My wife calls this Sunday my biggest holiday - and she’s right. Your personal finances have a lot more in common with a football team than you might think. Let’s take it position by position starting at the [...]

Update: RateLadder Prosper Listing Request Reaches 100% Funded

January 31st, 2008 — , Listing Review, Prosper.com, Strategy from RateLadder @ Rate Ladder

Sometime late afternoon on Wednesday (1/30/08) my loan reached 100% funding. This is a critical first step in getting a Prosper loan. Without reaching 100% funded you cannot get a Prosper loan. Reaching 100% funded should be the 1st goal of an Prosper borrower and the tools for reaching 100% should be employed to their fullest.

Choose [...]

Another Reason to Avoid Using Your Credit Card

January 31st, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, agreement, cashiers, devices, merchant, richerbytheday, scanning, signature, thief from Mike Smith @ Better Rates. Together.

High interest rates and fees are increasingly leading many people to consolidate their credit card debt with more affordable options such as person-to-person loans from Lending Club. There are more reasons than interest rates and fees to avoid using a credit card though, such as the ease with which a thief can use your card.
Most [...]

Fight Back Against Rising Costs of Living

January 31st, 2008 — Personal Finance Education from Lazy Man @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending

A couple of weeks ago, I reached for a gallon of milk and nearly fell over. It wasn’t that the milk was heavy or the floor was slippery. No, it was the price tag that caught my eye. The gallon of milk was $4.50. I realize that by choosing to live in northern California, I’m [...]

Not looking too good today

January 30th, 2008 — bad loans, lending from j9359 @ j9359 (my prosper experience)

One of the two

Junk Mail Bruhaha

January 30th, 2008 — Prosper, privacy from Mike @ Prosperous Land

My Microfinance has started a bit of a controversy by claiming that Prosper is selling their personal information to direct-mail marketing organizations.

So recently I’ve had a HUGE surge in junk mail, junk email and junk phone calls from people in …

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Continue reading → Junk Mail Bruhaha

My wife paid off her proserr loan(maybe)

January 30th, 2008 — General from bamalucky @ Posts from all blogs

My wife is trying to pay off her prosper loan,but the money is still in the bank.Prosper system said it would be removed by January 30,but it’s still in her bank account.Perhaps not all problems are to be blamed on borrowers not paying.I just don’t und…

Housing Downturn? Not For This House

January 30th, 2008 — real estate from Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money

Once a month, I make it a habit to pick up a copy of Homes and Land. I’m not looking to buy a home in Northern California, but I like to stay informed about the local real estate market. The homes in this area are among some the most expensive in the nation. [...]

16 Payments - Then Bankruptcy

January 30th, 2008 — Defaults, ROI, Strategy, late from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

Last week* I had a loan hit “late < 15 days” status on the day it was due, meaning no payment was attempted. It also had a “bankruptcy” tag on it, which of course is always bad news.

The bummer of it all is that this borrower has successfully made 16 payments. Yeah, 2 payments were made at the 15 day late mark, but they were still made. 16 freakin’ payments!

Almost halfway into the life of

Morning Chimp Movie - The Full Monty

January 30th, 2008 — chimps from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

This is the funniest of all the chimp movies. Red speedos and all…

“Calling it ‘alf a monty would still be generous.”

Zopa CD Drops to 4.5%

January 30th, 2008 — , Zopa from RateLadder @ Rate Ladder

A few days ago I wrote about the Zopa CD being the best national cd rate at 5.1% after the federal reserve cut the fed funds rate by 75 basis points. RateLadder locked in the 5.1% rate with a 1 year $500 CD.
Alas if you did not take advantage of the 5.1% CD it is no longer [...]

Tips for the Budget-Obsessed

January 30th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, detail, entering, groceries, grocery, receipts, richerbytheday, shopping, trips from Mike Smith @ Better Rates. Together.

As stereotypes go, those who create and follow a budget are often considered financially obsessed by those who don’t. To help you live up to that label, I offer the following idea:
One way to improve your budget is to take on even finer granularity. In addition to using more specific categories in your budget, you [...]

Prosperity and Planning

January 30th, 2008 — Personal Finance Education from Melissa Eastlake @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending

Good personal finance requires education, perseverance and at least a little luck-but really, it all comes down to planning.
Even the tiniest decisions stem, at root, from personal values. Your values teach you to dream-and, for some people, it stops right there. Good decisions-financial, personal, spiritual-come from defining goals that reach those dreams, and then making [...]

Kiva Friends Donate $4,430 to Mirembe Youth Development Projects

January 30th, 2008 — Drew Kinder, P2P Lending, Share an Opportunity Microfinance Ltd., Uganda from Drew Kinder @ Kiva Blogs from the Field

Kampala, Uganda. On Saturday, January 26, 2008 I had the honor and pleasure of presenting a check in the amount of $7,389,750 Uganda Shillings (US $4,430) from Kiva Friends to Florence Kaluuba and the Mirembe Youth Development Projects.

The purpose of this blog is to report back to the generous donors at http://www.kivafriends.org/ who contributed [...]

1st week in Ghana

January 30th, 2008 — Dan Strack, Ghana from danstrack @ Kiva Blogs from the Field

My name is Dan Strack and for the next 2 months I will be living in Cape Coast, Ghana and working with the Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN).
CRAN has 7 branches located throughout the central region of Ghana with its main office in Cape Coast. Cape Coast is a very poor area with some of [...]

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Mistake in Balanced Portfolio Plan SO

January 29th, 2008 — ROI, bad loans, lending from j9359 @ j9359 (my prosper experience)

I’ve been looking over the standing orders in the various portfolio plans to see if there was some opportunity to underbid or cherry pick loans that the SO’s would bid on. As part of this I put together a spread sheet of all the various SO’s. When I …

Prosper and my junk…

January 29th, 2008 — Editorial, Prosper, Update, prosper can suck my junk... mail, prosper wears soiled panties from Jeff & Heather @ My Microfinance

So recently I’ve had a HUGE surge in junk mail, junk email and junk phone calls from people in the past few months. When I asked one of them today where they got my business name (FANAFI Foundation) they politely told me it was SOLD to them by Prosper Marketplace, Inc.! I have had a [...]

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Rich and Famous Discuss Frugality

January 29th, 2008 — Frugal from Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money

Earlier today, I was watching the Super Bowl Media Day coverage, when this little conversation nugget occurred. In a little bit of fun, Patriots’ Tom Brady was taking questions from Pierre Woods, a Patriots player who doesn’t get a lot of playing time. Here’s a paraphrase of the conversation:
Pierre Woods: Everyone says [...]

Tired of working? Make your money do it for you.

January 29th, 2008 — , Financial Education, Lending Club from Kevan Lee @ Better Rates. Together.

For the longest time, I have wanted a personal assistant.
My life is not necessarily busy or hectic, so my secretary would not have to work very hard. But I find it incredibly appealing to wake up in the morning and tell someone, “Hold my calls; I’ll be playing Madden for the next [...]

Commentary on current market rates

January 29th, 2008 — interest rate from Matt @ Prosper Lending Review

There have been some remarkable changes happening recently in the economy. Most interesting for me has been to watch what is happening to interest rates in the bond market. Consider it in these terms:Let’s say that you are a lender looking for a place …

Pence, not pounds

January 29th, 2008 — General from Justin @ Zopa blog

We’ve experienced a problem with the handover from our old banking system to our new one, which has caused a problem with some of the borrower repayments currently processing this month.
Unfortunately, due to teething problems with the software and good old human error, repayments which are usually requested in pence, were requested in pounds.
The error [...]

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Using P2P Lending For Free Credit Reports

January 29th, 2008 — Prosper, borrowers from Mike @ Prosperous Land

My Money Blog has published one of those slightly underhanded tactics that have been known to P2P lending nerds for a while.

Prosper person-to-person lending offers up another perk - a free credit score for prospective borrowers. If you’re a lender …

Lendingclub statistics

January 29th, 2008 — 3rd party services, Lendingclub from wiseclerk @ P2P-Banking.com

Only recently did Lendingclub.com provide the download of statistic data on the Lending Club loans.
Now Eric (who also runs Ericscc.com) started another statistic site, this time providing insights in how the numbers at Lendingclub develop. The following chart shows loan origination by month:

Morning Chimp Movie - Gone with the Wind

January 29th, 2008 — chimps from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

Morning Chimp Movie - Gone with the Wind

January 29th, 2008 — chimps from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

Save Money Round-Up

January 29th, 2008 — Save Money On... from Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money

Not too long ago, I ran a series of ways to save money on many things. I’ve found that it helps keep them fresh in my memory if I review them from time to time. I decided to consolidate them here. If you missed any of them, now is a good time [...]

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Lending Club Stats

January 29th, 2008 — , Features, Lending Club, Site Review from RateLadder @ Rate Ladder

If you want to try Lending Club be sure to sign up with this link to receive $25 bonus.
Until now LendingClub has lacked a customer friendly loan and listing statistics site. Sure you could sql query the data at ProProsper (select * from lendingclubloanstats), even though it is powerful it lacks consumer friendliness and a certain pizazz.
Introducing [...]

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Continue reading → Lending Club Stats

January 29th, 2008 — General from Tanya @ Zopa blog

We have always claimed that a loan from Zopa represents great value for anybody in search of an unsecured loan.
This week, we were doing some new analysis on our customers (we always want to understand how we can better meet our users’ needs). And we discovered some amazing proof.
It turns out that scores of [...]

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Continue reading →

What Door-to-Door Salesmen and Banks Have in Common

January 29th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, door, meat, product, reminded, salesman, salesmen, suits, telecommute from Mike Smith @ Better Rates. Together.

Due to the fact that I telecommute to my day job, I spend my workdays at home. Despite the reduced number of interruptions from colleagues, I still get the occasional interruption at my front door. A recent encounter reminded me of the way banks try to loan you money.
The specific interruption came from a door [...]

Don’t Complain About Research

January 29th, 2008 — Personal Finance Education from Steve of Brip Blap @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending

Meet Bob and Fred. Bob and Fred both have $40,000. Both want to buy a new car, and use anything left over for investing. Bob spends a month researching new cars - he picks out the exact features and colors and styling he wants. He has that budget of $40,000, but he’s determined to get [...]

The Wicked French Lady, My Stinging Shin, and “Looking Good.”

January 29th, 2008 — P2P Lending from janko85 @ Kiva Blogs from the Field

Today was my first day at my MFI, AMK. Paul, the CEO, is a wonderfully nice guy (the nicest ex-pat I’ve ever met here, in fact). He is from the southern suburbs of Chicago. The utter mention of the words south and Chicago in the same sentence immediately frightened me, as if a sudden and [...]

Lending Club Loan Statistics Site Launches

January 29th, 2008 — Lending Club, P2P Lending, Prosper, Prosper.com, lendingclub.com, p2p loans, peer-to-peer lending, peer-to-peer loans from Peer-Lend @ Peer-Lend.com

Last week, peer-to-peer lending provider Lending Club began offering data exports containing a variety of information from their peer-to-peer lending platform/marketplace, including: data for loans that have funded to date, loans whose listings are currently active, and loans which were rejected for not meeting Lending Club’s strict credit qualifications (minimum 640 FICO, with no [...]

Prosper Adds New Collection Agency: AmSher

January 28th, 2008 — prosper news from ProsperBlogger @ Peer to Peer Lending with Prosper

Prosper has started using a new collection agency called AmSher. Many people who follow Prosper view this as a challenge to the weak performace that Penncro has had in collections of late and defaulted loans. I think this is great news and will certainly be a step towards improving the performance of collecting loans that go late.

AmSher is privately held company and is licensed in all fifty states. They have been around since 1939 in a few variations until 1986 when they started in collections.

Many of you might have seen the email announcement from Prosper. While AmSher charges a slightly higher fee for collections, my advice is to change your settings and give them a chance, at the very least to signal to FirstSource and Penncro that there is alot of dissatisfaction with their performance.

You can change this setting in the Account tab > Lending tab > on the bottom right.

Zopa lowers CD rate

January 28th, 2008 — General from bamalucky @ Posts from all blogs

Well,it was coming sooner or later.Was 5.1%.Now 4.5% https://us.zopa.com/cd/Home.aspx

[...]

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Lending Club statistics site published by Eric’s Credit Community

January 28th, 2008 — 3rd party tools, Lending Club, data from tom @ Prosper Lending Review

Eric’s Credit Community just published the first Lending Club statistics analysis site. Current charts include:Loans by statusLending Club loan growthLoan breakdown by creditLoan breakdown by amount The information is updated weekly when Lending Club u…

4 tips for Prosper lenders

January 28th, 2008 — Prosper, lending strategy, prosper news from tom @ Prosper Lending Review

Amy Hoak, who wrote 4 tips for Prosper borrowers for the Wall Street Journal, now has 4 tips for Prosper lenders. Here are Amy’s four tips with my comments.Understand the model - Which one - Prosper, Lending Club, Zopa, or Virgin Money?Listen to the s…

Gaming the Portfolio Plans

January 28th, 2008 — borrowing from j9359 @ j9359 (my prosper experience)

I wonder if borrowers have figured out how to game the portfolio plan standing orders? There seems to be some opportunity for borrowers to tailor their loan listing to fit a portfolio plan standing order. For example, consider a ‘B’, non-AF, zero DQs…

Stats at Last!

January 28th, 2008 — Lending Club, Update from Jeff & Heather @ My Microfinance

There is finally a LendingClub statistics site! I introduce to you…

Use it, bookmark it, pimp it, love it! Kudos to Eric at EricsCC.com for creating this useful tool. I am looking forward to seeing new stat categories available in the future, but the site does the job well with available data! All we need now… [...]

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Continue reading → Stats at Last!

Morning Chimp Movie - Tin Cup

January 28th, 2008 — chimps from LC @ LC's Warm n Fuzzy Prosper Blog

Prosper Threatening $7 Million Month In January

January 28th, 2008 — Prosper, Statistics from Mike @ Prosperous Land

LendingStats recently added a terrific feature that extrapolates the dollar amount of loans expected to completely in a month. They’ve been estimating January to be a $7M month for over a week, and it looks like it’s an actual possibility with Prosper …

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SEP-IRAs: A Primer and a Funding Strategy

January 28th, 2008 — Retirement from Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money

[The following is a guest post by RateLadder.com. I asked him if he would be kind enough to write an article about the SEP-IRA since he has more expertise in the area than I do. He’s also taking an approach that I though readers would find interesting. If you are interested in [...]

People of Prosper

January 28th, 2008 — , Listing Review from RateLadder @ Rate Ladder

Prosper is diverse and outstandingly egalitarian.Â I am celebrating that diversity with a pictorial of credit worthy*** borrowers.Â Everyone of these borrowers has credit worthy of extending credit.Â Do these photos make you want to bid?Â Would you give them a loan?

*** Using my own extremely tight lending credit criteria and the existence of a [...]

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Continue reading → People of Prosper

Price Check Your Wholesale Shopping

January 28th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, bulk, clubs, prices, rolls, sam’s, sizes, towels, wholesale from Mike Smith @ Better Rates. Together.

There were times when shopping at a wholesale club meant saving money on nearly all of your purchases. That isn’t necessarily the case anymore. Pay close attention to prices or you may end up paying too much.
Back in the day, you couldn’t help but save money by shopping at a wholesale club and buying in [...]

Credit Union Consolidation

January 28th, 2008 — Personal Finance Education from Moorea Malatt @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending

The other day, I went to my first Debtors Anonymous meeting. I know, I should remain anonymous, but this stuff is just too helpful not to share! I am only outing myself here. So, I definitely realized, after five minutes that I certainly do need to be in this twelve step program for self improvement, [...]

New LendingClub Stats Site

January 28th, 2008 — , Educational, Financial, money from Eric's Credit Community News @ Eric's Credit Community News

For those of you that are also LendingClub lenders, I’ve just launched a new LendingClub stats site at www.lendingclubstats.com. Check it out when you get a chance and be sure to give feedback about what kind of reports you’d like to see over there.

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Maman Fannie- my neighbor!

January 28th, 2008 — Cote D'Ivoire, Kiva Fellows, Maman Fannie, Megan Berwick, ae&i from meganberwick @ Kiva Blogs from the Field

I first met Deborah, an 11 year old girl, when I was looking for the trash cans outside my building. She happily showed me the way and started chatting me up. Then I met Colom, her older sister, who is 18 and very sweet. We became friends, and they asked if they could visit me [...]

‘Snarky’ blogger critiques Prosper borrowers

January 27th, 2008 — Prosper, borrow, prosper blog, prosper news from tom @ Prosper Lending Review

Before Prosper deleted their forums (archive available at prosperreport.com) lenders would often critique borrowers and share information in an effort to avoid borrowers who were likely to default. Sometimes those discussions would turn up quite a bit…

Continue reading → ‘Snarky’ blogger critiques Prosper borrowers

Sniping Portfolio Plan listings

January 27th, 2008 — lending from j9359 @ j9359 (my prosper experience)

The four Portfolio Plans have various standing orders that they use to bid on loan listings. The criteria are published by Prosper and it is easy to create searches or standing orders to find the same listings. And the interest rate that each standin…

RateLadder Requests Prosper Loan

January 27th, 2008 — , Listing Review, Prosper.com from RateLadder @ Rate Ladder

I am requesting a Prosper Loan. I am a AA, homeowner, verified bank account, Prosper lender with an 11K+ lending portfolio. This is my 1st foray into borrowing on a p2p website. I believe in p2p lending and with this loan I will gain a borrower’s perspective. My loan matches the standing order #4 of the [...]

Prosper Roundup — AmSher is a New Collection Agency Edition

January 27th, 2008 — Misc, Personal Finance Education, prosper news from RateLadder @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending

Prosper is excited to add a new collection agency AmSher. For people wishing to switch to this new collection agency be sure to update your default collection agency, standing orders, and portfolio plans that you are using.
AmSher is a family business. The firm started in 1939 as a credit-clothing store, later expanded into the credit furniture [...]

Aggregating P2P Lending Blogs

Entries from January 2008 ↓