P2P No Bank

In an email announcement that went out to active lenders last week, LendingClub previewed a couple of new upcoming features.
First, LendingClub will start mapping borrower and lender activity on a map by user zip code. For borrowers, loan amounts and interest rates will be displayed. For lenders, portfolio amounts (capped at $10k) will be displayed. [...]

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Continue reading → LendingClub introduces mapping, top lenders list

In an email dated today, Prosper announced that they would be removing the so-called “Group Leader Rewards” option which allows Prosper group leaders to collect a portion of their borrowers’ interest payment as a fee for providing service (in the form of the group’s performance and reputation) to the borrower.

Frustrated lenders (and non-reward-collecting group leaders) [...]

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Continue reading → Prosper Announces Major Changes to Groups Concept

MicroPlace, a US-to-developing world P2P lending platform (somewhat like Kiva) is scheduled to launch some time this fall, possibly as early as September. MicroPlace will let Americans with as little as $100 make a low-interest loan to an entrepreneur in a developing nation through a microfinance institution. The big difference between MicroPlace and Kiva, which [...]

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Continue reading → eBay’s MicroPlace readies for launch

On August 23, LendingClub announced that they were about to close a Series A round of funding for $10.2 million from Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. This first round of venture capital follows a $2 million round of angel investments to date.
Along with the funding, LendingClub announced that Jeff Crowe (Norwest Venture Partners) and [...]

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Continue reading → LendingClub raises $10.2M Series A

On August 13, Zopa solicited feedback in an online chat for a new feature they’re calling “Zopa Listings”. If you’re familiar with what a listing is on Prosper (basically, a public and personal request for a loan), then you know what a Zopa listing is.
The differences between a Zopa listing and a Prosper listing are [...]

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Continue reading → Zopa planning to introduce borrower listings

In a press release Monday, Prosper announced a joint venture with Japan-based SBI Holdings to expand the Prosper brand into the Japanese and other Asian markets. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hayato Kameta has been picked to become CEO of Prosper Japan. Regulatory and technical integration hurdles remain before the site can be opened [...]

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Continue reading → Prosper in joint venture with SBI Holdings for Prosper Japan

Today, P2P lending marketplace Prosper announced an additional $20 million in financing from DAG Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners. This is Prosper’s third round of funding, and brings the total in venture capital raised by the company to $40 million.
This makes Prosper the most heavily-financed P2P lending site in the world, pulling ahead of Zopa, [...]

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Continue reading → Prosper secures another $20M in financing

LendingClub, a new person-to-person lending site based in Sunnyvale, CA, launched during last night’s Facebook f8 event in San Francisco. LendingClub, headed by founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche, has raised $2 million in angel funding, and has about 18 employees.
For the moment, the site is only accessible through Facebook, but will eventually be available to [...]

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Continue reading → LendingClub launches social P2P lending site on Facebook

CircleLending, the Massachusets-based facilitator of P2P loans, announced on May 15 that Virgin USA, the North American investment arm of Virgin (the UK-based Richard Branson company) had acquired a majority stake. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
CircleLending hasn’t been included in the discussion here in the past because, although they do facilitate loans between [...]

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Continue reading → Virgin USA acquires CircleLending, enters US banking market

The winners of the Internet’s answer to the Cable Ace Awards, The Webby Awards, were announced today. And in true internet style, startup Zopa beat two huge banks in the category of top Banking/Bill Paying web site. The real irony is that Bank of America won the People’s Choice award.
Kudos go to design agency Poke [...]

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Continue reading → Zopa wins Webby Award for Banking/Bill Paying

Booberwatch, a data site that provides lending stats for Dutch P2P lending site Boober, launched recently. My Dutch is a little roestig (rusty), but Booberwatch is a great-looking site with lots of interesting data, and includes a reasonably active forum (for a site that’s one week old, it has 50 registered users) and some polls. The [...]

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Continue reading → Booberwatch gives Boober an ecosystem

Yesterday, Zopa sent out yet another email message to its US audience announcing the imminent launch of Zopa US. This marks the third time that Zopa has made serious claims about launching a P2P lending site in the US:

Crossing the Pond - Jan 2006, launch estimated for “early this year (2006)”, later revised to “Q2 [...]

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Continue reading → Zopa US - the boy who cried wolf

To start this blog off, I thought it would be good to list all of the known web-based P2P lending outfits around the world.
Europe:

Zopa - UK, launched Apr 2005
Boober - Netherlands, launched Feb 2007

Smava - Germany, launched Mar 2007
FairRates - Denmark, launched Mar 2007

America:

Kiva - USA, launched Mar 2005
Prosper - USA, launched Feb 2006
PalTrust - [...]

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• Netherlands Europe Coins World Coins Paper Money

Continue reading → P2P Lending Landscape