P2P No Bank

Wokai.org launched today. Wokai allows contributers to aid small entrepreneurs in China through microfinance. A month ago I wrote a preview about Wokai.
Here is what founders Casey Wilson and Courtney McColgan wrote about launching:
Dear Friends,
We are delighted to report that Wokai.org is now live! Just two years ago, we were students in Beijing, dreaming about [...]

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Continue reading → Wokai launch

MyC4.com has a great concept with an ambitious goal: ‘Let’s end poverty by 2015′. Lenders can invest in African businesses of small entrepreneurs. MyC4 gained a lot of positive media coverage and received awards.
The realization of this concept is an enormous task, facing many hurdles. Since MyC4 is transparent and lenders earn interest problems do [...]

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Continue reading → Plausibility check?

When Prosper.com went in the quiet period the company announced on its blog:
If you’re a borrower seeking a loan, you will still be able to create a new loan listing, which we will endeavor to fulfill through alternative sources.
The way this works is that Prosper refers loan applicants to other lending companies. After answering [...]

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Continue reading → Prosper refers loan applicants to other companies

The German domain name kredit.de was sold today for 892,000 Euro (approx 1.14 million US$). ‘Kredit’ is the german word for ‘loan’, a very valuable keyword in targeting consumers seeking loans online.
The domain was bought by Unister GmbH from the Abacho AG. It is the highest price ever for a domain sale of the country [...]

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Continue reading → Domain kredit.de sold for record price: 892,000 Euro

Found this today. Someone using Lending Club’s new Note Trading Platform seems to speculate that a bulk buyer of notes might overlook the added zero in the value?

Retrieved Nov. 3rd, 2008 - some columns have been removed to allow better overview.

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Continue reading → Hoping for a quick gain on Lending Club trades?

One of the downsides of p2p lending service Prosper.com are high default rates. Results from collection attempts are low.
In an attempt to test alternatives to the existing collection process Prosper in January selected 66 cases of nonpaying borrowers and turned them over to the law firm Hunt & Henriques to pursue these cases in court.
Fred [...]

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Continue reading → Prosper loses several lawsuits against non-payers

The Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) and CSR Capital have decided to invest a total of DKK 15 million (approx. EUR 2.2 million) in Africa through MYC4. The Danish Development Minister Ulla Tørnæs supports the decision.
“This is an extremely important milestone for MYC4. That IFU and CSR Capital now invest through MYC4 is an [...]

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Continue reading → IFU and CSR Capital invest 2.2M Euro in Africa via MyC4

Loanland launched last October as the first p2p lending company in the swedish market (see ‘Loanland launches peer to peer lending in Sweden‘). Since then about 5.7 million SEK (approx. 0.75 million US$) loan volume has been funded .
Ville Vesterinen has published more information about Loanland in the ArcticStartup blog:
The company is currently providing [...]

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Continue reading → Loanland update - p2p lending in Sweden

ABC interviewed Renauld Laplanche of Lending Club on ABC Money Matters. Laplanche says in the last 10 days over 1 million US$ in loans were funded and states that the default rate has been lower than 2% over the last 18 months. Watch the video.

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Continue reading → Video interview with Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club

P2P lending is spreading internationally. While the biggest loan volumes are generated in the US market, many p2p lending websites have been established in other international markets.
The services can be divided in three categories:

p2p lending marketplaces (e.g. Prosper, Zopa, Lending Club, Smava) - participants driven mainly by economic motives
social lending services enabling micro financing (e.g. [...]

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Continue reading → P2P lending companies by loan volume

No, not talking about fruits or birds here. Nexx.co.nz develops a p2p lending service in New Zealand. Nexx now succeeded in raising 600,000 NZ$ (approx 330.000 US$). Quite an achievement in the surrounding conditions of the credit crunch.
Nexx, an on-line social lending business being developed by four young entrepreneurs at business growth centre The [...]

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Continue reading → Nexx - P2P lending for Kiwis - gets 600,000 NZ$ in funding

Californian non-profit United Prosperity developed a new twist to social lending - it is a peer to peer guarantee website. Instead of lending money directly and thus needing to transfer it internationally the “social guarantor” provides a cash collateral. This enables the small entrepreneur in the developing country to get a loan from a local [...]

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Continue reading → Unitedprosperity.org - guarantee a microloan to small entrepreneur in India

Polish p2p lending service Kokos.pl recently added insurance options for borrowers. Kokos offers the insurances in cooperation with Cardif Polska S.A and Cardif Assurances Risques Divers S.A.. Insuarable risks include death, disability to work and unemployment. There is a choise of 8 different insurance packages.
via antyweb

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Continue reading → Kokos adds insurance

Non profit Wokai.org will allow contributers to donate to give microfinance loans to borrowers in China. Like Kiva and MyC4, Wokai partners with local MFIs which identify and screen potential microentrepreneur clients. Selected clients are then posted on the Wokai website through profiles that outline their business ventures and loan request. Contributers can select borrowers [...]

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Continue reading → Wokai preview - donate to enable microfinance

Asked by Netbanker whether Loanio.com will face an SEC filing process and a quiet period like Prosper and Lending Club, Loanio CEO Michael Solomon answered:
“…from the perspective of (Prosper) going silent, it is actually great for us as I think we will quickly gain lots of lenders and hopefully we can wow them into sticking [...]

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Continue reading → Loanio says it won’t face registration process in near future

MyC4 will cancel 105 open and pending loans to borrowers in Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire). This is scheduled to take place next week. Money from the bids will be returned to the lenders. Some lenders are unsatisfied with the situation as the bids in these loans tied up their money for up to 6 weeks [...]

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Continue reading → MyC4 cancels 200,000 Euro pending Ivory Coast loans

Kiva has achieved the third place in the American Express Members project vote (see earlier coverage “Kiva celebrates 3rd bithday“) and wins a 300,000 US$ grant. In a “Thank you” post Lyndsey Erikson, Kiva writes:
This grant money will help Kiva to enable $6 million in loans to an additional 12,000 developing world entrepreneurs over the [...]

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Continue reading → Kiva wins 300,000 US$ grant

A day after the start of the secondary market (see: “Lending Club allows lenders to trade their investments“) of Lendingclub.com, today 3 loans are offered for sale. I doubt that these Lendingclub loans will find a buyer, since they are all more then 60 days late and the discounts of the asking price versus the [...]

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Continue reading → First loans for sale on Lending Club’s Note Trading Platform

Prosper.com announced that it is entering a quite period:
Prosper has started a process to register, with the appropriate securities authorities, promissory notes that may be offered and sold to lenders through our site in the future.
The registration filing is a necessary step toward making the secondary lending market available to the community. This is something [...]

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Continue reading → Prosper enters quite period for registration statement filing

Maneo.jp today launched the first active p2p lending service in Japan. The service connects lenders (aged 20-65) and borrowers (aged 20-60). Maneo verifies the identity, credit grade and the income of potential borrowers (minimum annual income required is approx. 30,000 US$). Borrowers then create a loan listing and set a maximum interest rate. Lenders can [...]

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Continue reading → Maneo launch in Japan

Lendingclub.com has introduced a secondary market for lenders. This is a major step, because one disadvantage for lenders in p2p lending was the lack of liquidity. Once the money was lend it was tied up (apart from repayments) until the end of the loan term (typically 36 months and more).
Through it’s secondary market - called [...]

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Continue reading → Lending Club allows lenders to trade their investments

As reported in the previous post, Lendingclub.com is open for new lenders. However lenders have to meet two requirements:
Resident in one of 15 approved states:
The Notes are presently being offered and sold solely to residents of the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, [...]

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Continue reading → Lending Club - requirements for new lenders

P2P lending service Lendingclub.com, which was in a quite period not accepting new lenders and bids from existing lenders, today announced that it completed it’s SEC registration. LendingClub is now resuming it’s full p2p lending service and again accepting new lenders.
See: Lending Club completes $600 million SEC filing
More to follow…

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Continue reading → Breaking news: Lending Club out of quiet period - accepts new lenders again

This week the new social lending service Veecus.com launched. Veecus is a peer-to-peer microfinance network. It allows microentrepreneurs from all over the world to access funds to develop their projects. Lenders can select projects, invest and take part in economic development.
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) supply the loan listings and set the interest rates. Currently there are [...]

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Continue reading → Veecus launches peer to peer microfinance

After several hours speculation following an email sent to some US lenders of Zopa including the statement “In addition, the Zopa social networking Web site will no longer be available as of October 9, 2008″, the Zopa CFO (UK) has posted a clarifing statement on the Zopa discussion board.
The email from Affinity Plus is partially [...]

Continue reading → Breaking news: Zopa withdraws from US market

Smava.de, offering p2p lending in Germany, today successfully closed it’s second VC round. Earlybird and Neuhaus Partners invested 4 million Euro (approx 5.5 million US$). Earlybird did already invest 4 million Euro in Smava in the first round. Smava CEO Alexander Artopé announced that Smava will use the money for product development, marketing and internationalization.
Smava [...]

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Continue reading → Smava raises 4 million Euro in second VC round

Social lending site Kiva.org celebrates it’s third anniversary. In this time Kiva loans with a volume of approximately 45 million US$ have been financed by over 340,000 Kiva users worldwide.  The repayment rate is quoted as 98.6% (see more stats).
Currently Kiva hopes to win a 1.5 million US$ grant in the American Express members project [...]

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Continue reading → Kiva celebrates 3rd birthday

Friendsclear.com has launched a french p2p lending service. Due to regulation issues it does differ very much from p2p lending services like Prosper or Zopa. Friendsclear only offers the tools for lenders and borrowers to agree on and document a loan and its payment. Friendsclear is not involved in the transfer of the money itself.
Director [...]

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Continue reading → Friendsclear launches in France

If you sign up at Loanio.com as a new lender using this link, the peer to peer lending service Loanio will credit you $25. This promotion may be time-limited, so sign-up now, even if you want to start lending later.

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Continue reading → Loanio credits you a $25 sign-up bonus

Tom of Prosper Lending Review found out that when he tried to request a Zopa loan not only was he rejected, but the Zopa credit inquiry was listed on his credit report. Unlike other p2p lending services in the US Zopa does a hard pull. The Zopa FAQ states:
We think it’s best if you assume [...]

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Continue reading → Requesting a Zopa (US) loan can harm your credit history

After the Loanio launch yesterday, already some more loan listings are up at Loanio.com. Right now I count 8 listings. Probably more are in the making. No bids yet, which is not surprising as the lenders have to sign up and transfer money to Loanio first.
Michael Solomon, the CEO and founder of Loanio had a [...]

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Continue reading → Loanio - more loan listings on first day

Last week I titled ‘Loanio Launch‘. That was a little premature (I was not the only one fooled by the site apparently going live - see Tom’s blog). Well today Loanio.com is really live. And there are 5 listings at the moment (see screenshot). For a list of features see the previous loanio coverage.

Netbanker has [...]

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Continue reading → Loanio launch II

Zopa.it goes live: 16th January 2008*
Average gross return on money lent-out through Zopa.it: 7.66%
Average annual cost on loans (APR) borrowed through Zopa.it: 9.45%
Registered members of Zopa.it: 23,242
Total loan volume since launch: €2,787,090
Number of loans: 535
Loan volume currently under evaluation process: €336,690
Average loan amount: €5,210
Average loan duration: 31 months
Amount rate late:€6,622.24 (percentage amount late: 1.88%) = [...]

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Continue reading → Zopa.it - facts and figures

Eight months* after the launch of Zopa Italy the p2p lending service says it is the fastest growing in Europe (2.79 million Euro = approx 4.075 million US$ cumulative loan volume as of Sept. 3rd).
And Zopa Italy is the first social lending service with an active secondary market, called Rientro Rapido (fast-track withdrawal).
Rientro Rapido offers [...]

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Continue reading → Zopa Italy update - growth and secondary market

Updated: Just after I wrote this, access to the Loanio website has been restricted again.
Finally! After more than a year of anticipation and announcements Loanio has entered the p2p lending stage. When I looked there were no loan listings yet, so let’s have a look on the concept in the meantime.
Borrowers
US residents with a VantageScore [...]

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Continue reading → Loanio launch!

The study “What’s in a Picture? Evidence of Discrimination from Prosper.com” by the economic professors Devin Pope and Justin Sydnor finds:
We analyze discrimination in a new type of credit market known as peer-to-peer lending. Specifically, we examine how lenders in this online market respond to signals of characteristics such as race, age, and gender that [...]

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Continue reading → Does p2p lending lead to discrimination?

Indian non-profit RangDe.org attempts to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing India. To fight poverty it wants to make microcredit available to everyone at affordable rates. Individual lenders (investors) can lend as little as 1,000 Indian Rupees (approx. 21 US$).
Lenders can select a borrower by browsing profiles. RangDe’s field partners receive and [...]

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Continue reading → RangDe - social lending in India

Zopa reached 25 million pounds in loans. Zopa states cash depositers received an average 8.3% return after charges at a default rate of 0.04 percent. (Sources: Zopa, Financial Times)

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Continue reading → Zopa UK reached 25 million GBP in loans

About a year ago I started lending money to African entrepreneurs via MyC4.com.  So far it did meet my expectations. The process of uploading money worked without problems, there were always enough loan applications to select from and the offered interest rates were high enough to allow for good returns despite the risks. The only [...]

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Continue reading → 7.9% ROI on my MyC4 loans in the past year

In the past Kiva used to credit repayments to the lender accounts only after a loan was repaid in full.
That changed last week when I received the following email from Kiva:
We are happy to announce that Kiva will now return repayments to lenders
as soon as those repayments are received by Kiva. Because of this
change, you’ll [...]

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Continue reading → Kiva repayments now immediately available for reinvestment

When I decided to withdraw some money from my Kiva account, I was informed:
This email confirms your withdrawal request of $25.00. You can expect the funds to be deposited into your paypal account within 1-3 weeks.
This astonished me. The withdrawal is conducted via paypal (as is the upload). The upload was almost instantly. Therefore [...]

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Continue reading → It takes weeks to withdraw money from my Kiva account

Short news update on Prosper.com developments:

Changes at the Prosper management team: John Witchel (former CTO) and Tom Pigoski are no longer listed as part of the management team. A comment on this blog post indicates that John Witchel has left the company while Tom Pigoski is on family leave. Chris Denend is now CTO.
Prosper [...]

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Continue reading → Some Prosper news

German p2p lending service Smava has sent its lenders an email asking them to produce short videos telling their personal experiences using Smava. Smava offers 50 Euro (approx. 75 US$) for each user generated video that is sent to Smava and published.
Three (older) videos by Smava lenders can be viewed here.

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Continue reading → Marketing - Smava asks users to videotape their experiences

Zopa UK has raised fees for new lenders to 1% (annual of capital outstanding). Old lenders continue to be served at the 0.5% fee.

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Continue reading → Zopa UK raises fees for new lenders

MyC4.com will start to offer loans in Rwanda next week. This is the fourth country MyC4 is lending at, after Uganda, Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. Mads Kjaer, CEO of MyC4, is quoted that Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal and South Africa will follow. In 2009 he aims to serve borrowers in 20 countries in Africa. (Source)
In a [...]

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Continue reading → MyC4 starts offering loans in Rwanda next week