News FeedP2P Lending
LendingClub getting bigger: Now filing with regulators
If you’re an active lender/borrower in the P2P community such as myself, the recent news (seen below) on LendClub’s site may strike as a shocking new development.
“Lending Club 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. Until we complete the registration process, we will not accept new lender registrations or allow new commitments from existing lenders. We will continue to service all previously funded loans during this period, and lenders will be able to access their accounts, monitor their portfolios,…
9Apr2008 | Stephen Oakes | 0 comments | ContinuedProsper’s Portfolio Plans: How to Get the Best Returns
One of the biggest issues any new lender will face is how to gauge what his or her true return on investment is. It is somewhat misleading to bid on a loan with a high interest rate attached because there are so many additional factors that come into play later on that will reduce your overall return.
For example, how many of these loans have historically defaulted? Generally, the higher the credit grade, the higher the return. However, when creating a portfolio plan in Prosper, you can easily score a higher return with a lower credit grade by adjusting constraints…
16Mar2008 | Stephen Oakes | 0 comments | ContinuedProsper Portfolio Plans: Replacement for Standing Orders?
For all of you die hard Prosper lending fans out there, this article will help you better understand some of the recent changes you’ve seen with your lending options.
Perhaps like you, I didn’t have the time of day to search through the thousands of borrower listings that had the potential to be lent to. For about a year, I had used the standing order option to basically automate all the lending and bid on behalf of my own personal lending constraints. This was a great way to continually find the best deals – even while I was asleep at…
16Mar2008 | Stephen Oakes | 0 comments | ContinuedLending Club 101
Now that I have pretty much mastered much of what Prosper is all about, it’s time to take a serious look at their competitor – Lending Club. As I had stated earlier, the sign-up interface is very smooth. The site has an overall energetic feel and although I hate the color orange, there’s something about mixing it with black and using creative visuals that scream “lending can be sexy.”
The first thing I had to do was verify my identity, social security number (tax purposes), bank account, etc. The process is fairly straight forward and simple. When verifying your bank account it…
14Jan2008 | Stephen Oakes | 2 comments | ContinuedLendingClub: P2P Lending Experiment
In my quest to find the highest quality lending rates, I have ventured over to LendingClub. This is not to say that I am dissatisfied with what Prosper has to offer — because I am doing quite well for myself over there.
Instead, I’m looking to test out Lending Club’s system and determine if there are better deals residing in greener pastures.
So far, my experience with LendingClub has been satisfatory. The sign-up was smooth and I do love the website interface. Currently, I am waiting for bank account verification, but should see some progress within a few short days.
Regardless of…
8Jan2008 | Stephen Oakes | 2 comments | ContinuedProsper: My Interview with Chris Larsen (CEO)
Chris Larsen, CEO of Prosper, recently called me to discuss his company and some of the exciting new developments in the works.
Following the conversation, I thought a bit about my first impression of Chris. I can tell you first hand, the guy is a straight shooter who knows the lending business inside and out. What separates his company from the typical establishment is his love for the individual and community.
“Peer-to-peer borrowing/lending is the purest form of capitalism,” said Larsen.
That’s why after founding E-Loan in 1996, he chose to focus on an entirely new approach to lending. After taking E-Loan…
19Sep2007 | Stephen Oakes | 0 comments | ContinuedQuestion & Answer with Prosper’s CEO - Chris Larsen
My Prosper Interview with Chris Larsen:
S.O. - Could you please introduce yourself and how you came up with the idea for Prosper?
C.L. - Chris Larsen, Co-Founder and CEO of Prosper. The idea behind Prosper really stems from my experience as co-founder of E-LOAN. At E-LOAN, we were able to fundamentally change the mortgage, home equity and auto lending process and experience for the benefit of consumers. By putting people in control of both sides of the transaction – the lending side and the borrowing side – Prosper takes the idea and vision behind E-LOAN to the next level. In many…
19Sep2007 | Stephen Oakes | 1 comment | ContinuedProsper Options
I recently wrote in to Prosper’s customer support asking if there was any way I could do a standing order search that removed any potential borrower with a delinquency history.
Well, the response just came in and I was shocked to discover that they do in fact have these options built in. the problem was that all of their search windows were already expanded. However, the more options section was not automatically expanded. So, I figured that was all I had to work with.
In the chart below you will notice the section I overlooked time and time again.
Here’s…
7Sep2007 | Stephen Oakes | 0 comments | ContinuedWhen Prosper Loans Go Bad…
In my previous post, I told you about some of the loans that were late in my lending portfolio. While on lendingstats.com I noticed something peculiar.
I started paying attention to the title of the loans that borrowers create when trying to attract potential lenders. It seems that hyped up titles can give clues as to the nature of the borrower.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ll received some type of bogus advertisement in the mail and everything just explodes off the page. One word immediately jumps in my mind — SCAM.
All the letters are capitalized, exclamation points are…
30Aug2007 | Stephen Oakes | 1 comment | Continued
Loading ...
