P2P-Banking.com

Here is a short KCBS video on Prosper.com. Nothing really new. Basic intro

Note: By clicking on the “Mash” button you can easily integrate this video into your blog or website. Nice.
Even better is the automatic video feed on new prosper stories you can get here for your site. Test it now.

British Zopa.com just published a spreadsheet with Zopa default rate figures. The weighted average of overall defaults is a tiny 0.1% ! Even more interesting all defaulted cases happened in 2005 or the first half of 2006.

Another interesting read is this case study on Zopa (published late 2006).

Following up on my earlier post regarding the LendingClub launch read Colin Henderson's view on this. Furthermore in this blog it says (without giving sources):

For the moment, the site is only accessible through Facebook, but will eventually be available to the public.

Ireloans.com has announced that it will offer p2p lending in Ireland. (Source: barcampBank)

Other services still in prelaunch phase include CommunityLend.com in Canada and One2Money.de in Germany (Source: Springwise.com)

Today, Lendingclub.com launched offering a p2p lending service to Facebook members. Members can request loans between $1000 and $25000. Other facebook members can the lend the money to the borrower. While technically not arranging loans between freinds like CircleLending, Lendingclub makes uses of the social network and the trust that users have into it. Lendingclub combines aspects from other p2p lending sites like Prosper.com and Zopa.com.

Comparing it to Prosper:

• Lendingclub requires higher credit score as threshold for borrowers to apply (640 compared to Prosper's 520)
• Lendingclub suggests an interest rate based on the borrowers credit grade rather than letting the borrower set an interest rate.
• There are groups like at Prosper

Lendingclub uses what it calls "LendingMatch" to automatically match parties on shared connection it finds. Lenders can additionally manually select and search loans.

The founders of Lendingclub, one of them has a background at Mastercard, raised $2 million in angel funding (source: VentureBeat). 

Using an existing social network gives Lendingclub a great marketing advantage over competitor Prosper.com, which had to build its memberbase starting from zero.

The Dutch site Frooble.nl, which was announced to start as competition for Boober.nl, was in public beta mode for only a few days before it was closed to the public by the founders who cited technical problems and said they hope to launch again in September after solving these.

In his blog, John Witchel, CTO of Prosper.com, describes the current situation regarding the sale of defaulted loans. This offers an insight look at the problems and the future plannings. Check the comments, too.

As Netbanker reports, Prosper.com is advertising on Bankrate.com. Article speculates if this customer acquisition strategy will yield a positive ROI.

Virgin USA has bought CircleLending.com. Unlike Prosper.com CircleLending handels p2p lending between people that knew each other before the transaction, e.g. friends or relatives. Its purpose is to help structuring and managing private loans. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Franz Hetzenauer, founder of tulip computers, bought 17.5 percent of dutch p2p banking platform Boober.nl. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Boober aims to branch into other European countries this year.