P2P-Banking.com

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 two MFIs active (VSSU and Oasis Microfinance), which list loans in India and Cameroon offering 3% interest rates.

Lenders can bid in multiples of 20 Euro. Currently uploading money is done via Paypal. Credit card payments will become available next week.

Veecus is run by a french limited company, run and owned by the co-founders Clément Carjat and Baptiste Fabre. Veecus will make money from a “volume-based fee paid by microfinance institutions once they
have received funds for microentrepreneurs projects.” as well as a 1 Euro one-time signup-fee from each lender.

The site is available in english and french language (the company blog is in french only). If you have tried Veecus please share your experiences with the community in our Forum.

The concept has similarities to Kiva and MyC4.

Image: One of the current project loan listings.

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 Jean-Christophe Capelli last year contributed the guest article ‘The situation of social lending in France‘.

French language blog sources with more background information: insiden, duperrin.com

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 lucky week according to the Loanio blog - not only did he launch Loanio, but he also won $1,000 in the New York State Lottery.

(more…)

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 a list of states (with max. interest rates), open to Loanio borrowers. You are welcome to discuss your thoughts on Loanio in Wiseclerk’s Loanio Forum.

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 (Experian) of 569 or with a Co-Borrower with a higher score can borrow at Loanio, provided Loanio is licensed in their state. Currently this is not the case everywhere (e.g. when I looked today, it was not available to California or Florida borrowers). The maximum loan amount is dependant on the state limits (e.g. 25.000 US$ in New York).
Terms are 36, 48 or 60 months. Borrowers can repay the loan early without penalties.
Borrowers pay a origination fee of 1 to 4% of the loan amount (dependant on credit grade). Borrowers can opt for platinum verification which costs 35-45 US$. If chosen, Loanio verifies photo identification, proof of income, bank account, employment, salary, postal address and homeownership.

Second loans are possible if the first loan has been paid at least 6 months on time.

The initial interest rate is set by the borrower. If the listing ends with less then 100% but more then 35% funding, the borrower can elect to accept a loan for the funded amount (partial funding).

Lenders

All US residents can lend. Lenders are charged a 1.25% annual servicing fee. Lenders bid at the interest rate they want, lowering the interest of fully funded loans in an auction based style.

Co-Borrowers

Co-Borrowers have so far not been used often in peer to peer lending.  To make loans to users with lower credit grades more secure for lenders Loanio introduced this feature, which might be used by close relatives or friends of the borrower.

(more…)

Swiss Cashare.ch recently launched as the first p2p lending platform in Switzerland. The company, owned by Michael Borter (link to German language interview) and Roger Mueller has partnered with the collection agency C&S Credit Management AG, which handles all monetary transactions.
Interest rates and loan durations are set by borrowers and lenders bid in a 14 day auction (minimum bid amount is 500 CHF which is approx 500 US$). If the loan is fully funded further bids in the remaining auction period will cause the interest rate to drop in 0.1 percentage steps, while old bids are outbid.

The fee schredule includes:

• For lenders and borrowers: 5 CHF fee for identification process
• For borrowers: 19 CHF listing fee
• For borrowers: 0.75% of the loan amount per year servicing fee
• For lenders: 0.75% of the loaned amount per year servicing fee

This results in borrowers having to pay even if their loan does not fund.

An unusual point in the process is that lenders have to sign a written contract for each successful bid and send it via postal mail to Cashare. That seems a bit uncomfortable to handle. 

As Cashare launched only recently there currently are only 4 active loan listings. 

If you have used Cashare as a borrower or lender, please share you experiences in the forum. Thank you.

Fynanz.com, currently launching for borrowers in New York and Florida, offers peer to peer lending to students.

The service differs from other p2p lending service in many points.

1. The private student loans, also known as "alternative student loans", Fynanz offers have variable interest rates. Other p2p lending services so far operate only with fixed interest rates. At Fynanz interest rates are based on the LIBOR index, adjusted quarterly, plus a margin which is set by lenders. Suggested margins are 3 to 7.5% for a typical overall interest rate of 6 to 11% before fees.
   This is higher then federal student loans, but Fynanz still sees a large market, since federal student loans have borrowing limits and may not cover the entire costs of education.
2. Very long loan terms of 10 to 20 years. Again unsual, but lenders may offer to sell loans after one year at a discount to Fynanz. There also seems to be the option to transfer a loan to a different lender (allowing the sale to a different lender).
3. Students can select to defer interest payments while in school and for a 6 month grace period after leaving school.
4. Loan amounts range from 2,500 to 20,000 US$ per loans. Borrowers may take out up to four loans per year to a total maximum of 160,000 US$. That is an unprecedented amount in p2p lending.
5. The fees are pretty high in my opinion. Borrowers pay 2.9, 4.9 or 6.9% (depending on FACS) of the loan amount origination fee. Addionaly borrowers pay 1% guarantee fee into the guarantee fund until they have repaid 10% of the loan amount. Lenders pay a 1% servicing fee (not while loan is in deferment)
6. Guarantee for lenders. Not only in case of identity theft, but also in cases of defaults Fynanz protects 50 to 100% (depending on FACS grade) of the loan amount.
7. Fynanz applies it's own FACS grade (Fynanz Academic Credit Score) to rate borrowers. It not only relies on the credit history but also on academic charateristics.
8. Pledge bids allow lenders to bid without having funds in account. Lenders must transfer money within 5 days of bidding.
9. Fynanz has a "bid priority" that ranks four types of types of lenders in the following order: the highest priority lenders are friends and family of the borrower; then alumni of the borrower’s school; third are unaffiliated lenders; and fourth is Fynanz itself.

Hollowoak has some more interesting points from the lender agreement in his blog, which Chirag Chaman, Fynanz CEO commented on.

To browse listings go to the Fynanz listings page.

Further information ressources include Tom's review, the comprehensive FAQ and the new Fynanz blog answering questions.

Overall it will be interesting to see how Fynanz develops. If you use Fynanz as a lender or borrower please share you experiences in the forum.

In Poland there will be three p2p lending services competing for borrowers and lenders:

• Kokos.pl (launched). I did an interview with Kokos last week.
• Finansowo.pl (launching within next week)
• Monetto.pl (launching soon)

The services are positioned quite differently, with different minimum loan sizes ranging from 500 PLN (approx 200 US$) to 3,000 PLN. Furthermore Finansowo appearantly will not do any credit score checking and "will not touch the money", so apparently payments need to be conducted directly between borrower and lender. 

All sites target a young audience aged 22 to 34 and think that Polish customers are open to new ideas.

(Source: Virtuous cycle)

Kokos.pl launched the first p2p lending service in Poland. I interviewed Dorota Janik, PR Manager of Bluemedia, about the new service.

P2P-Banking.com: Can you please describe Kokos?

Dorota Janik: Kokos.pl is the first p2p lending or social lending system in Poland. It opens new possibilities in e-finance industry and fills a niche between offers of banks and other financial institutions.

The main advantage of Kokos.pl is being able to offer a much more beneficial interest range for both the lenders and borrowers, and a higher level of security than on other web based auction systems.

The most stress has been put on the borrower verification process. Kokos.pl uses Biuro Informacji Gospodarczej (BIG) to check borrowers credit history and to assign their rating in the system. (more…)

IOU central launched the first active p2p lending service in Canada today. Borrowers can request loans from 1,000 to 25,000 CAN$ and select a term between 1 and 36 months. IOU central allows the borrower to specify a minimum amount at which he will accept the loan, should it not fully fund in the 2 weeks listing duration. IOU Central pulls the TransRisk credit score of the borrower, provided by Transunion Canada. According to the press release, lenders can expect to earn interest rates between 5 and 25 percent.

Borrowers pay a closing fee ranging from 1 to 3 percent depending on their credit score. Lenders pay an annual servicing fee of 0.5 percent of the open principal balance. Only Canadian residents can borrow or lend. The borrower needs to have a Trans union credit score.

Borrowers may have several loans, but the total outstanding principal may not exceed 25,000 CAN$.

Lenders earn interest on deposited money (bank prime rate minus 2.5%). Individuals may lend up to 5 million CAN$. Corporations may lend up to 50 million CAN$. Minimum bid amount is 25 CAN$.

Studying the team of IOU Central I noticed Robert Bialek (VP Technology) and Arkadiusz Hajduk (Product Manager), which were the founders of FairRates.dk, a p2p lending service in Denmark, which now is part of IOU Central. An assumption would be that IOU Central acquired (or merged with) the company, to gain the knowledge and experience made.

The IOU Central launch did beat Communitylend in being first in the Canadian market. Communitylend has long announced to launch a Canadian peer to peer lending service, but has not launched yet. 

To discuss IOU central, the lending or borrowing experience or to ask questions on the service you can use Wiseclerk's IOU Central forums.

(Link)