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Today a new MyC4 release went online. The new version allows multiple standing orders which can be targeted by country, provider and/or industry of the borrower. There are several small improvements in usability, e.g. display of borrower APR.
MyC4 users have transfered 507,000 Euro in funds, but so far only 214,000 Euro of those have been loaned. Demand in loan opportunities is lagging behind investor's cash looking for investments. The majority of lenders (investors) still is Danish - MyC4 is located in Denmark, but the number of investors in other countries is rising.
So far I am satisfied with MyC4. I have invested in more than 50 active loans - true microloans - sometimes my share is as low 10 Euro - and so far everything is going smooth. Another 16 bids are on open listing opportunities.
Note: Most of the following is an observation of lenders opinions voiced in the Prosper forums (with sources given). The opinions voiced in the cited threads are the opinions of the individual lenders who posted them.
Looking into the lender section at the Prosper.com forums part of the posting lenders seem to be in open rebellion. Titles of threads from the last two days include "FLASH:Prosper bans $100.000 lender", "Prosper Mng. Living Under a Rock", "Shooting the Messenger", "What happens if Prosper goes under?", "I am done lending on Prosper", "Hello Prosper Moderator", "Lender's WHO are DONE with Prosper", "My letter to Prosper", "Open letter to John Witchel"
Topics include lack of communication from prosper, failure to adress process problems, banning lenders, closing threads, … .
Posts call for "Class Action Lawsuit", informing Venture Capital firms who funded Prosper about the situation as the lenders posting see it and the call for withrawing funds.
One main cause for the unrest are the low ROIs large long term lenders are experiencing. This post says there are 203 lenders which have loans over 6 month old and more the 25K invested. For these the post says the average estimated ROI is 1.91%.
The result is that some long time lenders churn Prosper.com and stopped investing, while new lenders continue to pour in money.
As the following chart shows the count of lenders who have bid within the last 30 days stalls since April.
(Source)
A few lenders now express their very legative opinion on Prosper prominently in their signature in every post they make in the Prosper forums. Example
As lenders have started to make fun of Prosper employees or using avatars to create the appearance of beeing a prosper moderator without any apparent reaction of Prosper in their own forums, users start to speculate if Prosper will be forced to close the forums to avoid the negative publicity.
Browsing the Zopa forums today, I noticed that negative posts by lenders are on the rise. This is quite different from the mostly positive feedback in earlier months.
Lenders are:
While the staff in many cases does not immeadiately solve the voiced problems, at least they are much more responsive in the forum compared to the Prosper staff in the Prosper forum.
Some of the complaints may turn out to be misunderstandings. Bear in mind, that only a tiny minority of the Zopa lenders are active posters in the Zopa forum, therefore it is quite possible that a fast majority of Zopa's lenders is still very satisfied with the service.
Users suspect problems may have risen, because Zopa stuff could be tied up with issues concerning US launch.
Every once in a while, I read a post in the Prosper forums that provides lots of insights. Today I found this post interesting where several lenders debate the advantages and disadvantages of investing in Prosper.com and long-term lenders share their opinion. Suggested reading for new lenders.
Yesterday the new lender signatures were introduced by wiseclerk.com. Based on an idea from nonattender this new tool allows to transform key lender stats figures into an image, which can be used in a posters signature at the prosper forum.
Example of the image (size decreased, original is larger):
The image shows the amount invested, the current number of loans, the roles and, if the lender is in the top 500 the rank by money invested.
Once created the images will update daily automatically.
The discussion thread on this new tool was a hot topic. After several suggestions, a couple of hours later a further signature tool, this time for the borrowers was offered.
Example of borrower signature (size decreased, original is larger):
We will see how this further develops.
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All posts represent the opinion of the individual authors. Wiseclerk.com takes no responsibility for any claims or statements made in these posts.