Comments on: Peer-to-Peer Lending Hits a Roadblock

By: Money Under 30

Money Under 30 — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:31:16 +0000

@Mark, thanks for letting me know about Loanio, I’ll be sure to check you guys out soon.

@Phillip, you’re right…LendingClub has restrictions on who can be lenders. Their site says lenders must:

“have an annual gross income of at least $70,000 and a net worth (exclusive of home, home furnishings and automobile) of at least $70,000; or have a net worth (determined with the same exclusions) of at least $250,000.”

Also, LendingClub only accepts lenders from 21 states right now, and has restrictions on borrowers too. Borrowers must have a FICO of 640 and meet other credit requirements.

By: Phillip

Phillip — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:57:38 +0000

Have you tried using lendingclub? Unless I misunderstood, lenders are required to have an annual income of over 70k. That sure seems to exclude a significant amount of the population. Is my understanding correct or did I miss something?

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:25:00 +0000

Hi David,

Thanks for keeping up on the peer-to-peer lending sector! We wanted to tell you and your readers that Loanio launched earlier this month. We are currently accepting new borrowers and lenders, and we hope you get a chance to check out our site at http://www.loanio.com.

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:05:01 +0000

With the social movement of the web there is no doubt in my mind that Peer-to-peer lending will survive and even thrive. Prosper and lending club are paving the way and will have to clear the brush, but it will all get sorted out.

By: LaraL

LaraL — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:29:00 +0000

Thanks for your article.

I am looking for a small loan so I came across your article and decided to try these sites, only to find out they are not issuing loans:

Zopa: sends me to a credit union

Prosper: is not taking loan applications: “We’re sorry; we are unable to fund your loan at this time. ” and sends me to a shady “partner”.

Finally, Lending Club was good (I should have tried them first). I listed a loan for $5,000 at 11.46% rate. Not bad compared to my 18.99% credit card rate. Crossing fingers!

By: Money Under 30

Money Under 30 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:11:41 +0000

Thanks for sharing, Forest. Yeah, I’m surprised they don’t offer at least a tiny bit of interest on lenders’ cash accounts. At least something to keep all those people they spent time and money attracting from cashing out over the next few months.

By: Forest

Forest — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:42:28 +0000

I’m a Prosper lender and I currently have 4 (out of 35) loans that are late, but none of those are recent. I’m pretty bummed that I can’t lend any new money at the moment and because the money in my Prosper account doesn’t earn interest, I’m withdrawing the payments as they come in and reinvesting them elsewhere. Eventually, I hope to lend on Prosper again, but we’ll just have to see how long that takes.