Guus Drijver, head of Dutch p2p lending site Boober.nl, announced that boober plans to set up a site that will allow lenders to finance mortgages via p2p lending. This would require much higher loan amounts then those that are currently possible at Boober, where the maximum is 10.000 Euro. The aim is to have the first mortgage funded still in 2007.
Source (Hypotheek actuell, Emerce.nl, Overgeld.nl, Sprout.nl)
I started lending on Kiva.org 6 month ago. At Kiva everone can lend to small entrepreneurs in developing countries. At first I funded only 4 loans each with the minimum amount of 25 US$. Lenders do not earn interest on Kiva loans. Usually loans are for terms between 6 and 18 months. When I started I did not really expect all my loans to be repaid. But I wanted to support it, since I thought it was an innovative approach to a good cause. Meanwhile I changed my mind. One of my loans was already repaid in full recently and the others are paid on time. This led me to the decision to fund more loans on Kiva microfinance.
Though not p2p lending, I found the concept of British Wonga (not yet launched) remarkable. With no debt and a decent credit record, british consumers can apply for a loan of up to 200 pounds (at about 14 percent interest) and receive the deposit less than 20 minutes after application. Subsequent loan applications can be for higher sums.
Wonga does not draw the money from a bank, an undisclosed partner underwrites the risk.
Brad Slavin has written a 15 page research paper: "Peer-to-Peer Lending – An Industry Insight". It contains a good summary on p2p lending aspects as well as a comparision between Zopa.com and Prosper.com. The figures given are not up to date, I assume the paper was written last year.
As P2P-Kredite.com writes, German Toogly plans to apply the idea of p2p lending to funding startups and companies. Anybody can draft a loan request between 1000 and 100000 Euro describing the business objective. Private lenders can bid between 50 and 100000 Euro. Interest rate and term are set by the borrower.
Currently Toogly only has the idea and a domain as placeholder. The application is currently developed and the CEO Carsten Hansen says he hopes to launch in the end of the 3rd quarter.
Hansen even wants to raise the funding Toogly needs via this way rather then using Venture Capital or other means of financing.
The concept differs from site like GoBignetwork, because Toogly will handle all repayments of the loan from the borrower. It is therefor involved in processing just like other p2p lending services.
Soon p2p lending via the internet will be available in the country with the largest population: China. Shanghai based startup Ppdai.com which is currently in its test period and open by invitation only, plans to launch in July. Two of the founders are former Microsoft employees.
Gu Shaofeng (Jack Gu), CTO of ppdai, told P2P-Banking.com: "Ppdai.com will be targeted at the small P2P loan in China (the root of P2P concept). The unique part is it emphasize the important of 'Friends', the concept of the Social Networking. Ppdai.com encourge users to lend to Friends, or friends'friend to reduce the risks."
As far as I can see the concept is a copy of the Prosper model (possibly without the groups). The minimum bid is only 50 Chinese Yuan – less then 7 US$.
According to the website, laws and regulation in China are not defining terms for p2p lending, but indirectly it can be assumed that p2p lending is not prohibited provided interest rates are not exceeding 4 times the interest rates of bank loans.
While browsing the site I noticed that the design is closely resembling designs of Smava, Prosper and in one occassion Lendingclub.
Smava original logo and homepage:
Ppdai imitation:
Prosper original bidding icons:
Ppdai copycat (text translated):