People Capital and Prosper Announce Referral Partnership

January 6, 2010 wiseclerk

People Capital, a website for college students to obtain student loans via an online lending exchange, and Prosper.com have announced a referral partnership to help borrowers seeking both educational and non-educational loans on their respective Web sites. Borrowers who are unable to obtain educational loans that meet their financing needs on Prosper.com will be offered the opportunity to access the People Capital lending exchange. In return, People Capital will refer its Web borrowers, who are interested in taking out non-educational loans, to Prosper.

People Capital is currently in Beta.

Earlier examples of p2p lending services referring leads that could not be funded on their platform to another service were Zopa selling leads of low credit grade borrowers and Prosper refering loan applicants to other sites while Prosper was closed to new borrowers during SEC registration.

Prosper Website for Mobile Use

December 22, 2009 wiseclerk 1 Comment

Prosper.com has added a website version for mobile use.

One interesting – though unrelated – fact: While on most western marketplaces “conventional” internet access dominates, over 90% of the users of Estonian Isepankur.ee access the site via mobile phone.

Year-End Review of Peer to Peer Lending in 2009

December 17, 2009 wiseclerk

As the end of 2009 approaches here is a selection of main news and developments covered by P2P-Banking.com:

January: Smava expands into Poland (interview); Pertuity Direct launched; German Smava raises fees; total global p2p lending loan volume is about 740 million US$
February: Sobralaen launches in Estonia (later renamed Isepankur)
March: Lending Club receives 12M US$ in VC funding and introduces self-directed IRA; Dutch p2p lending service Boober fails
April: Aqush launches friends and family loans in Japan; Prosper very briefly reopens
May: Vittana launch; IOU Central files SEC registration to open in the US; United Prosperity launches with a loan guarantee microfinance model
June: Spanish bank Caja Navarra experiments with own p2p lending platform; my article ‘For Debate: A Flaw in Current P2P Lending Models?‘ gets quite some email feedback; Kiva launches with loans to US businesses; Loanio SEC filing; Zopa prospers in the UK; P2P Lending Services in Germany get a boost by media coverage; Kiva enacts currency risk coverage changes
July: Prosper reopens with SEC approval and starts secondary market
August: Blogs discus whether p2p lending is or will become disruptive; Pertuity Direct closes after only 7 month of operations
September: Smava Poland interview; the article ‘P2P Lending Technology – Make or Buy‘ is one of the most-read and the most commented article in 2009
October: Moneyauction booms in Korea
November: Kiva surpasses 100 million US$ in loans; Prosper and MYC4 have problems with non-payments/defaults; Virgin Money exits US p2p lending market
MYC4 reduces staff

Off to new shores (Photo credit: Nattu)

Prosper Hires Nick Talwar as Chief Revenue Officer

December 3, 2009 wiseclerk

P2P Lending Company Prosper Marketplace (Prosper.com) has hired Nick Talwar, former head of Citibank Sweden. Talwar’s task as Chief Revenue Officer will be to bring Prosper back on a growth track.

As reported earlier Prosper is currently experiencing high losses and struggling to reconnect with earlier growth rates.

P2P Lending Company Prosper.com has High Q3 Loss

November 18, 2009November 18, 2009 wiseclerk 3 Comments

Prosper Marketplace, Inc. the company running the p2p lending site Prosper.com had a net loss of 2,238,138 US$ in the third quarter of 2009. Furthermore Prosper’s cash reserve is low. As of September 30th, 2009 Prosper had 2,079,624 US$ cash and cash equivalents left from an initial VC funding of 40 million US$. Even accounting for the recent 1 million US$ investment of a banker, at the current burn rate Prosper will need new funding soon.

However the timing and circumstances make chances for a new VC round look less than ideal.
Prosper reopened the site for new loans after completing the SEC registration process in July 2009, but still struggles to reach growth rates the marketplace had in 2007 and 2008.

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Banker Invests 1 Million US$ VC Money into Prosper

November 11, 2009November 11, 2009 wiseclerk 2 Comments

Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One, has invested 1 million US$ into Prosper.com via his venture capital company QED Investors.

The investment comes in form of a convertible promissory note for the amount of 1 million US$, which is due in one year and carries an interest rate of 15%. QED Investors may elect to convert the note into shares of Prosper’s preferred stock.

VC funding for Prosper now totals 41 million US$. Nigel Morris joins Prosper’s board of directors.

(via TechCrunch.com, sources press release & other)