Watch the preview of the coming new Zopa TV advert. It will air starting next Monday on channels like Dave, More4, Sky Sports 2 and ITV4. There will be a second version emphasizing how Zopa is different from banks.
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Videos on the p2p lending services
New Lending Club Video
A recent WUSA-TV coverage on Lending Club gives a good overview on how p2p lending at Lendingclub.com works.
‘Need Money? Ask a Peer’ was broadcasted on Sept. 29th.
(via LC Blog)
Zopa Celebrates £100M in Funded Loans
This week Zopa celebrated the milestone of 100 million GBP in p2p loans funded (since it’s launch in 2005).
Here is how ITV London tonight featured Zopa yesterday:
Funding Circle (Fundingcircle.com) P2C Lending Launch in UK
Funding Circle has 
launched it’s peer to company lending service in Britain. As reported by P2P-Banking.com in February the startup received 1.1 million US$. Any UK resident can lend either by individually selecting businesses or by using the autobid feature and spreading the investment over several matching businesses. While loans last for 1 to 3 years FundingCircle – unlike other p2p lending sites – allows lenders to access their money easily: Selling of parts of loans funded to other lenders is possible (secondary market).
In 2010 lenders are not charged any fees to use Funding Circle (in 2011 there will be a 1% annual servicing fee and a 1% sales fee).
All businesses applying for loans are screened by Funding Circle’s underwriters using data supplied by Experian to ensure they are creditworthy. A business may apply for a Funding Circle loan amount between 5,000 and 50,000 GBP. Continue reading
Renault Laplanche, Lending Club CEO Interview
Recent interview video with Lending Club CEO on FoxBusiness:
CommunityLend Launch – P2P Lending in Ontario
Today CommunityLend launched it’s peer-to-peer lending service in Canada. The service currently is available to residents of Ontario. Borrowers can use CommunityLend as an alternative loan source to bank loans or credit cards with the ability to set the desired interest rate themselves (CommunityLend sets minimum rates). Loan amounts range from 1,000 to 25,000 CAN$ for a loan duration of 36 months. CommunityLend is open for borrowers with a good credit rating (AA to C), which encompasses about 70% of the population.
The borrower has the option to define whether there will be an auction (competitive bidding) once the loan amount is funded, possibly getting him the advantage that the interest rate will be lowered during the auction time with lenders underbidding each other.
Due to regulation restrictions only lenders qualifying as “accredited investors” are allowed to participate as lenders. The minimum investment is 100 CAN$. Bids can be in multiples of 100 CAN$.
CommunityLend provides lenders information about borrowers to help them make decisions about lending, including; the credit categorization of the borrowers on the site (credit rating) , their assessed debt burden ( affordability rating), their assessed stability (stability rating).
CommunityLend actively steers lenders towards diversification with the rule that a lender can only bid a maximum of 10% of the amount of an individual loan and the bid maybe not more than 10% of his total overall investment.
Registration to the service is free. Borrowers pay closing fees of 1 to 2.5% percent of the loan amount depending on credit grade (minimum 75 CAN$) upon payout of the loan. Lenders pay 1% p.a. fee on the outstanding loan principal.
CommunityLend uses credit bureau data and bank account data to verify borrower identity.
The following video gives an introduction to CommunityLend:
I like the cheerful style of the website. All information is presented in an easy to navigate and easy to understand way.