CommunityLend Taps Broker Market

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Canadian p2p lending service CommunityLend announces:

MorWEB partners with CommunityLend Inc. to provide direct access to
unsecured lending options for the Canadian Mortgage Broker market

Marlborough Stirling Canada (MSC) is pleased to announce that direct access to CommunityLend, Canada’s only online Peer-to-Peer lending service, will now be available to the broker market using MorWEB.

MorWEB brokers will now be able to seamlessly refer clients directly to CommunityLend to arrange unsecured loans from private investors.  This will provide another value added service to customers of mortgage brokers using MorWEB.  Phase one of this novel integration is now available on the MorWEB platform with a more comprehensive integration scheduled for later this year.

CommunityLend, …, launched earlier this year and is exploring a number of different marketing options to spread the word about its services and to recruit good quality borrowers looking for more competitive rates for small unsecured loans.

”We are excited by the opportunity to work with one of Canada’s leading software providers to the Mortgage industry,” noted Michael Garrity, CEO of CommunityLend.  “We understand the important role of Mortgage Brokers in helping their clients to find the best rates on loans to meet their needs. …”

Since CommunityLend is restricted to accredited investors* by regulation, this marketing move uses an existing multiplier to reach potential lenders. It continues the earlier reported trend of existing financial institutions partnering with new p2p lending players.

(Source: CommunityLend blog)

*corrected – an earlier version of the article wrongly stated “institutional lenders” – see comment below

Twitter Post Raises Speculation About Zopa Introducing a Secondary Market

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This twitter post caused some speculation that Zopa UK is working to add a secondary market to the p2p lending service. I didn’t contact Zopa management asking to comment on this for I believe they probably would neither have confirmed nor denied plans on a secondary market.

As discussed before the issue with offering a secondary market isn’t the technical or commercial implications, but to find a model that is in compliance with regulation.

Prosper Raises 14.7 million US$ Series D Funding

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Prosper Marketplace Inc., has successfully closed a the new funding round, which it announced two weeks ago.  Prosper receives 14.7 million US$ from new investors Tomorrow Ventures and CompuCredit Holdings and existing investors Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Omidyar Network, QED Investors and Volition Capital. TomorrowVentures is the investment vehicle for Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

P2P Lending Service Lending Club Raises 24.5 Million US$ Series C Round

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P2P Lending service Lendingclub.com successfully raised further capital. The 24.5 million US$ series C round was led by Foundation Capital and joined by existing investors including Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners.

Lending Club so far raised 52.7 million US$ in total funding.

Lending Club, on which lenders have funded loans to private borrowers for a total volume of over 103 million US$ since inception, is growing fast. Currently about 10,000 loans are originated per month equaling a loan volume of about 8 to 9 million US$ per month.
The monthly volume  is a multiple of that of Prosper Marketplace, the main competitor in the US peer-to-peer lending market.

Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club says  “This latest investment gives us considerable resources to further develop our platform, launch new products, offer better service to our existing customers and expand our reach to a whole new set of customers.”.

(Sources: press release via TechCrunch, Lending Club Statistics, own data)