Prosper has confirmed that it will release new lender features over the next few months. Most important is an risk estimator that will allow lenders better to gauge the default risk when bidding. Prosper will use its own data from past loans to calculate the risk level rather then only rely on Experian data like in the past.
See Mike's question and answers with Prosper Andrew and Matt's story on the changes for more details.
In Germany at least four companies developed an approach that makes use of the media hype on buzz words like peer-to-peer lending or social lending.
Under the headline peer-to-peer lending they offer kind of a "dating platform" for borrowers and potential lenders. To attract borrowers they offer hope – even borrowers with bad credit history have the chance to get a loan. To the lender they promise high rates. But a close examination of these services reveals that one could just as good publish a classified in a paper to seek or offer a loan. The services do nothing but store the requests in a database, match them and inform both sides by email once a match was made. It is then up to the borrower and the lender to negotiate the loan terms, a contract, handle the money transfer and the repayments. Since they are not handling the money, the services are not regulated by German regulator Bafin.
Oh I forgot, the services do something else: they (at least 3 of the 4 I am aware of) charge the borrower a registration fee of about 9.50 Euro (approx. 6.75 US$). Note that the fee is not tied to a successful loan match but payable upon registration.
No wonder a German consumer protection agency cautioned against the use of offers like these. Calling it peer-to-peer lending might not technically be a false claim, but these services are worlds apart from comprehensive services like Zopa, Prosper and Smava.
P.S.: No I did not name the companies here in order not to give them more free traffic. The media already did that enough, because they often do not research enough.
In my calendar I had marked October 2nd as the launch date of Globefunder.com. Unfortunately the day passed – no launch. I found a recent press release, which says launch will be in October and states Globefunder will launch for US lenders and borrowers. This is somewhat different from my early perception of the service, which based on the interview with Globefunder's CEO Brian Mullally. But the claim "Online, no-wait funding for qualified borrowers" does sound interesting.
No news on the other p2p lending services that have yet to launch, like Communitylend or Loanio.
On March 24th Smava.de launched its peer-to-peer lending service in Germany. Time for a recap on how Smava fared in its first 6 month of operation. How Smava operates can be read in this earlier article.
First the very positive news: So far in only 3 cases borrowers missed payment dates and in two of these cases the borrowers payed with only a few days delay. Therefore only one loan is currently late, resulting in that more than 99% of all loans are current. On the usability and interface side there have been no problems or complaints, the interface is working as expected. Thereis however room for improvement, especially in the account section where the handling gets a little clumsy once the lender has many loans.
But despite receiving very positive and extensive media coverage Smava so far failed to achieve mass appeal. While Smava says it has over 13000 registered users, Wiseclerk figures show approximately 250 active lenders and 180 active borrowers.
Source: Wiseclerk.com
In the 6 month Smava handled a loan volume of 500000 Euro (approx 0.7 million US$), rather tiny compared to the loan volumes Prosper and Zopa handle. One move to foster growth was that Smava opened to lower credit grades in the beginning of August. While this led to a rise of loan listings (see chart below), fewer of the new loan listings were funded. But still over 50% of loan listings do get funded. It is to early to judge how the low credit rate loans will impact the default ratio.
Source: Wiseclerk.com
Possibly the main reason for Smava’s slow growth is the effficiency of German banking. German banks have automated the consumer loan process and small consumer credits have interest rates (APR) of as low as 4 to 5% (for best credit grade). At Smava the interest rates at which loans are funding have risen compared to launch date, voiding the argument that Smava offers better rates then a bank for many cases.
Source: Wiseclerk.com
Smava is still faring well in the absence of serious peer to peer lending competion. With Dutch Boober troubled by regulation worries, the long announced plans of Boober to expand into Germany have yet to happen. Smava avoided regulatory problems in the first place because it partnered with a bank, which fulfils all regulation requirements.
Like Prosper Smava has yet to define the benefit of groups, which exist but have no plausible way of influencing/reducing the default risk.
MyC4.com switched today from closed beta to public beta. Now it is possible to browse the site without registering. For example click on one of the opportunities on the left of the screen and you get a good idea of the concept.
MyC4 allows lenders to do microlending to entrepreneurs in Africa. Lenders do get paid interest. Check the previous P2P-Banking coverage of MyC4.
Intruders TV did a long interview with James Alexander of Zopa.com covering the development of Zopa, regulation, market approach, lender and borrower advantages, the competition and other topics. The video starts of with polling passers-by on the street whether they heard of Zopa and would use peer-to-peer lending themselves.
(Source: Intruders.tv)
P.S.: Noticed the bulletpoint on the whiteboard "Sell loan on phone".