lending club

Peer-to-Peer Lending Headline Potpourri

wiseclerk

Deutsche Bank Research released a new e-banking snapshot focusing on p2p lending. Notable trend is a shift to automated bidding (vs. manual selection of single loans). Interesting results are the findings that loans with longer loan descriptions have a higher default risk (at Lending Club) and that lower cost are not the only motivation for borrowers to use p2p lending services (offers by banks might actually be cheaper).

MYC4 is still struggling with the situation of it’s local provider Ebony in Kenia.  After some issues raised questions, MYC4 attempted to investigate Ebony’s portfolio. However when MYC4 attempted to perform an announced audit at Ebony’s premises in Nakuru accompanied by 4 auditors of KPMG, they were denied access. MYC4 filed an application in court in order to get access to the files. However on October 30th the court postponed the case until December.
Kiva had paused Ebony last year after unsatisfactory results and defaulted all Ebony loans last month.

In Germany p2p lending usually received positive to enthusiastic press coverage in the past. Today’s article in Handelsblatt (a financial newspaper) online edition has a more critical tone, pointing at fee structures of one service and wondering why the German Bafin (the regulation authority) sees no need to monitor activities of p2p lending companies more closely. The article does also cite positive recommendations of consumer advocates for Smava.

The New York Times picks up the story of an earlier blog post by David Rodman (‘Kiva is not quite what it seems‘) that started a discussion on transparency and marketing messages of Kiva around the question if Kiva lenders are really aware that they do not lend to the entrepreneur pictured but rather to the MFI which may/will use the money to fund other loans.
Since the blog post Kiva has changed it’s tagline on the homepage from “Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.” to “Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty.“

Working Paper of the Federal Reserve Bank San Francisco on P2P Lending

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The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has just published a 19 page working paper by Ian J. Galloway on “Peer-to-Peer Lending and Community Development Finance“. It examines Kiva, Zopa, Prosper, MicroPlace and Lending Club.

Quote from the conclusion of the article:

While online platforms may never replace conventional lending institutions, such as banks, it is important that the community development finance industry be aware of this emerging technology. Moreover, P2P finance platforms will continue to evolve—allowing for third-party issued loan sales, for example—which may fundamentally alter the way credit is allocated in the future. In either case, the potential community development finance implications are too significant to ignore.

P2P Lending Companies Show Strong Growth – Aug. 09

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P2P lending services continue to grow. In some markets the speed of growth has even accelerated.

P2P-Banking.com has created the following overview table listing services in operation and ranked them by loan volume funded in the past 6 months.

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Source: P2P-Banking.com

For some service like the Korean Moneyauction and Popfunding no figures were available. Also omitted are some services that did not reply to information requests.

Note that Prosper.com was closed for most of the observed time span and did not make the minimum cutoff for the table. Also note that Zopa Italy is currently closed.

For a table listing more p2p lending companies check previous ‘P2P Lending Companies by Loan Volume – Jan. 09‘.

Especially british Zopa and the German services show strong growth lately. Smava nearly doubled loan volume in July compared to June (chart), whereas Auxmoney tripled it (chart). At Smava currently even 25,000 Euro loans (approx. 35,750 US$) are funded with bids in only 4 minutes (!) bidding time (example loan).

On the other hand MYC4‘s growth slowed in the last months (chart) due to problems with the providers loan picks.

Lending Club Introduces Self-Directed IRA to Enable Investments in P2P Lending

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P2P lending service Lending Club, today announced the availability of the first Self-Directed Individual Retirement Account to enable investments in peer lending. EntrustCAMA, part of the Entrust Group,  serves as the administrator for these accounts.

This new Self-Directed IRA investment choice gives individuals the ability to build a portfolio of Lending Club notes and hold that portfolio in a tax-free or tax-deferred account. To meet the Federal deadline for this tax season, applications must be completed online, printed and postmarked before April 15, 2009. The account application is available at https://www.lendingclub.com/sdIRA/registerIRA.action

Key benefits stated:

  1. Potential for high returns. Choose from a diversified group of hundreds of qualified borrowers.
  2. Tax advantages. Investments in a Self-Directed IRA can grow tax deferred until retirement age.
  3. Flexibility.
    Select the type of IRA which is right for you:
    Individuals: Traditional or Roth
    Small businesses: SIMPLE or SEP
    Fund the IRA directly with a check or an existing account (IRA or 401K) to transfer or rollover.
  4. A Diversified Retirement Portfolio. This Self-Directed IRA gives your portfolio access to Lending Club Notes, going beyond traditional stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

Fees:

  • No account opening fees
  • One flat 250 US$ annual account maintenance fee starting in 2010 when you open an account before April 15, 2009
  • No other fees
  • Low minimum starting contribution of 5,000 US$

Sources: press release, Lending Club website