Dutch p2p lending service Boober.nl is quarreling with the regulating authority AFM. The AFM argues Boober needs a licence because it allows lenders in peer to peer lending to engage in commercial activities.
Boober CEO Guus Drijver denies that. He says that lenders can lend out only a maximum amount of 39000 Euro and even with an assumed interest rate of 10%, 3900 Euro profit per year could hardly be seen as commercial activity.
(Source: sprout.nl)
Guus Drijver, head of Dutch p2p lending site Boober.nl, announced that boober plans to set up a site that will allow lenders to finance mortgages via p2p lending. This would require much higher loan amounts then those that are currently possible at Boober, where the maximum is 10.000 Euro. The aim is to have the first mortgage funded still in 2007.
Source (Hypotheek actuell, Emerce.nl, Overgeld.nl, Sprout.nl)
4 month after the launch, Dutch p2p lending service boober.nl is approaching a total volume of 1 million Euro funded loans (chart shows development of loan volume since launch).
In comparision, German p2p lending service Smava.de, launched only 8 weeks after Boober is growing much slower. Currently it reached approx. 150000 Euro loan volume. Look forward for a post on the development of Smava in the near future.
Boober plans to launch in Belgium as next country. While not started yet, the domain boober.be is already up, saying "beta".
The Dutch site Frooble.nl, which was announced to start as competition for Boober.nl, was in public beta mode for only a few days before it was closed to the public by the founders who cited technical problems and said they hope to launch again in September after solving these.
Franz Hetzenauer, founder of tulip computers, bought 17.5 percent of dutch p2p banking platform Boober.nl. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Boober aims to branch into other European countries this year.
The new website booberwatch.nl offers p2p lending stats for the Dutch p2p lending service boober.nl (as wiseclerk.com does for prosper.com stats). While the site is in Dutch language, it has many charts and tables that can be understood without speaking Dutch. The main page shows the fluctation of average interest for each credit grade over time. According to booberwatch 536207 Euros have been loaned so far.