Luyi Chen of China Web2.0 Review has an interview with Jack Gu, founder of China's p2p lending service ppdai.com, which was covered here earlier.
Author: wiseclerk
Lendingclub reaches 250000 dollars in loans
P2P lending service Lendingclub.com will exceed 250000 US$ in loans this week. Prosper.com, only other p2p lending service in the US, has surpassed 72 million dollars in loans.
Sources (Mashable, Wiseclerk.com)
Boober plans to finance mortgages via p2p lending
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)
Funding more Kiva loans
I started lending on Kiva.org 6 month ago. At Kiva everone can lend to small entrepreneurs in developing countries. At first I funded only 4 loans each with the minimum amount of 25 US$. Lenders do not earn interest on Kiva loans. Usually loans are for terms between 6 and 18 months. When I started I did not really expect all my loans to be repaid. But I wanted to support it, since I thought it was an innovative approach to a good cause. Meanwhile I changed my mind. One of my loans was already repaid in full recently and the others are paid on time. This led me to the decision to fund more loans on Kiva microfinance.
Cash in an hour – Wonga
Though not p2p lending, I found the concept of British Wonga (not yet launched) remarkable. With no debt and a decent credit record, british consumers can apply for a loan of up to 200 pounds (at about 14 percent interest) and receive the deposit less than 20 minutes after application. Subsequent loan applications can be for higher sums.
Wonga does not draw the money from a bank, an undisclosed partner underwrites the risk.
Paper on p2p lending comparing Prosper and Zopa
Brad Slavin has written a 15 page research paper: "Peer-to-Peer Lending – An Industry Insight". It contains a good summary on p2p lending aspects as well as a comparision between Zopa.com and Prosper.com. The figures given are not up to date, I assume the paper was written last year.