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Interview with Yes-Secure

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In early summer 2010 Yes-secure.com launched the second p2p lending service active in the UK. Dr. Chandra Patni, CEO of Yes-secure answers my questions.

P2P-Banking.com: Dr. Chandra Patni, please tell us about the background of the Yes-secure management team and what lead to entering the p2p lending market?

Dr. Chandra Patni: I came up with the business opportunity in 2008, having reviewed Zopa I felt that a social networking based person to person lending marketplace site could become a successful alternative to Zopa. I realised there were opportunities to build and complement the social lending market. Consumers need choice. YES-secure.com allows person-to-person lending alongside social networking as people want to know who they are lending to.

P2P-Banking.com: How is Yes-secure funded?

Dr. Chandra Patni: YES-secure.com is funded by private investors alongside the directors of the company.

P2P-Banking.com: What benefits does Yes-secure offer to lenders and borrowers?

Dr. Chandra Patni: Lenders: YES-secure.com provides UK savers and investors a new way to beat inflation and earn better returns than by investing their savings in fixed deposits in a bank. Along with the introductory offers and waivers, there are a wide range of markets (A*- E) allowing lenders to manipulate their investment across various markets getting them high, assured and steady returns. Debit card verification upon registration, stringent underwriting procedures and assigning markets in keeping with the borrowers’ creditworthiness make YES-secure a safe investment destination. Additionally, YES-secure offers a secure means of social network based lending and borrowing implying lower default rates and higher returns for lenders.

Borrowers: Borrowers can get competitive rates from real people. They simply describe how much they are looking to borrow, over what period, and the maximum interest rate they are willing to pay. Then they can simply sit back and watch people bidding to lend to them. Once they find a rate they like, they can accept it and get the money paid straight into their bank account. More traditional methods of personal loan approval rarely take personal information (such as connections, personality, and general circumstances) into account and are approved or declined based solely on credit history and financial circumstances. YES-secure combine both the important credit background as well as pertinent personal information on each borrower. Continue reading →

Fixura Starts P2P Lending in Finland

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A few days ago Finnish p2p lending site Fixura launched. The bilingual (Finnish & Swedish) site already lists over a hundred loan requests.

CEO Simon Sandvik told P2P-Banking.com:

This social lending company differs from the ‘standard’ ones as it does not provide lending auctions. Instead, the borrower sets his/her own interest rate, amount (1, 000 – 10,000 EUR) and duration of the loan. Then a Finnish credit scoring company processes the data and the borrower gets a one-to-five star rating. If a borrower is marked for payment issues in the past, the loan request automatically gets rejected.

… investors can also diversify their investments through different loans in 100 EUR lots. …

The company operates totally free of paper as it uses the local banks’ identification systems, a kind of e-signature. The investors can invest directly online and the borrowers can sign their contracts.

If a loan does not get fully funded the borrower can choose after 14 days from the first investment to accept a part of it, or reject it as he or she sees fit.

Currently investors pay 4 Euro for each withdrawal. Fees for borrowers are

  • 5% origination fee
  • 2% annual fee
  • 4 Euro per transaction

Compared to other p2p lending services these fees are rather high.

P2P Lending Sites in Europe

wiseclerk 3 Comments

Visualizations are great to show data that would otherwise just be a long list. I decided to create a map of the p2p lending landscape in Europe. It shows active and discontinued p2p lending services in Europe (including p2p microfinance). Not listed are sites that are in pre-launch stage. All of these marketplaces have been featured earlier in the P2P-Banking.com blog. If you want more information about any of them just enter the name in the search box on the top right of this blog.

Notice to other websites: You are free to copy and use this map, provided you agree not to alter or resize the image and you will set a link to this article.

Notice to p2p lending sites: If you want to be included in a future version of this map, contact me to learn how.

Funding Circle (Fundingcircle.com) P2C Lending Launch in UK

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Funding Circle has launched it’s peer to company lending service in Britain. As reported by P2P-Banking.com in February the startup received 1.1 million US$. Any UK resident can lend either by individually selecting businesses or by using the autobid feature and spreading the investment over several matching businesses. While loans last for 1 to 3 years FundingCircle – unlike other p2p lending sites – allows lenders to access their money easily: Selling of parts of loans funded to other lenders is possible (secondary market).

In 2010 lenders are not charged any fees to use Funding Circle (in 2011 there will be a 1% annual servicing fee and a 1% sales fee).

All businesses applying for loans are screened by Funding Circle’s underwriters using data supplied by Experian to ensure they are creditworthy. A business may apply for a Funding Circle loan amount between 5,000 and 50,000 GBP. Continue reading →

Cashare Plans To Use Digital Signatures in P2P Lending Process

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In Switzerland P2P Lending Service Cashare announced that it plans to be one of the web service pioneering the use of SuisseID a digital signature. Documents signed with this digital signature are as binding as a conventional signature on paper.

Opportunities for P2P Lending

Several European countries (e.g. Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium) have enacted laws that equate digital signatures with conventional signatures.

P2P Lending can use digital signatures to

  • validate the identity (and depending on the signature card the address) of users
  • automate processes that otherwise would require a signature on paper and enable paperless process chains.