Countries

Financial Services Authority Closes Bankless-Life

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Austrian p2p lending service Bankless-Life (see earlier coverage on Bankless-Life’s launch) was closed by the FMA, the authority supervising banking regulation in Austria. The FMA sent an order to Bankless-Life on Dec. 22nd, demanding it to stop arranging loans, since it lacks the necessary concessions. Today FMA issued a notice to the public, informing potential lenders that the offering of the service is not in compliance with the law.

Bankless-Life.at has published a statement on their website on planned legal steps against the order to close.

People Capital and Prosper Announce Referral Partnership

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People Capital, a website for college students to obtain student loans via an online lending exchange, and Prosper.com have announced a referral partnership to help borrowers seeking both educational and non-educational loans on their respective Web sites. Borrowers who are unable to obtain educational loans that meet their financing needs on Prosper.com will be offered the opportunity to access the People Capital lending exchange. In return, People Capital will refer its Web borrowers, who are interested in taking out non-educational loans, to Prosper.

People Capital is currently in Beta.

Earlier examples of p2p lending services referring leads that could not be funded on their platform to another service were Zopa selling leads of low credit grade borrowers and Prosper refering loan applicants to other sites while Prosper was closed to new borrowers during SEC registration.

Auxmoney Adds More Loan Term Choices

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Auxmoney.com has added more loan term choices for it’s p2p lending borrowers to choose from on the weekend. Previously available loan terms at Auxmoney were 12, 24 and 36 months. Now any term between 12 and 60 months (in 6 month increments) can be selected.

Auxmoney achieved substantial growth rates in the second half of 2009 (see Wiseclerk statistics tracking Auxmoney loan originations per month). And this is despite the fact that Auxmoney was criticized by a renowned consumer advocacy institution for misleading marketing and unfavourable fee structures.

In international comparison of p2p lending fee structures, Auxmoney is a rare exception, as it charges many fees regardless of whether a loan request is successfully funded or not. With it’s listing fees Auxmoney generates revenues even from those customers with bad credit history that have little or no chance of getting funded by lenders.

(Source: Uses information from yesterday’s article at P2P-Kredite.com)

Project Contest to launch the p2p lending service in France

eKwiti

Beginning 2010, Friendsclear will launch Friendsclear Pro – the first real P2P lending service in France.

For this occasion, Friendsclear organizes a project contest:

– everybody can submit a professional project

– the public can vote for the best project

– the project which gets the most support will win 10k€

The author lives in France and reports as a guest blogger on french p2p lending trends for P2P-Banking.com.

Aqush.jp launches full p2p lending service

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Aqush.jp which in May launched a friends and family only version now launched the “full fledged” version of it’s p2p lending service.

Exchange Corporation K.K. (www.exchange.co.jp) “ExCo” announced the launch of its social lending service. The Aqush platform empowers both individuals with extra money and credit-worthy borrowers. By connecting these two groups, credit-worthy people can borrow money more easily and at a better rate than they would get from a lending company, and retail investors can invest in loans that provide a higher return on investment than available from time deposits or money market accounts. Continue reading →

CommunityLend Announces $1 Million Investment by Stone & Co

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CommunityLend Holdings Inc., the parent company of Canadian p2p lending service CommunityLend Inc., announced a 1 million CAN$ investment through a convertible debenture from from Stone & Co. Limited Flagship Stock Fund Canada (“Stone”). As part of their investment, Mr. Richard Stone, Founder and CEO of Stone, will join CommunityLend’s Board in an observer role.

Michael Garrity, Co-Founder and CEO of CommunityLend Inc, said:

… When CommunityLend launches in the next few weeks, we intend to remove these obstacles through the introduction of Canada’s only peer-to-peer lending system, a new lending model which removes the middleman in lending transactions by allowing borrowers the ability to connect directly with lenders through a safe and secure online lending system. …