Peermint.com says it will be offering peer to peer lending in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In Australia and New Zealand Peermint will probably be the first social lending service, whereas in Canada it will compete with Communitylend.com which plans launch for Fall 2007.
Source: The Better Banking Blog
Countries
MyC4 – Microlending for profit to African entrepreneurs
Danish startup C4 World on it's platform MyC4 allows lenders to finance micro loans to African entrepreneurs (Afripreneurs). P2P briefly featured the MyC4 plans earlier. The goal is to "eradict poverty through business". The service is currently in beta, but signing up and lending at MyC4 is already possible.
MyC4 differs in its approach from Kiva: At MyC4 lenders do earn interest on the loans. Currently interest rates of 20-24% are typical with loan terms of 6 or 12 month.
P2P-Banking.com joined the Beta as a MyC4 Builder. The gathered experiences are published in an exclusive P2P-Banking.com review of MyC4:
http://www.wiseclerk.com/myc4-p2p-banking-review.pdf (0,4 MB, 3 pages)
Lendingclub receives 10 million VC funding
Lendingclub has received a 10.26 million US$ venture capital investment from Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. The CEO Renaud Laplanche announced that the money will be used to expand Lendingclub beyond the Facebook platform.
In an interview, Daniel Ciporin of Canaan Partners says:
P2P services and functionality in general has been at the heart of web market disruption, from Ebay to MySpace to Facebook, using only a few of the most prominent examples. I think the opportunity is ripe now to apply P2P functionality in the consumer lending space, especially with the particular focus on pre-existing affiliations that Lending Club has.
Average lending club interest rate 11%
Lendingclub's loan volume has surpassed 750000 US$. So far the average interest rate is 11.10%. As you can see in the table the majority of loans went to borrowers with good credit grades.
Lendingclub states that the top states where Florida, New York and Massachusetts. This differs from the state distribution of the Prosper loans, where California, Texas and Georgia are the states with most loans.
A possible cause is that Lendingclub.com is only open to Facebook users and might therefore target different user demographics then Prosper.com. (Source)
Regulator forces Dutch p2p lending site boober to stop lending
Dutch p2p lending site Boober.nl is in big trouble. A court in Rotterdam ruled that Boober needs a license, with the judge supporting the position of the regulating authority AFM. After Boober published its interpretation what this ruling means, the AFM clarified its position in a press release.
Under pressure Boober finally posted a statement on its homepage saying that while the site remains open and existing loans will continue to be serviced, Boober stops any lender bidding. Statement:
Beste Boober Gebruiker
In tegenstelling tot wat dinsdag en woensdag is gecommuniceerd heeft Boober gisteravond na overleg met de Autoriteit Financiële Markten besloten om de krediet-bemiddelingsactiviteiten voorlopig te staken. Dit wordt geëffectueerd door uitleners voorlopig niet de mogelijkheid te geven op leningen te bieden . De site blijft gewoon beschikbaar en het besluit heeft geen enkele consequentie voor lopende leningen.
Boober betreurt de ongelukkige wijze waarop zij met de markt heeft gecommuniceerd en verwacht begin volgende week meer duidelijkheid te kunnen verschaffen.
Boober's service was controversial in the Netherlands from the start. It was even subject of discussion of the Dutch national parliament.
An update on what will happen next is expected early next week.
Richard van den Toorn, publisher of the great site Booberwatch.nl has supplied P2P-Banking.com with this chronology of events: Continue reading
Boober quarreling with regulator
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)