P2P lending service Lendingclub.com, which was in a quite period not accepting new lenders and bids from existing lenders, today announced that it completed it’s SEC registration. LendingClub is now resuming it’s full p2p lending service and again accepting new lenders.
See: Lending Club completes $600 million SEC filing
More to follow…
Lendingclub.com has in a new release some new account management features for lenders.
Lendingclub is currently not open for registration of new lenders.
On June 20th, Lendingclub.com filed a registration statement with the SEC to issue up to 600 million US$ in Member Payment Dependent Notes. The notes will be backed by loans and sold to lenders. The process for lenders remains pretty much the same as before the quiet period, only the legal setup will change to comply with regulation.
Link to SEC filing of Lending Club
Press release by Lendingclub regarding the SEC filing
Netbanker extracted some interesting data from the 100+ page Lendingclub filing.
A recent Bankrate.com article gives an update on the development of p2p lending in the US.
Chris Larsen of Prosper.com sees the current financial situation as a chance for p2p lenders:
Home equity used to be the cash management tool for the credit-worthy borrower, and that has really, really dried up. In many ways, Prosper's three-year, 25,000 US$ loan is a pretty good proxy for what people were using home equity for — improving their home, starting a sole proprietorship, college costs and certainly for replacing credit card debt.
Javelin Strategy & Research is quoted that credit card debt is the main reason people want to use p2p lending:
We're forecasting that P2P lending specifically for credit card balances will grow from 38 billion US$ in 2007 to 159 billion US$ by 2012
The final advice of the article is:
Prospective borrowers and lenders would do well to thoroughly research P2P companies before jumping at the chance for a lower rate on a loan or a higher return on an investment. …
Surprisingly Lendingclub.com stopped signup for new lenders and existing lenders can not make bids on new loans (old loans are continued to be serviced). Borrowers can still obtain new loans – they are funded directly by Lendingclub. The announcement email sent out to members is quoted in this blog post.
The Lendingclub website states this message:
Lending Club has started a process to register, with the appropriate securities authorities, promissory notes that may be offered and sold to lenders through our site in the future. Until we complete the registration process, we will not accept new lender registrations or allow new commitments from existing lenders. We will continue to service all previously funded loans during this period, and lenders will be able to access their accounts, monitor their portfolios, and withdraw available funds without changes.
The borrowing side of our site will remain generally unaffected by this registration process; borrowers can continue to apply for loans and new loans posted after April 7, 2008, will be funded and held only by Lending Club.
Until the registration process is completed, the company will undergo a quiet period and will not be able to respond to press and other inquiries about Lending Club or the registration process during that time.
On Techcrunch there is speculation that "Lending Club is looking to obtain a broker dealer license from the SEC that would legitimize its operations".
If this is the case I could not find a recent SEC filing connected to this. The last one I found dates February 13th.
Netbanker has a short statement from Prosper, essentially saying that Prosper believes itself to be in compliance with all state and federal laws.
CBS recently featured Prosper and Lendingclub under the headline "Beating the financial giants at their own game".