Comments on: SEC Greenlights Prosper; P2P Lending Resumes In 14 States, More Coming

By: Old Line Banker Puts $1 Million Into P2P Lender Prosper

Old Line Banker Puts $1 Million Into P2P Lender Prosper — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:03:54 +0000

[...] startup was able to re-launch its site over the summer after the SEC gave Prosper the OK to facilitate peer-to-peer lending. Prosper became the first and thus only Internet [...]

By: P2P Lending Means Better Interest Rates

P2P Lending Means Better Interest Rates — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:03:50 +0000

[...] SEC Greenlights Prosper; P2P Lending Resumes In 14 States, More Coming (techcrunch.com) [...]

By: Lending Club – P2P Lending and $2500 Contest

Lending Club – P2P Lending and $2500 Contest — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:48:32 +0000

[...] SEC Greenlights Prosper; P2P Lending Resumes In 14 States, More Coming (techcrunch.com) [...]

By: Nickolas

Nickolas — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:37:18 +0000

Why can’t people borrow in those four states? I happen to live in Iowa and be pretty young so banks are a little hesitant with me. When I tried to take a loan out on Prosper.com I got a huge disappointment. Does anyone know the meaning of this?

By: Lending Club vs. Prosper, One Week In | P2P Lending News

Lending Club vs. Prosper, One Week In | P2P Lending News — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:28:52 +0000

[...] Monday, after the SEC approved Prosper’s registration filing, the peer to peer lender opened its doors to borrowers in 47 states and lenders in 16 states. Lending Club, whose securities filing was a [...]

By: KOPN Tech Radio » Blog Archive » News Bytes for 7/20/2009

KOPN Tech Radio » Blog Archive » News Bytes for 7/20/2009 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:31:24 +0000

[...] Prosper, the P2P lending platform, is back in 14 states after SEC approves– coming to more are… [...]

By: Prosper’s Weekly Media Roundup - 7/17/2009

Prosper’s Weekly Media Roundup - 7/17/2009 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:52:31 +0000

[...] The Green Light, A Comeback For Peer-to-Peer Lenders? July 14, 2009 by Jane J. Kim TechCrunch SEC Greenlights Prosper; P2P Lending Resumes In 14 States, More Coming July 14, 2009 by Robin Wauters Finextra Prosper resumes lending, again July 14, 2009 American [...]

By: NewHorizon

NewHorizon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:54:57 +0000

http://en.wikip...ki/Astroturfing

Anyway, yes, fred93’s blog is a must-read for folks considering lending via Prosper.

By: NewHorizon

NewHorizon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:49:37 +0000

True. Yet we have a member of Prosper’s board of directors blogging, “It is with great pride that I congratulate Prosper Marketplace on successfully completing their SEC registration process pioneering the *FIRST* true auction marketplace for person-to-person lending.”
(emphasis mine)

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:04:30 +0000

I really don’t see t becoming an interesting proposition unless they are able to get some type of fractionalization working so that lenders could lever up.

Do that… and suddenly this becomes very interesting.

Otherwise this just looks like a place that’s attracting people who would normally go for PayDay loans and pawnshops.

By: JasonKolb.com

JasonKolb.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:56:10 +0000

Building a P2P Debt System on BitTorrent…

This is a follow-on to my post the other day about peer-to-peer debt. It’s some of the stuff I’ve been drawing on napkins for a couple of years, an idea for building a peer to peer service network on top……

By: Larry Chiang

Larry Chiang — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:10:39 +0000

p2p lending start-up vying for “first this” or ‘first that’ are silly. Duck9 is the first FICO score prep company started by a Ford model *tosses hat into ring*

By: Larry Chiang

Larry Chiang — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:04:56 +0000

Is astro-turfing some type of credit term?

By: Larry Chiang

Larry Chiang — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:03:29 +0000

Congrats Chris Larsen + team

By: Ivan Lazarte

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:52:30 +0000

Great link re freds blog. That guy is on a mission or something. What little interest I had in proper.com completely went away.

By: P2P Lending News

P2P Lending News — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:55:41 +0000

Yeah, Prosper is going big on the auction nature of their platform (since at this point it's one of the only differentiators with Lending Club). According to Prosper, "the SEC has never permitted Wall Street investment banks or any other institution to run a true auction where investors could make an irrevocable bid that committed funds prior to the establishment of a final rate." Which is a big deal if you're an SEC nerd, but not sure if it will matter to individual lenders/investors. Lending Club has been doing quite well without Prosper in the game, racking up 7% month-over-month growth in 2009. Now that Prosper is back, it should be a good fight.

By: Stan Squab

Stan Squab — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:51:35 +0000

I’ve been a lender at Prosper for 15 months. I’m disapointed. Lots of defaulted loans, lots of late loans even though I lent to mostly above average credit grades (some of my defaults were AA). I’m losing money. I wouldn’t do it again.

By: janie

janie — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:35:15 +0000

P2P lending has become way too complicated and restrictive on these sites, so much so that you might as well go to a bank.

40billion.com and Virgin Money keep it simple and between friends and family, instead of strangers. Easier to use and more viable and sustainable in the long run.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:35:36 +0000

Although I understand the need for such a system I question the viability of it. There are many things to consider???

By: Old Prosper Lender

Old Prosper Lender — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:41:25 +0000

Lender beware. Prosper is not in the middle of a class action lawsuit for nothing.

By: Wil

Wil — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:24:39 +0000

Err, correction the URL is http://www.prospers.org. Sorry for the typo.

@Robin: would you be willing to update the article with a link to prospers.org or one of the blogs from lenders who have legitimate complaints about Prosper? This article reads like a puff piece for them, and I’d like to see Tech Crunch take a little more neutral position.

By: Wil

Wil — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:22:31 +0000

To anyone thinking of lending on Prosper, I highly recommend you check out the forums and blogs at http://wwwprospers.org. Prosper has a long history of abusive behavior towards lenders, including grossly misrepresenting default rates, misaccounting for collection fees, retroactively changing their terms of service in order to ban critics, and so forth.

It is incredibly difficult to turn a profit on Prosper loans, given that on average 10-20% of them default PER YEAR (see http://fred93bl...g.blogspot.com/). Prosper’s collections are non-existent, and they stopped selling the bad debt to junk buyers a few years ago, meaning that lenders need to be able to collect interest in the 20-30% range to make a profit – illegal in many states, and certainly not a good option for the borrower.

(I think it’s also noteworthy there’s some obvious astroturfing going on in the previous comments. If Prosper was so great, why would they need to do so?)

By: Article Playground

Article Playground — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:08:52 +0000

@ Robin…Prosper will be SEC approved momentarily. We are faithful of that

By: NZN

NZN — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:08:20 +0000

This is fantastic news on many fronts. Our organization is very excited to see this market opening up. Peer-to-peer empowerment of anything is good within a system that tries too hard to centralize the command and control structure of our socio-economic system.

Kudos to the patience and foresight of the Prosper management team.

By: Article Playground

Article Playground — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:07:36 +0000

Just found Prosper.com CEO’s profile potentially on Facebook