Archives for November, 2008

LendingClub Promotion extended till end of year

November 29th, 2008 | LendingClub, News & Updates

Just talked to Rob from LendingClub and they have agreed to extend the $25 sign up promotion until the end of the year. The offer is valid only if you sign up through the following link here.

LendingClub Promotion

November 19th, 2008 | LendingClub, News & Updates

Just wanted to let everyone know that the kind folks at LendingClub are offering a $25 sign up bonus for new lenders for the month of November only exclusively through lendingstats.com. If your interested click here to sign up. (Thanks Rob)

I have checked out their site and here are some comparisons to Prosper:

  • Borrowers are screened more thoroughly. Better quality listings but lower quantity compared to Prosper
  • Minimum bid amount is $25 vs $50 for Prosper
  • LendingClub has their secondary market running already. Prosper is still in the quiet period.
  • User interface seems easier to learn then Prosper’s, however advanced search seems to be lacking
  • Similar to Prosper, I think the best credit grades to invest in are B and C

Furthermore, I chatted with Rob from LendingClub to get a feel for the company. Overall a positive experience. Here’s what I learned:

  • They filter borrowers before they are approved to request a loan on the site. (90% are rejected)
  • There is a credit approval status for each listing, status can be either ‘In Review’ or ‘Approved’. Approved listings many times have their employment and income verified.
  • How interest rates are set. From my perspective, the interest rates should be higher to account for the credit environment we’re in.

Overall, I’ll be testing the site out with a small amount of money in the coming months to monitor performance etc.

Defaulted loans (Fully paid)

November 17th, 2008 | Prosper, News & Updates

Prosper recently added a new loan status Defaulted (PaidInFull). These loans will be grouped under the Paid loan status instead of defaults. (I think this status encompasses loans that were in the charge-off status but were fully paid).

The nightly update is patched to reflect these changes as of today.

Charge-Offs update

November 6th, 2008 | News & Updates

Prosper recently charged off numerous loans. These loans were not sold to a debt buyer and are technically still in collections. However, they are effectively defaulted so we’ll categorize these loans under the Defaulted (NAT/Charge-Off) category.

Non-update related: Fred93’s blog. Always found his posts to be very insightful so hopefully by mentioning it here, it will get him some more readers. :)