LendingClub launches social P2P lending site on Facebook
LendingClub, a new person-to-person lending site based in Sunnyvale, CA, launched during last night’s Facebook f8 event in San Francisco. LendingClub, headed by founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche, has raised $2 million in angel funding, and has about 18 employees.
For the moment, the site is only accessible through Facebook, but will eventually be available to the public.
LendingClub is unique in that it leverages Facebook’s 50M+ users and their social connectedness to give lenders more confidence in making loans to those who might be connected to them through a college network, the region they live in, or a company. Unlike a traditional social network, however, LendingClub will never disclose the actual names or profiles of borrowers and lenders to each other.
LendingClub seems to have taken a lot of cues from US first-mover Prosper, although there are some notable differences:
- LendingClub requires a minimum credit score of 640 (Prosper’s minimum is 540)
- LendingClub seems to calculate the rates that borrowers will borrow at, and lenders will lend at. For example, if you are in the D2 “loan grade”, you can get a loan at 12.17%.
- Lenders, similarly, do not compete for loans in an auction format – they are simply offered loans at certain rates, and they decide to take them or leave them.
- LendingClub has a highly simplified process for lending your money called “LendingMatch”. It asks the lender for the amount to lend, his or her tolerance for risk, and offers a portfolio of loans that meet the lender’s criteria, taking into account any social connections that the lender might have with any borrowers whose loans are available for purchase.
Related posts:
- LendingClub Proposes New Structure in S-1 Filing
LendingClub has filed an S-1 with the SEC, in which it proposes a new regulatory structure for person to person lending, as well as providing some interesting data... - LendingClub raises $10.2M Series A
On August 23, LendingClub announced that they were about to close a Series A round of funding for $10.2 million from Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. This first round... - LendingClub introduces mapping, top lenders list
In an email announcement that went out to active lenders last week, LendingClub previewed a couple of new upcoming features.... - Pertuity Direct Launches Mutual Fund-like P2P Lending
In a press release today, peer to peer lending site Pertuity Direct took the “beta” label off their site and started accepting new borrowers and lenders. Pertuity Direct’s... - LendingClub Suddenly Halts Lending
Today LendingClub stopped allowing new lenders to register and fund loans on their site, and entered a “quiet period” in which they will not issue public statements or...
[...] Club opened as a Facebook-only application in Jun 2007, and only opened to the public (outside Facebook) in Sep [...]
[...] Club’s video contest back in 2007 to promote the fledgling Facebook-based site yielded a bunch of entries, and the first place, $3,000 winner was the well-produced [...]