IOU Central becomes Canada’s first P2P Lender
Canada’s IOU Central launched yesterday, becoming the first person to person lending site in the great white north. CommunityLend, which had made their intention to launch public months before, is still sitting on the sidelines working out regulatory issues.
On the IOU Central site, borrowers can request loans between $1,000 and $25,000 (Canadian dollars), along with the minimum they will accept should the loan not get 100% funded. Listings last 2 weeks, and the borrower can choose the loan term, between 1 and 36 months. Borrowers pay IOU Central an origination fee based on their credit score, which is determined by TransUnion Canada.
Interest rates are set in a Prosper-style auction, and lenders bid as little as $25 for the privilege of participating in a borrower’s loan.
As Netbanker has noted, the VP of Technology and the Product Manager at IOU Central were previously the founders of the Danish P2P lending firm FairRates, presumably acquired through some kind of merger or acquisition, although none has been announced.
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[...] a few weeks after launching their web site, IOU Central shut down their web site on February 29 in response to a request from securities [...]
[...] Central, the flash-in-a-pan P2P lending site from Canada that launched on Feb 13, 2009 and was promptly shut down on Feb 29 by Canadian regulators, has a message on the [...]