Here are some of the latest peer-to-peer lending and financial innovation stories from around the web:

  • The Collections Procedure at Prosper – When I was at Prosper headquarters earlier this month I sat down with Nancy, the operations manager, who is also in charge of loan collections. She walked me through the collections procedure they follow for all borrowers who become past due. For a start she said that around 98% of borrowers are on an automatic…
  • More Loans Means More Choices for Investors at Lending Club – For the first half of this year the number of available loans at Lending Club hovered between 700 and 1,000 loans. Occasionally the number went over 1,000 but it averaged somewhere around 800 loans available to investors at any one time. But in the month of June this changed. By June 21st there was over…
  • Roundup of Social Lending News – August 25, 2012 – Every Saturday I bring you the latest news from the world of peer to peer lending. These are the best of the news articles and blog posts from around the web that I shared on Twitter this past week. Everyone should check out the latest Prosper blog post below. Their July investor update shared this interesting tidbit:…
  • The ZOPA Part 4 – heads & tails – Zopa operates an open market place where borrowers look for low cost loans and lenders seek high returns. As with any price discovery process there will be some volatility in the rates participants get as they seek agreement. In any given month there will be a small number of loans agreed that are at exceptionally…
  • Questions and Answers: Prosper Edition – Last week on my trip to San Francisco I sat down in the Prosper offices and met with many people on the management team. We covered a range of topics and I brought many of your questions to the table. Here are their responses. Q. Any movement on new states being approved? There has been…
  • July, 2012 Investor Monthly Update – THREE YEARS OF CONSISTENT PERFORMANCE
    July 2012 marks Prosper 2.0’s third birthday. Consistent loan performance over the past three years demonstrates the significant improvements made since Prosper’s pioneering 1.0 model. Over the past 36 months our investors have experienced 18 months of returns greater than 1%, 35 months of returns greater than 0.80%, and not a…
  • The ZOPA Part 3 – your place in the queue – This post is aimed at those lenders who are interested in the technical details behind matching borrowers with lenders. The change to the matching mechanism discussed here is a subtle point and only makes a marginal difference to how fast a lender’s money is lent out but, for the team at Zopa these details are…
  • Questions and Answers: Lending Club Edition – It was a great trip out to San Francisco last week where I spent some time with Lending Club and Prosper. Before my trip I wrote this post asking for questions that you would like to pose to the management of both companies. Thanks to everyone who posted a question in the comments and for…
  • The ZOPA Part 2 – an accurate and stable lending forecast – The ZOPA is a range of rates over which you can expect to lend out money over the next 7 days.  The bottom of the ZOPA is where you will lend out your money as fast as possible by participating in all loan applications.  The top of the ZOPA is where you will lend out…