Hi, my name is Matthew Paulson. I’m am the current editor of P2P Lending News. I first caught wind of the peer-to-peer lending industry in 2007 while blogging at American Consumer News.com. At first, I was skeptical of the peer-to-peer lending industry given its shaky regulatory status and unproven track-record. The two largest companies, Prosper.com and Lending Club, did have regulatory hurdles to work through, but now both companies are in good regulatory standing with the SEC and are seeing significant growth in monthly loan volume. During the last four years, I’ve kept my eye on the peer-to peer lending industry and feel that it’s finally hitting its stride. As a result, I bought the domain P2PLendingNews.com from its previous owner and started blogging on this site in April.

If you’re not familiar with the world of peer-to-peer lending, it’s basically a way for investors to directly lend money to individuals looking to borrow money. Instead of loaning money to a bank via a savings account who loans out your money to other people at higher interest rates, you have the opportunity to side-step the banking system and get a better rate of return on your money. Borrowers also benefit by taking out loans through peer-to-peer lending services because they often get much lower interest rates than they would if they took out a personal loan from a bank or put a purchase on a credit card

The two largest players in the peer-to-peer lending industry are Prosper.com and Lending Club. Lending Club is currently the 800-pound gorilla in the industry and is originating a much larger monthly loan volume than any of its competitors. Prosper.com still remains a significant player in the peer-to-peer lending industry. There are also smaller players, such as Green Note and People Capital, that provide peer-to-peer student loans. Internationally, there are a number of peer-to-peer lending companies that operate in their respective countries. CommunityLend is a major player in the Canadian peer-to-peer lending market and Zopa operates in a number of different countries.

I personally invest money into peer-to-peer loans via way of Lending Club. As of May 2011, I have about $9,000 invested in peer-to-peer loans, but hope to significantly increase that number through the next year. You can read more about my investment strategy for Lending Club that I call the “common sense strategy” and the rates of return that I’m seeing.

My goal for P2P Lending news is to be the authoritative resource for information and news about the peer-to-peer lending industry. I will cover the latest news regarding peer-to-peer lending companies in the United States and around the world, provide commentary and strategy for peer-to-peer lending investors and provide help resources and guides for those interested in peer-to-peer lending.

If you’d like to find out more about me, you are welcome to visit my personal blog at Matt Paulson.com.

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