NetBanker at Prosper Days 2008

I was recently reading NetBanker and I came across an post where he says he will be at Prosper Days 2008 as a panelist of bloggers covering the space.

After find that tidbit I read the rest of the rest of the article. Lo and behold a picture of RateLadder is on the NetBanker Blog. How cool is that?

I agree with NetBanker… having Freakonimcs at Prosper Days will be awesome. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.

I also think the education videos are helpful to new borrowers and lenders.

No Comments | November 30, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Zopa Guarantees Returns 5.1%

But the yield is only 5.1%. Essentially you are buying a 1 year CD in the credit union of Zopa. Details can be found in the this Wall Street Journal article.

FDIC insured guaranteed rate of return. Yield capped at 5.1%

Seems just like a credit union. I will be glad to have competition in the p2p lending space. It makes everyone better, but 5.1% return is not why I can to play ball. I will take more risk for a chance at higher returns.

Don’t get me wrong I will try Zopa. I just don’t expect to place a significant amount of money there.

Keep reading for my eventual post launch Zopa followup.

1 Comment | November 30, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Zopa’s US Launch Imminent

Received directly from Zopa via email:

Well, we told you we were coming! At this very minute, we are testing the service and expect to bring it to everybody within a few days. More below!

In this U.S. update:

Launch Update: Sneak Preview
Borrowers Needed, Now
Team Spotlight: Luke Terlaak Poot, Comic Theorist
Zopa In the News

What we will be launching is a social finance community built around the idea of help. That will bear some explaining, in due time. For now, let’s take a sneak peek at our home page, ladies and gentlemen (you saw it here first):

Looks familiar, right? Lots of real people taking money out and putting money in. But Zopa in the USA will be very different, too. Here are just some of the ways we’ll be different from the sites that exist today:

No risk for investors.
Your funds will be federally insured. No more worrying about whether your borrowers will pay your loan back.
Pick who you want to help.
Investors will choose exactly who they want to help.
Set your rate.
Investors will choose how much they want to earn, up to a ceiling.
No waiting.
Borrowers will get their loans immediately upon approval.
Lower your monthly payment.
Borrowers can actually reduce their loan payments after they’ve borrowed. They’ll do that using rich profiles…

How will we do all this? By using some very cool technology and a terrific partnership with leading credit unions. More coming soon! And we do mean soon…

We could use some borrowers to pound on the site, take out loans, and make sure all our bells and whistles are…ringing and whistling.

If you were thinking of borrowing on Zopa, have good credit (FICO 640+), and are a U.S. resident 18 or over, drop us a line:
questions@zopa.com

1 Comment | November 29, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

General Opinion of New Prosper Forums

I had such high hopes for the new Prosper forums, which is why it makes me a little sad to find myself agreeing with the general sentiment (but not the harsh rhetoric) of both Prosperous Land (Prosper’s New Forums Not So Hot) and zcommodore (new forums basically worthless). (Edit: ProsperousLand took a thoughtful and well written approach in his second criticism. I recommend this one if you want to read just 1: My Take On Prosper’s New Forums )

As both these links provide the gory details of the criticism I will take this post as a means of telling you which forum you should be using to discuss p2p lending including Prosper.

If you want to discuss Prosper or P2P Lending I would not currently do so at the Prosper Forum. P2P No Bank has an independent forum for all p2p lending sites including Prosper. The forum is monitored by representatives of both Lending Club and GlobeFunder and they are both very responsive. The software being used is a proven opensource forum platform called SMF (simple machine forums). It is fast, I could go on and on.

Fell free to decide for yourself, other than the Prosper Developer forum, I will be at the P2P No Bank Forum.

Another forum you may consider looking into is the Pro$pers.org forum… it can be a bit of a challenge to keep a well reasoned discussion on topic, but there are quite a few of the old forumers here.

4 Comments | November 29, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments