New Prosper Changes Digested

December 19th, 2007 | Uncategorized

My apologies for the verbatim post last night… But it was late…

Here are the changes that affect me as a lender and 3rd party developer…

On the Lender screen in the active loan summary there has been added a break down of payments received as well as a summary (principal, interest, and late fees). And a breakdown and summary of the value of loans (principal outstanding, interest accrued, and late fees accrued). Also, they added a cool little stat: Daily interest accrual. I am accruing $5.43 a day in interest.

The performance page is MUCH faster. I think the user history page is much faster as well.

The referral program on the borrower side is now a flat $35 referral fee. This is a good change I think. One it is easier to understand than the 0.5% of loan size. Two it is more than the $25 referral LendingClub is currently paying on the borrower side.

A consolidated electronic 1099 this year. Thanks! That will be much easier than last year.

I know I said this was lender and api commentary, but the borrower guidance feature might improve on-time and late recovery payment statistics. Which, if it can be improved I am all for it.

The webservice API added a new un-authenticated object: Marketplace. I think an interesting rotating flash widget could be made using the FeaturedListings.

Marketplace Object
Description: The Marketplace is a collection of metrics and statistics about the Prosper Marketplace. These metrics are calculated daily.

Name	Label	Type	Authenticated	Description
FeaturedListings	Featured Listings	ProsperObject[]	No	This returns an array of Listings which are the current featured listings without any authenticated fields.
HistoricalInterestRatesTable	Historical Interest Rates Table	xml	No	This returns an xml table with the average interest rates by loan amount, credit grade, and group membership on loans already funded on Prosper.
LoanVolumeToDate	Loans Originated Amount To Date	decimal	No	The total dollar amount of loans originated to date.
MembersToDate	Members To Date	integer	No	The total number of members to date.