Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club in California recently spoke with Jackie Hyland from ABC News Money Matters about Lending Club, where borrowers with good credit can obtain personal loans from complete strangers. It was touted as providing a unique and creative way to get a loan that will offer lower interest rates than most credit card companies and banks can. (Note: Prosper is in a quiet period and has more or less shut down lender operations. Loanio (Loanio Blog) has just launched but lack the secondary market of Lending Club.
Here is my synopsis of the interview…
Lending club operates in the same way as a normal marketplace, however instead of having buyers and sellers, the website caters to borrowers and lenders. “Borrowers are there to get a loan, and lenders are there to make investments in these loans requested by the borrowers and fair interest rates as a result, and at the same time feel good about it because they’re helping other people.” Renaud Laplanche told Money Matters.
Peer to Peer lending or P2P lending allows borrowers and lenders to cut the middle man out, exchanging loans for an average interest rate of 10% to 12% instead of whatever high interest rates lending institutions are currently offering. With the recent credit crunch, not only is the demand for peer to peer lending alternatives going up, but Lending Club has also experienced a dramatic increase in the supply of lending options as lenders look for new ways to invest as returns on the stock market slow.
Since May of 2007 when Lending Club was founded, more than $20,000,000 dollars in loans have been offered through the website on a peer to peer basis. A new SEC-backed program was introduced to Lending Club only ten days ago, and has already facilitating the lending of more than $1 million dollars from lenders to borrowers on the website.
Virgin Money is another the brainchild of Richard Branson, the well known entrepreneur that is behind a multitude of businesses, record labels and projects throughout the world. His belief is that everyone should have access to the money they need when they are trying to get money for a business or even for personal reasons. This is one of the latest entries into the p2p lending sphere and we were interested to see what they had to offer.
Unlike many of the current p2p lending sites, this one does not just focus on personal loans. Real estate professionals, small business owners and regular people can all use the site to get the money that they need. They are also developing a section for students looking to fund their education and these loans will soon be made available as well.
The interesting concept behind this site is that it isn’t strictly a lending community. Rather, it is a resource for p2p lenders and borrowers to take care of formalities and hash out loan paperwork. For instance, let’s say that your Aunt Sally wants to lend you money for a new car. Typically, there may be a little confusion over what kind of interest you would pay, when payments were due, etc… Virgin Money was made to make it easier for Aunt Sally to manage the loan and for you to pay it back.
So, in essence, borrowers will need to do all the legwork to find someone willing to lend them money, and then send them to Virgin Money to complete the deal. This is an interesting concept, and while it may not be as popular as the sites that connect lenders and borrowers, there is still definitely a need for a service like this.
Virgin Money acts as a manager for the loans, to make sure that both parties adhere to loan agreements. This makes it easier for lenders to get payments on time and helps borrowers keep track of everything to do with the loan. Since loans between family and friends do have a tendency to get a little messy, this site should make a big difference.
Quite honestly, we see Virgin Money as being more suited to lenders than borrowers. There is a lot more protection for a friendly family loan when you’re doing it through Virgin Money and they can assist borrowers in learning the ropes. While there are some services for borrowers, the main intent does appear to be to assist lenders in managing a loan.
We did like the fact that they provide legal agreements and help everyone set terms for a loan that are acceptable. One thing that we did not see was information on collections, so this is not clear as to whether lenders are on their own, or if they will have some assistance from Virgin Money.
Bottom line, before you think about lending money out to family members or a friend, it’s probably a good idea to use a service like this to make sure that you are protected.
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