Prosperous LandProsperous LandKeeping an eye on Prosper and peer to peer lending. Articles
Circle Lending Puts Up Volume
2007-10-18 17:20:00 I have never paid much attention to Circle Lending because they facilitate loans between parties who have already agreed, in principle, to make the loan. In other words, they handle the bookkeeping. Virgin (of Richard Branson fame) purchased CircleLending a while back, rebranded it (Virgin Money USA), and has started a marketing push (see here, here). I have to admit that I didn't make it past More About: Volume
How's That Income Doing
2007-10-18 05:04:00 Back in August I observed that the borrower's income seems to weigh heavily on distress rates (late or worse). With two more months of statistics under Prosper's belt, I felt it was time to revisit this topic and see how the loans were fairing. Income AA A B C D E HR Income > $50k 0.41% 2.34% 4.79% 4.81% 7.17% 14.13% 17.57% Income >$25k 1.20% 1.77% 3.61% 5.10% 7.81% 11.85% 20.22% Unstated or More About: Doing
More Slowing State Economies
2007-10-16 20:02:00 I'm starting to feel like Chicken Little. It looks like reports of slowing sales tax receipts from California and Georgia were the tip of the ice berg. The San Diego Union Tribune is reporting that half of the states (unlisted) are showing slowing collections. About half of all U.S. states are collecting less from their sales taxes than expected, which could signal a recession lies ahead as the More About: State
Prosper Got Adding Bank Accounts Right
2007-10-15 20:02:00 I have to admit that it's a whole lot easier to write about things that Prosper isn't doing right. I did have one of those, "Wow, it just worked" moments last week, though. I wanted to add a new bank account for transferring around funds since we'd recently changed our primary bank (yes, you can infer that I'm still transferring money into Prosper). They were quick and I found the quick most More About: Bank
Georgia Sales Slowing Down Too - Tighten Those Lending Standards
2007-10-15 16:30:00 First California sales tax receipts were dropping, and now Georgia has reported a similar problem. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (hat tip to Calculated Risk): Collections in Georgia were down $2.3 million in September, compared to the same period in 2006. Sales taxes dropped 10.6 percent. For the first quarter of the fiscal year, which began July 1, overall collections are up 5 percent, More About: Standards , Lending
A Linkfest By Any Other Name Is Just As Lazy
2007-10-13 04:23:00 And into the links! zcommodore, 36% Interest Rates? There are rumors flying about new information provided by Chris Larsen at the Hawaii Meet & Greet that I mentioned in my last post. One of them is the possibility that Prosper will raise their rate caps to 36% from 30%.Personally, I think this is a bad idea. If you look at my previous blog post, you will see where I mention how More About: Lazy
California Sliding Into Recession?
2007-10-12 14:09:00 I had previous considered Calif ornia as high-risker risk lending terrain due to housing conditions there. Calculated Risk has highlighted another reason to be careful: Based on sales tax revenue, it now appears that the California economy is in recession. The graph shows the September retail sales tax collections (and fiscal year through Sept) since 1998. The large decline in 2001 was related More About: Recession
Notes From Prosper's Hawaii Meet & Greet
2007-10-11 19:48:00 Prosper's CEO Chris Larson participated in a meet & greet organized by Prosper member islandmele this last weekend. At the Honolulu, Hawaii gathering, Chris (noted as CL) did comment on Prosper and answer a few questions from folks. islandmele was kind enough to post her notes from the weekend. Here's the highlight reel as interpreted by me. Go read the original to get it straight from the More About: Notes , Meet
PII Humor
2007-10-10 21:15:00 While there continues to be resentment about the shifting and sometimes ambiguous policies regarding personally identifiable information (PII), it's also become a humor generator for those who enjoy sarcasm and satire. Unfortunately for some, I'm one of those people. This listing and associated forum thread are worth a look, and the borrower Q&A is equally entertaining. Buying Inventory -- A with More About: Humor
Prosper Poofs Potentially Powerful Features From Forum
2007-10-10 16:22:00 I have a love / hate view of the forums. For every insightful Q & A with Doug Fuller there's an equally frustrating flame war over personally identifiable information. In the latest forum power struggle between the members and Prosper , Prosper has poofed their description of some upcoming features. Because the post about our announcements at Finovate included some features that won't be More About: Features , Forum , Feat , Ally
Collections Follow-On Q&A With Doug Fuller
2007-10-09 20:49:00 I'm almost starting to like the guy. Doug Fuller has responded via the forums to another 20 questions (ok, a few were softballs) asked in response to his original Q&A session. It's a good read and I've picked up a few of the best questions. I encourage you to follow the whole forum thread for reactions as some are equally insightful. 1. Would you be willing to list what you have seen wrong with More About: Collections
Prosper's September Lending Market Summary
2007-10-09 16:39:00 Prosper released their September market summary. Check it out for all the details. Their noteworthy section included some interesting statistics. Apparently self-reported computer programmers are the least likely to default, followed by government workers, the nebulous analyst, and then mechanical and electrical engineers. This is a fun statistic (since I'm either a computer programmer or More About: Market , Lending , Summary
More Details On Upcoming Changes
2007-10-08 16:36:00 More details emerged over the weekend on the new Prosper features hinted at in a Yahoo financial news article and confirmed by Prosper. In addition to his Q & A with Prosperous Land, Prosper Andrew posted details to the forums and answered a few questions. The thread adds color to previously known information on the two key features: default rate estimation and a portfolio tool. In addition, More About: Details , Upcoming , Chang , Chan
Prosper Confirms Upcoming Lender Features
2007-10-06 00:04:00 Earlier today I pointed to a Yahoo financial article that referred to several features that weren't currently available on the Prosper site. It turns out that these features were previewed by Prosper at the Finovate 2007 conference in NYC this last week and the Yahoo article was based on Prosper's presentation at the conference. Prosper was kind enough to confirm the upcoming features were More About: Features , Upcoming , Feat , Firms
Prosper Sets Date For Prosper Days 2008
2007-10-05 20:07:00 Looks like the 2008 incarnation for Prosper Days will be Feb 25 - 26 in San Francisco. They're gearing it mostly toward lenders, but of course, all our welcome. Since I have no scruples, I've shameless listed the lecture schedule from their site (it's posted below). Doug Fuller, new VP of Operations, will be covering Collections and Fraud Prevention. That should be an interesting follow-up to his More About: Sets
Upcoming Prosper Features Hinted In Yahoo Article
2007-10-05 18:34:00 A recent Yahoo article on online financial services may have accidentally provided hints on some upcoming Prosper features: Prosper mined its own data to give lenders a better view of their risk. A new feature tells borrowers the historical risk of default on a specific kind of loan, such as loans to recent college grads. In addition, a new tool allows lenders to construct a portfolio of Prosper More About: Article , Features , Upcoming
Prosper's September Revenue
2007-10-05 16:32:00 Following up on last month's post documenting how Prosper makes money, I plan to keep looking at their monthly income monthly to see how they're progressing as a business. Into this month's totals. First, origination income: Credit Grade Loans Originated Borrower Fee Income AA $782,614 1.0% $7,826 A $868,698 1.0% $8,686 B $1,361,803 1.0% $1,361 C $1,138,437 1.0% $1,138 D $868,388 1.0%$8,683 E More About: Revenue , September
Prosper Confirms New VP's Collections Experience
2007-10-04 19:27:00 Prosper has published a Q&A with the new VP of Operations Doug Fuller (Prosper Forum, Rate Ladder, Prosper Lending Review). The introduction to the Q&A confirms him as the Doug Fuller with a hefty collections and efficiency oriented background. This is the same one whose resume surfaced in the forums a little bit ago. From the Q & A, he's confirmed that he's quite aggressive on debtors who don't More About: Experience , Collections , Prosper , Firms , Erie
Loans From Groups Declining
2007-10-01 19:10:00 zcommodore has been monitoring the number of group loans funded vs non-group loans funded in response to Prosper's change in group rewards. A few weeks ago he noted that the ratio was swinging to non-groups: Back in May/June when I first started checking, the number of "no group" listings at any point in time was around 60%*. After the removal of match rewards in early June along with a few More About: Loans , Groups
Friday Linkfest Junket
2007-09-28 23:25:00 I've been having a linkfest every Friday . Why stop now? And on we go... TechDumpster has a rundown on the (hypothetical) Zopa versus Prosper match-up: Although Zopa is the only service of its kind in the United Kingdom, when they do finally make it to the United States, they are going to have to go head to head with Prosper. Here’s a quick breakdown of the main differences between Zopa and More About: Junket
Prosper VP To Toughen Up On Late Payments?
2007-09-22 18:35:00 I completely missed this. Fortunately, Lending Stats didn't. From their September e-mail only newsletter: Prosper Tackles Collections Prosper is pleased to introduce our new VP of Operations, Doug Fuller. Doug brings 25 years of experience to the Prosper team and will be instrumental in helping our team crack down on delinquencies and ramp up our collections efforts. We are excited to have More About: Late
Linkfest
2007-09-21 21:10:00 It's Friday and I've had a long week at the day job (hence, few posts), so now I'm just lazy. Let the linkfest begin... Lending Club comes out: This is it. The great moment we have been working towards: expanding Lending Club beyond Facebook and making it available to anyone out there looking for better rates. We continue to enhance and support our Lending Club application in Facebook, but now,
Studying The Lending Market Summary
2007-09-20 05:42:00 I've had a few days to ruminate over the Prosper's August lending market summary, and I've found a few items that are noteworthy. Specifically, their "Prosper Select" criteria and the top Prosper borrower states. The Prosper Select criteria were listed in the fine print at the bottom of the release: The Prosper Select Index return is the estimated average annual return on invested principal, More About: Market , Studying , Lending , Summary
New And Shiny Instant Transfer
2007-09-15 18:39:00 It was like magic. Just after I commented that Prosper should give lenders a hint about whether a bank transfer qualifies for the rapid transfer, it magically appears in an update two days later. It's not called rapid transfer anymore, though. It's called "Instant Tran sfer ", but all the other good stuff I was looking for showed up. The new interface for transferring funds calls out the dollar More About: Shiny
Prosper Growth And Usuary Laws
2007-09-13 23:14:00 As can be observed from my analysis of Prosper 's August income, they need to do some growing if they intend to survive long term. Prosper's ability to expand it's lending has been limited by the various state usury laws that limit the interest rates that lenders can fetch. This has been highlighted by Prosper Lending Review's commentary on the Pennsylvania rate cap and one borrower's attempt to More About: Laws , Growth
Another Prosper Upgrade
2007-09-13 16:09:00 Prosper's performed their September upgrade last night. As someone named Andrew (Prosper Andrew perhaps?) commented in a previous post, the rapid transfer is now functional and will be called "Instant Transfer". Prosper's also implemented their much talked about changes to group rewards as well as some additional changes. From the announcement forum post: Instant Transfers for Lenders After More About: Prosper
Prosper Monthly Market Summary
2007-09-12 20:55:00 Prosper has published their first monthly Peer to Peer Lending Market summary. The market survey, surprisingly, covers just their own lending market. There's some interesting statistics that we'll digest in the next few days, but I want to highlight the market commentary provided by Chris Larson, CEO: The market turmoil stemming from the ongoing credit crunch, subprime mortgage meltdown and More About: Prosper , Summary , Month , Mont
YALF - Yet Another Linkfest
2007-09-12 19:17:00 RateLadder spotted that Prosper Andrew requested a loan: This is a $10,000 Loan that started at 15%. It is currently @ 7%. While I have every faith that Andrew will repay the loan. I have a hard time justifying the current rate. The highest yeilding 3 year CD is currently an APY 5.41% from Eloan. I will try to snipe $50 from my standing orders and bid $50 at 5.5%. Prosper Lending Review
Rapid Transfer Behavior Confirmed
2007-09-11 19:47:00 A while back, I disclosed the rapid funds transfer criteria after a Prosper lending services rep was kind enough to tell me (that'll teach him). I can now confirmed that it works roughly as outlined. Some time after I passed $2500 in outstanding loan balances, I transfered $500 into my Prosper account. I got a notice that the money would be available in the usual 4 business days. Later that More About: Behavior , Transfer , Rapid , Tran
How Prosper Gets Paid
More articles from this author:2007-09-10 20:12:00 In addition to all the intricacies of being a lending on Prosper , I also think it's helpful to understand how Prosper makes it's money. After all, Prosper requires cash to pay it's employees and stay in business, and it's in the lender's best interest for Prosper to keep it's doors open. And, to make things more fun, they give us all the statistics necessary to determine their corporate income. More About: Paid 1, 2, 3 |
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