Just a few hours after I received an e-mail from Lending Club announcing that they were open again, Prosper sent an e-mail saying that they were beginning their quiet period. This is just over 6 months after Lending Club entered it’s quiet period. I believe that Lending Club got out of it’s quiet period quickly due to a partnership with an existing broker member, FolioFn. It doesn’t sound hard to believe that Prosper will go quiet for another 6 months.
The quiet period sounds a lot like Lending Clubs. There’s not much indication how long it will take, but the indication is several months. During this time lenders won’t be able to lend and people won’t be able to sign up as lenders in the meantime.
Regular readers may note that the title to this post is a tongue-in-cheek reference to my previous post Lending Club is Dead. In honesty, I think that Prosper’s huge first mover advantage over other peer-to-peer lending platforms, gives me more confidence that they can weather this storm than Lending Club did. In addition, we’ve seen Lending Club come through and resume business, so there’s hope that Prosper can duplicate those results.
I feel that people should be asking a very important question here. Why is the SEC focusing on Prosper and Lending Club? Is it for consumer protection? Where was this regulation and scrutiny when banks were making mortgages so bad that a 3rd grader could realize the problem? Where were they when these CDOs we being created? While Americans lose more than a trillion dollars (between stock losses and bail out packages), the regulators are focusing on the small amounts of money the Prosper and Lending Club service. In the immortal words of Seth and Amy from Saturday Night Live, “REALLY?!?!”