Lazy Man and Money

Prosper and Loanio Updates

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This news is a week old, but I’ve been a little too busy to get it out. It seems like the SEC ordered a cease and desist. I have to admit that reading the legalese is not my specialty. So I don’t really know what it amounts to. If anyone wants to read it and interpret it for me, I’d appreciate it.

That’s not the only bad news for Prosper. Monday Prosper agreed to pay 20 states $1 million dollars. It seems you can follow the progress of this class action lawsuit on this blog.

In other news, Loanio has voluntarily decided to stop accepting lenders and borrowers. Presumably they’ve seen what’s going on with Prosper and what Lending Club has been through. This is why Zopa didn’t operate a pure P2P.

Sometimes I wish the US regulators that are going so hard after these P2P companies would spend more time preventing and fixing the economy.

Lending Club Update

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While I was asleep at the wheel on Friday, Lending Club came through with an update on their quiet period. When we last left them, I declared Lending Club is Dead. I admit that I was going for a sensational headline, but I still maintain that I wasn’t irrational. When a start-up company says that it is A) Unable to take new business, B) Unable to talk about why it can’t new business, and C) Unable to give a time-line for when business with resume, you have to wonder.

On Friday we learned that Lending Club Filed For SEC Registration. I didn’t see a hint of how long something typically waits to get through the SEC, so I’m going to be really conservative and go with a ballpark estimate of 14 years. (Again I’m being ridiculous, but with the last of information, that’s what I’m reduced to.)

I really like Lending Club – my loans are for the most part current. I say “for the most part” because I don’t want to jinx anything. It’s a little like how you don’t mention the no hitter when a pitcher hasn’t given up a hit for the first 7 innings. My portfolio at Lending Club is doing better than it was at Prosper. In fairness I took too much risk with Prosper, so by the time Lending Club came around, I was a good deal smarter about my loans.

Let’s hope that the SEC puts a rush on things to keep the industry moving. Without competition (Loanio, Loanio, come out wherever you are, the P2P lending space has been boring.