Prosper Around The Web

Time for some serious blog spam a linkfest :)

An article on Prosper from NuWire Investor:

It is common knowledge that banks make huge profits on the margin between the interest rates they charge borrowers and the rates they offer to savings account holders.

The sheer size of these institutions allows them to easily diversify among a huge pool of borrowers and account holders, and they have historically had a monopoly on the lending market. Prosper.com, the first major person-to-person lending service in the U.S., intends to change all that by connecting small-time lenders directly with borrowers.

RateLadder had debt sale comments from L5:

L5 is the 6th largest lender (pick your favorite stats site to verify) and he was on the large lender panel at Prosper Days. I asked him for insights in the aftermath of the latest debt sale that his portfolio might have uncovered. As a smaller lender I don’t necessarily have enough vision to be able to draw the most complete conclusions. He has been forthcoming and generous. Enjoy.

My Money Blog on his Prosper returns:

... A key part of that last sentence is if the default rates don’t keep rising. Sure the initial interest rate may be a snazzy 10-12%, but these loans are all three years in length, and my theory was that as time goes on more and more people will default on these loans. Or maybe some will vary between being late and becoming current again, so that the return stays pretty constant. Now that there is more history in their database, I decided to run some number to test this theory out.