Indiana Linkfest And The Temple Of Blogs

Don't forget your hat!

Finance Is Personal tries to figure out if Prosper is competitive with other investments:

Prosper.com might not be able to beat out a typical mutual fund in terms of investment, but it is several steps ahead of a savings account at an online bank such as ING Direct or HSBC Direct. You’ll only earn around 4.5% APY on your money at these places, but you know that your money is guaranteed. If you invest in conservative loans on Propser.com, you can still almost get twice that after factoring in fees and lost funds due to non-payment and have a relatively secure investment.

The only problem with that is that the money you put in Prosper.com is not liquid.

zcommodore notices the resurgence of group-based listings:

I've noticed a lot of the requests for 2nd loans don't seem to be going anywhere. Many of the borrowers are people who only received their first loan due to "pump & dump" support from their group leaders. Now they may be current on their existing loan and want to come back for more but can't seem to get funded since group leaders have no incentive to pump & dump anymore. I wonder if many of these borrowers even understand what is going on such that they are having trouble getting funded.

Finatech tore apart Prosper's SEC registration for the secondary market:

In concluding, Prosper has proposed something new for the capital markets. If the SEC approves the structure, it could prove to be the leading edge in a new approach to syndicating debt, even if it’s not part of a peer-to-peer process like Prosper.

RateLadder looks at defaults based on inquiries:

High inquiries can push your late rate up more than low inquiry E and HR loans!

My theory on this is that when Prosper used to show the historical Experian default rates, they stated that the default rates are for borrowers of bank loan products. That means that all of the borrowers in the default rate table must have been approved by a Bank. Prosper borrowers may or may not be approved by a Bank. Therefore, as a group, they are higher risk than the Experian default rates.

Get Rich Slick is less optimistic toward Prosper:

I’ve been fascinated with Prosper.com since its inception. I wanted to get in and lend money to borrowers but I decided that a wait and see approach would be best. In that time, I’ve kept an eye on Prosper statistics, PF Bloggers results and the general commenting about it.

I’m beginning to wonder if Prosper will be around 18 months from now in its current form and ownership. A few items of concern can be visually seen at LendingStats. The growth has fallen off the cliff - literally!