Prosper Adding Secondary Loan Market, Lending Club Soon to Lend Again?
October 15, 2008
Prosper is going through a process to “register, with the appropriate securities authorities, promissory notes that may be offered and sold to lenders through our site in the future” so that they can offer a secondary market for loans.
During the registration process, Prosper is having to go into somewhat of a holding pattern, the details are described in the email I recieved below. Another peer to peer lending company, Lending Club, started a similar process months ago but I have reason to belive that Lending Club will begin accepting new members again in the coming months. Below is the email I recieved from Prosper:
The registration filing is a necessary step toward making the secondary lending market available to the community. This is something many of you have been asking for, and we believe the liquidity of a secondary market will make Prosper even more vibrant.
Until we complete the registration process, we will not accept new lender registrations or allow new commitments from existing lenders. If you’re an existing lender, your current lender agreements will be unaffected; your existing loans will continue to be serviced; you’ll be able to track and monitor your loans; and you’ll be able to withdraw funds from your Prosper account.
If you’re a borrower with an existing loan, you will continue with your current borrower agreement and be unaffected by the registration process. If you’re a borrower seeking a loan, you will still be able to create a new loan listing, which we will endeavor to fulfill through alternative sources.
A successful registration can take several months, but we assure you we will do our best to move forward as quickly as possible. Until this process is complete, we’re required to be in a quiet period and will be unable to respond to press, blogger or other inquiries about Prosper or the registration filing until it becomes effective.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and want to thank you in advance for your understanding and support.
All posts by Ben Edwards
In an interesting turn of events, Lending Club reopened to lenders this morning. Your prediction was accurate!