Prosper

[redsage]

I just found http://www.prosper.com and wanted to share it with my friends. It's a person to person loan facilitator.

Say I want to borrow $5k. I can put up a listing there asking for the money and explaining my financial situation. According to my FICO score, they'll give me a grade of AA-E and HR (high risk), which will determine my interest rate. Then other people can bid to lend me money - as little as $50 per person. I'll just have one monthly payment to Prosper, who will then divide it up to the people who lent me money. They get to keep most of my interest, so they make some spare cash, and I get a loan at somewhat lower rates than I could get somewhere else.

Anyways, I'm kind of excited about it. Don't mean to spam, but I wanted to share because I really like the idea of the empowerment that comes with person to person lending.

Comments

[arethinn]

So as far as I can tell, the lenders remain anonymous to the borrowers because Prosper is acting as a "broker"?

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I am looking at getting a fairly small loan from them to help improve my credit, but then I also want to lend maybe $50 a month or something. It's a fairly minor income, but a little extra cash sounds good.

[arethinn]

*wiggle* I like giving/loaning (... I can't think of a time I've expected repayment, but you get the idea) money to people, but charities are a little too impersonal and uncertain, and giving it directly to friends (tho I've done it) is a little weird.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Well, cool. You might like this place, then.

[catcave.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing! As a start up, this could come in handy!

[doublefeh.livejournal.com]

It's a slightly diiferent spin on a similar idea, but you might find kiva.org to be pretty cool too.

[avant-garden1.livejournal.com]

That site sounds really neat. It would've come in handy a few months ago when I was paying to have my dog's cancer treated with radiation and chemotherapy.
Sidenote: Every dollar was well spent as she seems cancer-free at the moment!

[ergiwarrior.livejournal.com]

OH wow THANK YOU sooooooo much for posting this!!! suddenly i feel much less hopeless about chest surgery.

[telarus.livejournal.com]

Neat!

[xthread.livejournal.com]

I've been lending on it. We'll see how it goes, but I'm entirely comfortable knee-capping CashCall and all their ilk.