Gotta admit, this was news to me ... it's called peer to peer lending -- People turning to perfect strangers vs banks for loans on a site called Prosper.com. Thousands of people are looking for loans and thousands of individuals are willing and able to serve as lenders. Often they lend small amounts to many different people, spreading the risk. Here's a terrific local news story with Laura Rillos explaining how the site works.
My brother-in-law is totally intrigued by this site. Hard not to be.
Prosper.com, reported that its lending volume totaled $80 million in 2007, nearly triple the $28 million it totaled in 2006. Other similar sites include Facebook's Lending Club.
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Great information. I never knew you could do this and am now looking into it.
There is a thriving communiyt of bloggers that are following and experiementing with p2p lending as lenders...
You can find most of the blogs at one place: http://www.p2pnobank.com
I am the bloggers behind the longest running p2p lending blog at http://www.rateladder.com
Just a point of clarification - Lending Club does not belong to Facebook. They first launched inside of Facebook but they are now open to any borrowers.
Tom
http://prosperlending.blogspot.com