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CBS Evening News, John Blackstone, Mar-22-2008
John Blackstone speaks with Chris Larsen, CEO of Prosper.com, who says the credit crunch has made private lending a viable option for consumers seeking to borrow money.
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CBS Evening News, John Blackstone, Mar-21-2008
Since CBS News first reported on Prosper.com a year ago the credit crisis has made person-to-person lending take off, nearly tripling Prosper's customers to 630,000.
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Wall Street Journal, Jane J. Kim, Mar-12-2008
Instead, the 31-year-old from Schaumburg, Ill., recently borrowed $22,500 on Prosper.com, an online lending network that matches individual borrowers and lenders. The interest rate on Mr. Walsh's loan: 10.25% -- several percentage points below what he says he would have had to pay at a bank.
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Wall Street Journal, Jane J. Kim, Mar-12-2008
It's combining community banking with the high finance of Wall Street -- bringing together George Bailey with a little Gordon Gekko.
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NPR Talk of the Nation, Neal Conan, Mar-4-2008
With talk of an impending recession, many credit card holders are trying to pay off debt — but are finding it easier said than done. Financial experts discuss strategies for managing credit card debt and offer tips for ways to avoid it altogether.
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Jeninne Lee/St. John, Time Magazine, Feb-29-2008
The slumping economy has sent the banking system into panic mode, making it tough for even people with the best credit rating to get a good interest rate. So a rising number of folks looking to consolidate debt, buy an engagement ring, finance their small business or pay off a mortgage are using the Internet to ask for help from a friend or, more often, a stranger.
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Lyanne Melendez, ABC 7, Feb-26-2008
Prosper.com is the on-line site that created this people-to-people lending model. it's like an eBay for money.
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Mark Calvey , San Francisco Business Times, Feb-25-2008
In an interview with the San Francisco Business Times after his keynote address, Larsen said Prosper also benefits from providing lenders with greater transparency on who is borrowing their money. Recent creations on Wall Street, such as collateralized debt obligations, are now in big trouble and their lack of transparency compounds the problems. Observers criticize how difficult it is to determine where the risk lies with some of these new products that helped fuel the recent era of easy money.
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Kevin Ohannessian, Fast Company, Feb-15-2008
So far, Prosper's lenders and borrowers are only in America, but a new joint venture would let Japanese lenders bid on American loans -- and the goal is to connect people (and capital) globally. Says Larsen: "The ultimate model puts together global efficient social capital with market efficiency. This is the groundwork being laid."
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Barbara Correa, Los Angeles Daily News, Feb-10-2008
The stock market is erratic, and real estate is tanking. How about investing in individuals? Oh, and you can end global poverty or help someone just like you as you earn a nice return. That's the promise made by booming person-to-person lending Web sites that combine the best of social networking with user-friendly e-commerce.
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Eugene CBS News, Laura Rillos, Feb-5-2008
Within three days, Ryan Koch received enough bids to pay his medical bills. He'll pay his lenders back--but will forever be in their debt. "It's really cool, I mean people you don't even know are willing to help you out," he said. "I have someone who gave $250 bucks. It's very nice."
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Tampa CBS News, Jan-30-2007
The Internet has become a way of life for many of us. In fact, now some savvy Internet users are using it to connect their bank accounts, giving lenders and borrowers a cut of what banks traditionally take.
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American Banker, Daniel Wolfe, Jan-30-2008
Notably, with home values falling and banks become more wary about letting people borrow against their declining equity, "the home equity business has been shut down," Mr. Larsen said, so many people have begun seeking out unsecured, personal loans, and some are turning to Prosper instead of banks.
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Omaha World-Herald, Stefanie Monge, Jan-30-2008
Prosper.com tries to build social capital by encouraging members to invite friends to join and allowing members to endorse one another to help build confidence in borrowers, Larsen said. The ratings system is similar to the seller ratings on eBay that help to determine the reliability of users.
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MarketWatch, Amy Hoak, Jan-28-2008
As more consumers become comfortable with idea of borrowing and lending money to each other over the Internet, investments in peer-to-peer loans are emerging as a another way to diversify a portfolio.
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The Michigan Daily, Jillian Berman, Jan-28-2008
Although there are many students from other colleges and universities seeking student loans on Prosper's website, many University students said they use the website to lend money. LSA sophomore Evan Plisner, a member of the Michigan Investment Club, said Prosper.com is one tool students could use to make investments.
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Phuong Cat Le, Jan-20-2008
Prosper, the largest in the U.S. with 500,000 members and $100 million in loans, leaves it up to the marketplace to decide who gets funded and at what interest rate. "It's done by the community itself, so people can get the right prices on both sides," said Chris Larsen, chief executive of Prosper.
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Barron's, Mike Hogan, Jan-7-2008
They're highly automated, remarkably transparent, and employ Web 2.0-era ways of matching borrowers to lenders.
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E-Commerce Times, Andrew K. Burger, Jan-5-2007
Prosper.com's formula is relatively straightforward. It doesn't lend, borrow, assume the risk or earn the reward for any loans members make. It simply provides the Internet platform through which prequalified borrowers and lenders can find each other, evaluate and negotiate the terms of typically small personal and business loans that are based on set of standardized rules, terms and conditions.
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USA Today, Kathy Chu, Dec-26-2007
The market for the loans is still relatively small but growing fast, according to Celent, a research firm. Celent projects that $5.8 billion in peer-to-peer loans will be made in the USA by 2010, an 800% leap from the amount this year.
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The Christian Science Monitor, G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Dec-24-2007
For would-be lenders with a social agenda, options are proliferating at a rapid clip. In February [2006], Prosper (www.prosper.com) debuted with a claim to be America's "first people-to-people lending marketplace."
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BusinessWeek, John Tozzi, Dec-21-2007
The day the last loan officer rejected his application, Lindgren heard about Prosper. The auction-style site connects borrowers with lenders and promises both sides more favorable interest rates than banks by cutting overhead costs. Lindgren applied for the maximum $25,000 loan the next day, offering to pay 17.5% interest. Lenders found the offer so attractive that they bid the rate down to 10.2%, and Direct Textbook had the cash in its account within two weeks.
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TechCrunch, Dec-21-2007
Best business model: For a company that’s pioneering new revenue-creation opportunities. Nominees: Glam Media, Imeem, Prosper, Weatherbill, Zazzle
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The Dallas Morning News, Pamela Yip, Dec-10-2007
"When you go to Prosper, you are afforded the opportunity to tell a large picture, to talk about why you want the money, to tell your story, to invite your friends to give you endorsements, which is different from asking a friend to guarantee a loan," said John Witchel, co-founder of Prosper.
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Wall Street Journal, Jane J. Kim, Nov-28-2007
Last month, for example, Prosper introduced a tool to give lenders a better idea of the estimated return of a loan they are bidding on. Lenders can also now choose from up to four portfolio plans -- essentially bundles of targeted "standing orders" that place bids on loan listings with an expected level of risk and return.
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Dave Bender, CBS 13 (Sacramento), Nov-6-2007
It's an old idea with a new twist. Don't borrow from the bank, or from your peers, only here, your peers can be complete strangers. Tonight, I'll show you how both borrowers and lenders can save and make money.
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Clark Howard, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Nov-3-2007
You may have heard of the Internet marketplace Prosper.com. It's where individual lenders and borrowers meet and make deals, without using a bank. It's a brilliant business model.
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Jessica Smith, NPR Morning Edition, Nov-2-2007
In a cafe in Washington D.C., 31-year-old Kelly Vielmo stares at a laptop screen and browses a listing of people who want to borrow money. He has logged into his account at "person-to-person" lending site Prosper.com.
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Daniel Wolfe, American Banker, Nov-2-2007 (Subscription only)
Prosper Marketplace Inc. has already demonstrated that it can attract a large customer base, and its plan to create a secondary market for its person-to-person lending service will test whether its users are willing to engage in more sophisticated transactions.
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Mark Calvey, San Francisco Business Times, Oct-31-2007
Upon receiving approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission, San Francisco-based Prosper plans to establish a secondary trading market via an online trading platform, or resale platform, that will allow lenders to transfer borrower notes to other Prosper lenders.
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Donna Fuscaldo, FoxBusiness.com, Oct-30-2007
"The Internet makes large markets more efficient, and one area of the market that's not efficient is the consumer-debt market," said Larry Cheng, a director at Prosper.com and partner at Fidelity Ventures which provided VC funding for Prosper.com. Cheng said Fidelity Ventures had been looking for a start-up that breathed new life into the consumer-debt market.
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The Economist, Oct-25-2007
Prosper, which is more laissez-faire and has a default rate of 3%, provides measures of "social capital", such as endorsements by friends, that help lenders to judge the risk of a specific borrower.
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Aleksandra Todorova, SmartMoney.com, Oct-15-2007
Within 10 days of posting on Prosper, Newberry received a $9,000 loan at 19%: Enough to pay off the pesky payday loans and all her credit cards, which at that time carried 25% to 27% interest rates. As a result, her monthly payment dropped significantly, to $330 from $800 before consolidation. Her credit score, once a subprime 580, is now 680 and steadily rising.
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Eric Benderoff, Chicago Tribune, Oct-5-2007
An emerging Internet-based financing tool that brings borrowers and lenders together the way eBay links buyers and sellers is gaining momentum, turning more Main Street investors into Wall Street wannabes.
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Laura Rowley, Yahoo! Finance, Oct-4-2007
In the auction space, Prosper is the largest person-to-person lender with 430,000 members lending $91 million in the first year. The borrower profiles are extensive, including the repayment history of other Prosper loans and endorsements from friends who have bid on the loan.
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Finovate, Oct-2-2007
Prosper CEO and co-founder unveils Prosper Portfolio Plans at Finovate 2007
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Linda Stern, Newsweek, Sep-24-2007
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Mark Calvey, San Francisco Business Times, Sep-10-2007
Prosper, an online marketplace for person-to-person lending, said more individual lenders were shying away from subprime borrowers as the credit crunch began last month.
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Patricia Sabatini, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sep-9-2007
Anyone who's ever lent a chunk of money to a relative or friend knows it can be a murky proposition fraught with sticky questions and daunting problems. How much should you lend? Do you charge interest? If so, how much is fair? How long should the borrower get to pay it back?
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Jack Guttentag, Daily Herald, Aug-15-2007
A relatively recent online entrant into the unsecured loan market, called Prosper.com, is particularly interesting. I have spent hours on their Web site and have been enormously impressed.
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Carol Tice, Entrepreneur Magazine, Jul-2007
Last fall, San Francisco's Samovar Tea Lounge was in a cash crunch. Co-owners Jesse Jacobs, 36, Paul Fullarton, 36, and Robert Sandler, 33, had recently opened a second store, putting a crimp in Samovar's bank account just when the company needed to order holiday merchandise. There wasn't time to get a traditional bank or SBA loan, and the interest on a credit card cash advance would have killed profits.
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Jane J. Kim, Wall Street Journal, Jul-18-2007
For investors willing to risk a small portion of their assets, the person-to-person online lending market, popularized by companies such as Prosper.com, is paying typical returns of 8% to 12% or more. The sites, often billed to borrowers as lower-cost alternatives to credit cards and unsecured bank loans, match people who need small loans with willing lenders.
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Matthew Mogul, The Kiplinger Letter, Jul-9-2007
Investors looking to avoid volatile market swings are increasingly lending out money, often to cash-strapped entrepreneurs and small business owners. The trend, known as peer-to-peer lending, typically involves people with a little cash on hand donning the hat of amateur banker and making loans to anyone from a friend or family member to a stranger that they were introduced by an Internet matchmaking firm.
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Time, Jul-2007
Prosper is a community of lenders and borrowers or social lending network operates outside of any bank, so the rates are better. Post a request for a loan, including desired amount and the maximum interest rate you'd be willing to pay; potential lenders place bids for the amount they are willing to lend, and at what rate.
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Walecia Konrad, USA Today, Jun-24-2007
Person-to-person lending could be a good way to get out of a jam without resorting to high-interest credit cards or, worse, payday loans and other abusive schemes, says Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America.
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Dan Kaplan, VentureBeat, Jun-19-2007
San Francisco's Prosper, which appears to have gained a leadership position in person-to-person lending, has raised $20 million in its third round of financing.
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Jonas Elmerraji, Forbes, May-21-2007
If taking out a personal loan isn't a realistic possibility, asking your employer for a pay advance or going to online lending communities like Prosper.com can be a way of avoiding a payday loan.
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Jeanette Pavini, CBS 5 News, San Francisco, May-21-2007
Daniel says he appreciates the personal touch. "It feels more like a human enterprise, like real people, instead of some monolithic corporate entity," he said.
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Chaddus Bruce, Wired, May-9-2007
"We're imposing Web 2.0 concepts on a very old-guard business," says John Witchel, chief technology officer and co-founder of Prosper.
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Chaddus Bruce, Wired, May-9-2007
Jane Boon, who has lent around $125,000 to over 800 people on Prosper, offers 10 tips to help you improve your own lending intelligence.
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Simone Baribeau, Christian Science Monitor, Apr-30-2007
A man dressed as the animated movie hero Mr. Incredible presents himself before a group of lenders. He wants a new gaming system, new wakeboard bindings, and maybe a vacation. Or, as he puts it, "$6,000 to blow for fun." And he's willing to pay 10 percent annual interest for a three-year loan.
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Eileen Ambrose, Los Angeles Times, Apr-1-2007
Elena Patrice, a single parent in Virginia, is eager to get rid of nearly $20,000 in credit card debt that she's rolled up since her divorce four years ago. So last month, the 38-year-old appealed to online strangers to lend her $20,000 at an interest rate that's about half of what she's now paying.
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Michael A. Prospero, Fast Company, April 2007
Chris Larsen wanted to use technology "to step back to a time when there was personal accountability in the credit markets." He hoped to revive the emotional connection people felt in banking's olden days--think It's a Wonderful Life--while generating market-rate returns.
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Renuka Rayasam, U.S. News & World Report, Mar-12-2007
Getting lenders to hand over their money to perfect strangers seems like a tough proposition, but so far the site has brought in $40 million from people looking for an alternative investment.
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Christopher Steiner, Forbes, Mar-12-2007
They want money to buy a K-9 bomb-sniffing dog, to make a house down payment, to set up a videogame studio, to pay tuition. And Gregory Bequette is happy to lend to them personally through a Web site called Prosper.com, the Ebay of small personal loans.
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Betsy Stark, Good Morning America, ABC News, Mar-5-2007
Penic's only alternative would have been to borrow the money on a credit card, in her case, at a staggering 29 percent interest. But now, she has the money for her chocolate fountain, at 15 percent interest.
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Jessica Anderson, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Mar-2007
Despite the risks, credit experts think that person-to-person, or P2P, lending could be a good investment. "It's a way to diversify your portfolio into an area with little correlation to other financial instruments," says Greg McBride, of Bankrate.com.
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Bill Breen, Fast Company, Mar-2007
Prosper gives people a platform, but individuals self-organize into their own groups. If a borrower defaults on a loan, the pool of lenders loses the money. Early on, we didn't think many for-profit companies would fit all three criteria, but we've found more than we expected.
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Nathan Halverson, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Mar-2007
After two months of trying, Windsor resident John Rose could not find a bank that would loan him money to expand his Larkfield Bakery. So in frustration, he turned to a fast-growing Web site that takes a novel approach to lending.
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Elliot Weiler, Fox 2 News St. Louis, Feb-23-2007
Looking for a loan? Head to a bank or tap your credit card, right? What if they say no? Why not just ask a stranger to lend you the money? Sounds crazy but thousand of people are doing it.
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San Francisco Business Times, Feb-12-2007
Prosper CEO Chris Larsen said Monday the 1-year-old company is taking several steps to enhance the person-to-person online lending service.
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KTVU Oakland, Feb-12-2007
A Bay Area-based dot-com may be on the verge of becoming absolutely huge. If you need a small loan, or know someone who does, you will want to pay attention to this report...
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CBS News, Feb-9-2007
"It was amazing. I posted the loan," Miller explains. And, almost as soon as she posted her pitch asking for $3,000, she had 8 bids. "I had already started to get funded," Miller says.
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Amy Scott, Marketplace Money, Feb-6-2007
Peer-to-peer lending sites are becoming a popular alternative for people who need a loan but have less-than-stellar credit. Amy Scott talks to borrowers and lenders on Prosper.com.
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Neal Conan, Talk of the Nation, NPR, Jan-30-2007
Chris Larsen, chief executive of Prosper Marketplace, explains how the online service links lenders with borrowers for micro loans.
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Douglas MacMillan, BusinessWeek, Jan-29-2007
Editors and reporters at BusinessWeek identified eight lesser-known companies most likely to make a splash this year; we highlight them here.
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BusinessWeek, Jan-27-2007
Kiva and Prosper share more than the goal of increasing access to capital. Both strive to keep operations lean, and both wrestle with a complicated regulatory environment.
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Annys Shin, The Washington Post, Jan-27-2007
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Amy Scott, Marketplace Money, Jan-19-2007
What if you could make more like 25 percent on your investments? But then there's always the chance you'd lose everything. MARKETPLACE's Amy Scott tells us about a new way to lend and borrow money, and it's giving banks a run for theirs.
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WNBC New York, Jan-18-2007
Just like eBay, Prosper.com connects people who have something to lend, namely money, with people who want something to borrow, namely money. "We can let people trade their money directly now, without having to go through the banks."
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Jonathan Zwickel, SF Weekly, Jan-17-2007
It seems to be working. In the 10 months since its founding, Prosper has facilitated 5,412 loans totaling approximately $25.7 million. That's a lot of average-Joe types rebuilding credit, since payment information is logged at national credit-reporting bureau Experian. It's also a lot of Joes making extra cash by helping them out.
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Richard Burnett, Orlando Sentinel, Jan-17-2007
As a new round of people plugged into the grass-roots alternative to conventional consumer finance, the dollar value of loans made through the site had reached nearly $30 million by last week, up 50 percent from the middle of last year. Prosper's year-end surge was reminiscent of what credit-card companies and other consumer-finance businesses experience during that period, experts said.
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Time Magazine, Dec-30-2006
The idea behind Prosper is a bit unusual today, but, as the site reminds readers, person to person lending loans without a financial intermediary has been around since 300 A.D. For those more used to the Internet age, think of it as eBay meets your neighborhood bank.
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Jane J. Kim, Wall Street Journal, Dec-28-2006
In many cases, the rates that borrowers can get are several percentage points lower than the rates they might otherwise pay at a bank.
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Laura Vanderkam, USA Today, Dec-19-2006
Many Americans open their wallets during the holiday season, spreading peace, goodwill and a little green. But what if you could help the world while helping yourself?
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John Gottshalk, Miami Herald, Dec-11-2006
See pure free market capitalism work well for everyone at Prosper.com, a lending site that allows anyone to borrow or lend at freely negotiated rates and terms. Borrowers looking to escape high interest debt can request a loan, at a rate they choose, through a profile with a credit rating and biography.
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Naomi Grossman, Small Biz Resource, Dec-5-2006
"We both believe credit is deeply infused in every part of our lives in America," said Witchel. "If we can make it more fair, we can make a difference in millions of people's lives in a positive way. Prosper is about creating a community of people who evaluate requests in context," he added.
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David Futrelle, Money, Nov-20-2006
How would you like to get in on the ground floor of...some guy in Maine who needs $500 to fix his car? The latest venture from Chris Larsen, 45, co-founder of online loan giant E-Loan, lets you do that and, if all goes well, make money in the process.
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Josh Johnson, Rocky Mountain Chronicle, Nov-22-2006
Some years back, Chris Larsen had a "sleazy" mortgage experience that left him feeling ripped off, with the impression that the credit system in America is corrupt and generally "mucked up."
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Robert Millis, American Microphone, Nov-4-2006
American Microphone visits the San Francisco offices of Prosper to talk with Chris Larsen about democratizing finance. Prosper is an innovative peer-to-peer financial network allowing people to borrow and lend money with many of the same tools banks use.
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Sunshine Mugrabi, Red Herring, Oct-23-2006
The single mom whose screen name is "Gottasmile" could barely manage to keep her 12-year-old daughter in sneakers and jeans, let alone pay all the bills that kept piling up after her divorce. Distressed, she went online and landed a $12,200 loan, which she agreed to pay back at a rate of 12 percent over three years.
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Ron Lieber, Wall Street Journal, Oct-21-2006
At Prosper.com, those with money to lend can view requests from U.S. residents with Social Security numbers who need money for, say, school or to consolidate debt. Lenders get basic information about applicants' debt and credit and then bid the interest rate they're willing to offer to fund part or all of the loan.
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Reader's Digest, Nov-2006
If we all stick together, can we live without banks? Not likely, but the online move toward so-called peer-to-peer lending suggests some of us are ready to try.
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Laura Bruce, Bankrate.com, Oct-6-2006
Fixed-income investors who are willing to take on some risk -- and devote some time to research -- may want to explore lending in the consumer credit market.
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Stacy Johnson, Money Talks, Oct-3-2006
Ava Pierre is a new kind of investor in a new kind of investment. She's not investing in stocks, she's investing in people.
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PC Magazine, Aug-21-2006
Whether you're looking for money to pay off high-interest credit cards or you have some spare change that you'd like to collect interest on, the P2P lending model of Prosper is an intriguing one. Act as banker or borrower, depending on your needs, and the site lets you join up with other lenders to diversify your loans and diversify your risk.
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Alex Salkever, Inc. Magazine, Aug-1-2006
In May, under the username All4Buddy, Townsend landed a $9,500 loan from a group of 77 individual lenders. The money appeared in her bank account two days later. She is part of a small but growing cadre of business owners taking advantage of person-to-person lending sites.
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Linda Stern, Newsweek, Jul-31-2006
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Rich Sloan, StartupNation Radio, Jul-29-2006
One of the most frequently asked questions we get from entrepreneurs is how to land that initial small business financing they need to bootstrap their new business. One of the new alternatives to traditional bootstrap funding for your business is Prosper.com, America's first people-to-people lending marketplace.
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Richard Burnett, Orlando Sentinel, Jul-29-2006
Brown is among thousands of Americans surfing the latest wave in Internet commerce: peer-to-peer banking, a grass-roots-type phenomenon that matches borrowers and lenders in an online-auction format.
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Mylene Mangalindan, Wall Street Journal, Jul-24-2006
Such peer-to-peer lending, analysts and Prosper lenders and borrowers say, is useful for individuals who have bad credit or have a hard time getting loans through traditional means like banks and credit unions. But it also is for people who are interested in an alternative way to get a fast loan, for, say, developing a small business or joining a poker tournament.
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Roy Bragg, San Antonio Express-News, Jul-6-2006
Somewhere in America, a stranger wants to loan you money. This far-fetched notion is the essence of Prosper.com, a 4-month-old Web site that combines the online auctioning of eBay, the social networking of MySpace and the mission of online lenders such as E-Loan and Lending Tree.
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Timothy J. Mullaney, BusinessWeek, Jul-3-2006
Prosper has 1,000 organized groups set up to let members lend to one another. "If you acquire customers through a Jimmy Stewart sense of community, you'll have a better business," he insists. And if his virtual savings and loan takes off, it will be a wonderful life indeed.
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Carol Tice, Entrepreneur Magazine, Jul-1-2006
Gary Richardson, 40, needs to borrow $25,000 to buy more inventory for his online eyewear business. He could try a credit card or a bank loan. But instead, the Locust Grove, Arkansas, business owner is borrowing the money through Prosper.com, a new online person-to-person lending site.
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John Intini, Maclean's Magazine, Jul-1-2006
So the Manhattan couple turned to prosper.com -- a unique stranger-to-stranger website (available only to Americans) that links wannabe borrowers with regular people -- and offered 15.75 per cent interest to anyone willing to take a chance on them.
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Kara McGuire, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun-22-2006
Every day Keith Wittenberg logs into an online auction site, searching for attractive listings. But Wittenberg, of St. Paul, is not in the market for collectible baseball cards or a cell phone. He's not even on eBay. He's on Prosper, looking for people in need of his money.
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San Francisco Business Times, Jun-19-2006
Prosper, an online marketplace for person-to-person lending, said Monday that Paul Hazen has joined the board. Hazen, who is former chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo & Co., will bring valuable experience in financial services to the San Francisco startup's board.
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Erica R. Davis, Dow Jones, Jun-12-2006
Ms. Carroll joined Prosper, adding to her loan request another $2,000 that would allow her to pay off old credit-card debt from college. In April, she secured a $13,000 loan with 13% interest from lenders on Prosper. "I felt a sense of relief," she says. "I knew I was going in the right direction, finally doing what I want to do."
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WSVN-TV: Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Jun-1-2006
"There's no better feeling than lending out your money, making a great deal, getting a great return on your money, and getting a thank you note saying thank you."
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Jay Fitzgerald, Boston Herald, May-30-2006
Sound crazy? Not to Fidelity Ventures principal and Prosper director Larry Cheng, who says people in Asian societies have long used similar individual-to-individual loan methods.
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Frank Norton, The News & Observer, May-28-2006
Rebecca Zarutskie, a small-business finance expert at Duke University, said the model is intriguing because it can create a truly national market for ordinary borrowers and lenders. "And that could potentially create more competition with traditional lenders," she said.
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Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com, May-22-2006
Sites like Prosper hold the potential to free many in the middle class from the stranglehold of credit card debt and to give low-income Americans a way out of the debt traps laid by unseemly payday loan centers.
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Jane Boon Pearlstine, Wall Street Journal, May-20-2006
Lenders also have the opportunity to offer microloans to offbeat small businesses -- cat breeders, doll makers, ticket brokers. When I bid, it often feels like I'm voting on the soundness of a business plan.
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Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek, May-16-2006
In February, Prosper opened what it calls "America's first people-to-people lending marketplace." It's a site that helps users borrow and lend money among themselves without the involvement of banks. Though the company says it hasn't been around long enough to disclose its user base, it claims to host over 1,000 active loan listings and 800 active groups.
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Nydia Han, 6 ABC Action News Philadelphia, May-11-2006
Prosper.com allows prospective borrowers to plead their case directly to fellow consumers. It's like an online matchmaking service, but instead of setting up partners for romance, prosper sets people up so they can borrow and lend money.
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Betsy Stark, ABC World News Tonight, Apr-24-2006
Until recently, the only alternative for someone who couldn't secure a loan from a financial institution was to borrow money from a credit card at a high interest rate. Prosper.com has provided an alternative by allowing prospective borrowers to appeal directly to the public for help.
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Jane J. Kim, Wall Street Journal, Apr-15-2006
Then there's Prosper Marketplace Inc., a San Francisco start-up company that aims to create an eBay-style marketplace for person-to-person loans at better rates than traditional lenders offer.
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Matt Marshall, San Jose Mercury News, Apr-3-2006
Prosper, a new online venture based in San Francisco uses some old Vietnamese lending concepts to connect ordinary people who have extra money with borrowers who need it. Borrowers get cheaper loans if they belong to a group of other debtors who pay their bills on time. The group essentially puts its reputation on the line, vouching for the trustworthiness of its members.
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Brad Stone and Steven Levy, Newsweek, Apr-3-2006
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Manuel Ramos, CBS 5 News, San Francisco, Mar-20-2006
You probably already use the Internet to buy something you need, or to sell something you don't want. But you can now use it to find someone, a stranger even, willing to lend you cash.
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Daniel H. Pink, Yahoo! Finance: The Trend Desk, Mar-15-2006
Prosper, which is backed by high-profile venture-capital firms like Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital, has added an interesting twist. Borrowers can form groups-consisting of PTA members, parishioners of a church, college professors, whatever-in the hopes of getting lower rates.
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Kristin Cole, WCBS TV (New York), Mar-7-2006
"Instead of people buying and selling products and services, people are really buying and bidding on loans from other people," explained Chris Larsen of Prosper.com.
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Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar-6-2006
Like other Internet businesses that eliminate the middleman, its proposition is that everyone involved reaps the rewards of lower costs. Borrowers get better interest rates than they'd pay on credit cards or bank loans. Lenders earn more interest than they would from money-market funds or savings accounts.
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Justin Schack, Institutional Investor, Mar-1-2006
"We see this as a whole new asset class for investors, in addition to stocks and bonds"
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Jonathan Hoenig, SmartMoney.com, Feb-27-2006
Prosper.com, a lending marketplace, offers probably the most exciting and innovative development in online dealing since the Iowa Electronic Markets pioneered presidential futures contracts over a decade ago. Here's why.
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The Economist, Feb-23-2006
The internet age was supposed to herald hard times for the middleman. Customers, so it was said, would flock to the web to buy products and services faster, cheaper and more transparently than in shops or through intermediaries. Disintermediation has indeed come about, as any out-of-work travel agent or bookseller will tell you. Yet retail bankers-the middlemen between savers and borrowers-have been surprisingly untouched.
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Stacey Delo, MarketWatch, Feb-23-2006
A new auction marketplace called Prosper.com lets individuals bid on loan opportunities. CEO Chris Larsen talks Stacey Delo through the features he says will help lower the risk of loan defaults on the site, along with some incentives to drum up business.
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Bob Tedeschi, The New York Times, Feb-13-2006
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Robert Hof, BusinessWeek, Feb-13-2006
A decade ago, when Chris Larsen co-founded online loan broker E-Loan, he purposely took aim at traditional mortgage lenders, many of which he thought deceived borrowers and charged too much. Now, he intends to shake up a whole new swath of the financial services business.
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