Following in the footsteps of UK’s Zopa and the U.S.’s Proper, Canada’s own CommunityLend is set to launch some time in Fall 2007. If you check out prosper.com for example, you can get some handsome rates of return if you’re willing to lend someone a bit of money. Even lending to someone with an AA credit rating can net you 12.5% return. I would expect that both lender and borrower gain some advantage here as they avoid the spreads from the middle-man (the banks). Instead the middle-man is a website that probably charges some low rate fee in addition to collecting revenue from advertising.
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Not just another (Canadian) financial blog… and maybe the oldest Canadian financial blog???
Wow, thanks for the link. I’ve been waiting to jump on to the peer to peer lending for a while. Being in Canada excluded me from either of the other two but I still signed up to prosper anyway, and each time they send a newsletter around asked when they would accept Canadians. Now, I guess I won’t have to.
Thanks for the comments. We are excited, and encourage everyone to sign up at the site, and we will update our progress, as we go through the usual start up stuff.
I’ve been keeping an eye on this P2P lending issue for a few weeks now..and it is kinda nice to see that the offer is now open to Canadians. My one question is…who is paying the costs to monitoring credit scores and borrower background, laon collection and the like..the lender or the one being lent to??
Canadian living in Texas … have been using Prosper for awhile, and so far, so good. Really looking forward to the Canadian version as my funds there are earning a pathetic GIC return. Hope it starts up SOON!!!
… been watching Prosper.com with some frustration as I have cash to invest and watching the stats, it’s clear that it is “a good thing”. I encourage CommunityLend to look at the prosper system, especially the transparent reporting of debtors performance.
WOOHOO!!! FINALLY! Only a few more months till fall 2007 =0) Thanks for the great post!
Well, it’s May 2008 (!) and CommunityLend is still not in service.
I’m not sure what’s slowing this down. Colin Henderson has been blaming regulatory issues since last fall, but I can’t believe it is still dragging like this.
Alan.
July 12 2008 NONE OF THE peer 2 peer lending websites are functional in canada. Why are we so slow compare to USA????????