Posted by Lending Club :: December 13, 2007 @ 12:34 pm

LendingClub.com Leads Industry with Better Rates for Borrowers

SUNNYVALE, CA – December 13, 2007 – Caught in the wake of the credit crisis, people in every community across America are looking for alternatives to traditional banks and credit institutions to help meet their financial needs. Lending Club, the rapidly growing affinity-based social lending network that launched its people-to-people lending services six months ago to facilitate personal loans based on affinities or an individual's social connections, today announced its availability to lenders and borrowers in all 50 states. For the first time, everyone nationwide can use Lending Club's P2P lending services and enjoy better interest rates than those offered by traditional banks or credit cards.

"We believe an affinity-based model enables people to get better rates by leveraging their existing associations and social connections. All early indicators suggest that this approach is succeeding: We have the lowest rates available to borrowers and the best average returns for lenders in the industry, which is made possible by lower defaults" said Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club. "Today, we're extending this model across all 50 states, so people can connect online, build trust and gain financial benefit on both sides of the lending and borrowing equation."

Over the course of the last six months, LendingClub.com lenders have earned an average 12.2 percent annualized return after fees and losses, and defaults on the loans have remained under one percent, which is attributed to the sense of community and trust inherent in the existing connections between members, such as their online social networks, alumni associations, organizations, geography and credit profiles.

LendingClub.com members have loaned and borrowed more than $3.5 million within the network, growing 100 percent monthly since it launched six months ago. In response to this rapidly increasing demand, Lending Club is expanding today to all 50 states and is now available at www.lendingclub.com, on social networking site Facebook and through partnerships with top university alumni associations.

To help people identify lending and borrowing opportunities, Lending Club uses its proprietary affinity-matching technology, LendingMatch™, which looks at factors such as where people went to school, where they grew up, what they do for a living and their network associations. LendingMatch is the fastest way to build diversified portfolios based on these affinities and ensure the creditworthiness of each borrower.

LendingClub.com is open to individual borrowers with credit scores at or above 640 and a debt-to-income ratio of 30 percent or less. Using LendingClub.com, borrowers can apply for personal loans of $500 to $25,000 to be funded by one or many individual lenders. Lending Club handles user authentication, bank account verification, credit checking, credit reporting, funds transfers and collections.

About Lending Club™

LendingClub.com is an online social lending network where people can borrow and lend money among themselves based upon their affinities and/or social connections. Across all 50 states, members can borrow money at a better interest rate than they would get from a bank or credit card and invest in a diversified portfolio of loans with higher rates of return than those served by savings accounts, CDs or other online lending services. LendingMatch™ technology helps match lenders and borrowers by using connections established through social networks, associations and online communities, and build diversified portfolios based on lender preferences. Lending Club is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA. More information is available at www.lendingclub.com.

Press Contact:
Paula Cavagnaro
Antenna Group
415-977-1915
paula@antennagroup.com