Building on the amazing press coverage Lending Club enjoyed last month, SF Chronicle, Black Enterprise and PBS' Nightly Business Report all added their take on Lending Club's innovative platform for investing in and borrowing personal loans.
SF Chronicle
Tom Abate, from the San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed Kirstin Lindquist and Alex Taguchi, two Lending Club borrowers who benefited from personal loans at lower rates. He also talked to Albert Tao, an investor who started shifting his retirement income to Lending Club Notes after seeing his investments in stocks and mutual funds "clobbered by the last financial downturn". Abate goes on to say that Lending Club gives "potential investors the option to fund some of these loans at fixed rates and fixed terms - and interest levels designed to compete with bonds, stocks and other financial instruments." Read the full San Francisco Chronicle story >>
Black Enterprise
John Simons, Editorial Director of the Personal Finance section of Black Enterprise magazine, interviewed Karla Brazelton, and illustrated how Lending Club now offers an alternative to get a loan, "the Web 2.0 way". Like Brazelton, many Americans set out to pay off their credit card debt to find little help from the traditional financial institutions and bank lending officers. She used the money to pay off seven credit cards with interest rates that ranged from 14% to 22%. “I was surprised it happened so fast,” says Brazelton. “I assume the investors were attracted to my high, 780 credit score.” Simons adds that "as traditional banks remain tightfisted, more people are turning to online peer-to-peer networks for personal loans." This article is found in the December 2010 issue of Black Enterprise magazine. Read the full Black Enterprise story online >>
PBS
Suzanne Pratt of PBS Nightly Business Report starts her segment by stating that business owners as well as individuals are facing a tougher time borrowing money. Then she touted "the rise of a new option: P2P lending." Subsequently, a second reporter affirmed that "as traditional banks have become more tight-fisted in recent years, P2P lending has really taken off." The dollar amount of P2P loans outstanding in the U.S. "is expected to grow to nearly $5.8 billion by the end of this year." The report includes some strategies for getting a P2P loan request funded faster.
Enjoy the full clip below:
Watch the full episode. See more Nightly Business Report.
Newspaper stand photograph courtesy of Daniel X. O'Neil.
In the last few weeks, Lending Club has enjoyed being in the spotlight. World class publications including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Forbes have reported on our innovative take on borrowing and investing. Blogs have also fostered active discussions around the merits of peer-to-peer lending. Here is a round-up of the most interesting articles covering Lending Club and peer-to-peer lending we have seen in the last few weeks:
We are thrilled to announce that residents of North Carolina can now apply for personal loans through LendingClub.com and borrow at lower rates.
Jennifer Openshaw recently caused some people to stop and stare after she wrote this article for The Motley Fool: 
Last week, American Banker published a great article highlighting that some traditional banks are ramping up their promotion of personal loans. It’s not surprising news, given that more and more consumers are waking up to the fact that credit card companies tend to lure people with
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