For some of the latest details on Lending Club including on the reactivated growth we’ve seen since reopening our platform last week (offering Notes by Prospectus), and thoughts on how our new secondary market now empowers people with even more ways to do things that previously only banks and other corporate financial entities could do, check out recent discussions Renaud’s had with Yahoo! Finance, The Wall Street Journal, NuWire Investor and Fox Business.

We were delighted to open our doors to lenders again on Tuesday this week and see hundreds of lenders signing up for the new program in just a few days. In addition to the federal filing with the SEC, we have made a coordinated "blue sky" filing in all 50 states, and state clearances have been trickling in all week, with four new states already added: Hawaii, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

Other states already cleared include Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. We are hoping to keep adding a few states each week for the next few weeks as we get clearance from state authorities, and will post regular updates and notify members directly as the list grows longer.

Keep in mind that state limitations do not apply to the Note Trading Platform operated by FOLIOfn, and all lenders can buy or sell Notes among themselves irrespective of their state of residence.

The Notes are offered by Prospectus.

Happy investing, happy trading and have a great weekend!

We announced back in April that we were starting a registration process with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that required us to go into a quiet period. Thank you all for your feedback and support during that period.

Today, we’re delighted to announce that we have completed this process and are now available to both borrowers and lenders. We believe that this SEC registration is a major step forward for the Lending Club community and social lending in general, as it helps establish the space as a investment alternative to the traditional debt instruments and credit products offered by large financial institutions.

What does this registration mean for you, the lenders and borrowers?

• Under the registered offering, Lending Club lenders will now invest in notes that correspond to portions of loans made to borrower members. The notes have stated interest rates ranging from 6.69 percent to 18.63 percent, after a 1 percent service charge is applied.
• By partnering with FOLIOfn Investments, Inc., a registered broker dealer, Lending Club becomes the first social lending network where lenders have the option of a trading platform. On the trading platform, lenders who become customers of FOLIOfn will be able to put notes up for sale in the event they need liquidity before the completed term of a note.
• We believe this will accelerate the mainstream adoption of social lending, which will help more borrowers get funded faster.

The current financial crisis is creating mounting consumer distrust of large financial institutions and causing people to demand an alternative that gives them more control over their personal finances and investments. Lending Club is leading the charge to deliver that alternative by providing a network where lenders can fund loans posted by borrowers.

The Lending Club community has continued to show exceptionally responsible borrowing behavior over the last 18 months, demonstrated by the fact that since May 2007 the default rate has remained lower than 2 percent.

At a time when the financial landscape makes our community even more useful to both lenders and borrowers, we are thrilled to be able to accept new lenders again.

The prospectus filed with the SEC is available here.

Social lending is getting increasingly mainstream media coverage. As Rate Ladder reported yesterday, peer to peer lending received prominent placement in Forbes Magazine and CNBC over the last few days.

Our CEO, Renaud Laplanche, was interviewed on CNBC’s Power Lunch program earlier this week to explain how social lending is helping people across America lend and borrow money at better rates.

A week earlier, CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch had a segment that highlighted person-to-person lending as a great financing alternative. You can read about that segment on The Big Idea Blog to get their take on social lending, and on Lending Club in particular.

To round up the week, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Lending Club was mentioned in the cover story of last week’s issue of BusinessWeek.

Social lending is rapidly gaining mainstream adoption, and this is excellent news for the Lending Club community.

Better Rates. Together.

With 18 days to go until we reach the end of our 5% Cash Bonus program, we want to update everyone on our progress:

• Our growth has been fantastic! We have reached $6MM in issued loans, and have over $3MM of loans in funding today, so our loan volume is growing extremely well

• Our lender base is growing as well – the number of lenders has doubled in the last month alone

• Our next system release (due in the next few days) also offers a great new set of lender tools that makes lending and account management even easier and incorporates feedback from many in our lending community

With all of the growth in loans and loan requests, we want to reach out as widely as possible to current and now prospective lenders with our special offer: Lending Club will give a 5% cash bonus to all lenders who lend $5,000 or more between December 14, 2007 and February 3, 2008. This bonus can be used to lend or can be withdrawn to your linked checking account. There are no special sign-ups needed to participate in this program.

Click here to read the program details.

Better Lending. Together