We are pleased that we have recently earned the Better Business Bureau’s designation as a Reliable Online Business, certifying that Lending Club meets the BBB’s high standards for ethical online business practices.

We are committed to providing a safe and transparent platform where you can conduct business as borrowers and lenders. As a proud Reliable Business, Lending Club abides by the BBB Code of Online Business Practices and is dedicated to the principles of sound online advertising and selling practices that are exemplified by participants in this distinguished program. These principles include a strong commitment to truthful and accurate communications, full disclosure about Lending Club transactions, stringent privacy and security practices to safeguard personally identifiable information, and excellent customer service.

For more information, we encourage you to read about these principles in greater detail on the BBB website.

Better Business. Together.

In free markets, prices vary with supply and demand, and Lending Club is no exception. Until now, the Lending Club social lending community has enjoyed a near-perfect equilibrium of supply and demand, with funds available to lend slightly exceeding qualified loan applications.

The relaunch of our Facebook application and the addition of other online communities in early December, immediately followed by a National Launch with new loan applications flowing in from California, Texas, Illinois, Michigan and a few other states has increased demand (loan applications) faster than supply (lenders’ lending capital). As a result, we will increase our base rate tomorrow from 6.80% to 7.30%. This page will update to reflect the new rates: http://www.lendingclub.com/info/how-we-set-interest-rates.action.

As an example, a borrower with a 705 FICO score and a 20% DTI currently pays an interest rate of 12.17% for a $20,000 loan. Starting tomorrow, that same borrower would pay 12.67% for a new loan of the same size.

All Lending Club loans are fixed-rate, so the rate hike will only apply to new loan listings. The average return of all Lending Club lenders after 6 months now stands at 12.2% after fees and losses. Monday’s half-point rate hike will help lender returns while maintaining the high percentage of borrowers getting fully funded (currently at about 90%).

As we continue to collect more data and understand the platform’s behavior in different circumstances, the rate-setting mechanism will be established systematically based on real-time supply and demand.

We believe tomorrow’s rate hike is good for both lenders and borrowers: lenders will earn a better return and borrowers’ loan listings should get funded faster. The rate paid by Lending Club borrowers remains on average 25% lower than the average credit card rate, which stands at 15.24%.

Better rates and better returns. Together.

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

And here we are… Lending Club is finally available in California! Well, not just California. In fact we went National today, 6 months after the launch of our Facebook application and 3 months after the limited opening of our public website at www.lendingclub.com. In the last 6 months, Lending Club was not available to borrowers in California, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Nevada, and was only partially available in Texas and Ohio. We did the math: that’s about 108 million more Americans who can now borrow and lend directly among each other and get better rates.

So this is really good news…first, because my neighbor in the quaint town of Los Gatos, CA will finally stop asking “Dude, when can I use your site?” and second, arguably more importantly, because in the current climate of tightening lending practices from the banks, people in every community across America are looking for alternatives to help meet their financial needs, and being available nationwide will help us serve our community better.

As we pointed out last weekend, affinities and connections among Lending Club members get most of the credit for the remarkably low defaults recorded by Lending Club borrowers over the last 6 months. The ability for Facebook users and members of Lending Club’s partner alumni and professional associations to connect across all 50 states will make the Lending Club network even more efficient and help us deliver even more value to both lenders and borrowers.

Better Rates Nationwide. Together.

Renaud from Lending Club