Prosper Business Finance - Anyone Used It

[Fergal]

Prosper.com (http://www.prosper.com) is a website that brings borrowers and lenders together in a way that helps borrowers get the loans they need and lenders to get a good return on their finance. From a quick view of their homepage I see that they finance everything from weddings to business start ups.

It's only available to people in the US, so I can't use it. But it sounds like a great concept and I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any personal experience of using it or heard independent reports on it.

[pendelton]

They are a fee charging brokerage, a simple referral business anyone can set up really.

You are right, it is a great concept.

Another thing that they are making money from is the referral fee's the banks will give them for getting a loan set up. They charge you up to 3% plus make at least $25.00 per loan as a finders fee from the bank.

Not a bad racket.

[Fergal]

I'm not sure that they deal with banks. The lenders the site deals with appear to be ordinary investors who visit and sign up at the site.

It is a community that brings lots of investors together with those needing a loan. From the site;
People-to-people lending...People who need money request it, and other people bid for the privilege of lending it to them.

Say if someone is looking for a loan of 10K, this loan might be financed by 10 people providing 1,000 each, from my understanding of how it works.

[Schwabe]

Like you I was pumped to try out Prosper! And then realized it's only available to US citizens.

As a web developer, I think it might be a neat way to generate funding for "web 2.0" website ideas.

[Michael01]

Prosper.com is an online auction website where you can buy loans and request to borrow money.It is like an eBay-style online auction marketplace.