Lending Club nominated as top innovator

Lending Club has been nominated as one of the Top 100 Internet innovators in the U.S. by the Industry Standard in the 'Commerce' category. Others nominated include Mint, Zillow, Farecast and Wesabe. The winner will be decided by popular vote and announced at the end of October.

Peer to peer lending companies have received many awards. Earlier this year, Prosper joined Amazon, Walmart, IBM, and others on Fast Company's 2008 list of the 50 most innovative companies. Prosper was also Time magazine's #1 website of the year in 2006 and one of the 50 best websites of 2007. At the 2008 Retail Banker International Forum, Zopa won the 'Most Threatening Non-bank Competitor.'

So, here's the question - if they win are they going to reuse the speech from their 2008 Webby?

Zopa named 'Most Threatening Non-bank'

At the 2008 Retail Banker International Forum, Zopa won the 'Most Threatening Non-bank Competitor.' Others nominated in the category included PayPal, Wal-Mart, Vodafone and Prosper. Zopa COO Douglas Doulton said, "This is a very gratifying award to win, especially ahead of such big brands and one of our social lending competitors in the USA."

Despite earning the bank threatening label, Zopa invited corporation from banks in their awards speech. As reported on their blog:

"While we were delighted to be considered threatening by the banking industry I doubted whether too many in the room actually felt too threatened, perhaps more intrigued. I considered that if we were to be a threat it wouldn’t be because we were explicitly anti-bank, more that we were pro-consumer. Indeed if any of the banks would like to work with us in that pro-consumer mission we would be delighted to welcome them."

Promptly after winning the award, they lost it. According to the account on their blog, "...a thoroughly good time was had by all, or at least by me anyway - which can be evidenced by the fact that at some stage of the night that followed, at some venue in W1, I managed to lose our precious (and very tasteful) glass award. Oh dear, better take a look oneBay…"

Prosper #49 on the Fast 50

As announced on the official blog, Prosper joined the likes of Amazon, Walmart and IBM on Fast Company's 2008 list of the 50 most innovative companies.

From the award profile: "Borrowers include stretched homeowners, college-goers, credit-card junkies, and entrepreneurs; lenders are average folks, including Larsen himself, who has funded more than 450 loans. Intriguingly, with the credit crunch making it tougher on small-business owners to get capital to expand, more entrepreneurs are turning to Prosper as an alternative, posting business plans and photos as part of their pitches; these loans now account for about 20% of funded volume."

I also found this tidbit interesting, "So far, Prosper's lenders and borrowers are only in America, but a new joint venture would let Japanese lenders bid on American loans -- and the goal is to connect people (and capital) globally." We knew Prosper was looking to expand to Japan but I assumed that meant Japanese lenders lending money to Japanese borrowers. If the number of lenders increase without increasing the number of borrowers then interest rates will be driven down. Perhaps this is why Prosper recently increased their referral bonus for new borrowers.

The top three Fast Companies are Google, Apple and Facebook. Prosper has won numerous awards in the past including Time magazine's #1 website of the year in 2006 and one of the 50 best websites of 2007.