Loanio touts platinum verification and co-borrowers

After nearly a year of anticipation, Loanio's launch appears imminent. In a email to potential users last week, Loanio announced, "In just a couple of weeks (yes, we mean it this time!), we will be done with the final touches and ready to roll out!"

Loanio CEO Michael Solomon has let us peek under the hood and we have some exclusive screen shots.

Loanio homepage


Borrow on Loanio - Unlike other p2p lending sites, Loanio allows partial funding. As seen on borrower page (below), "If enough bids equal 100% of your loan, it automatically gets originated. If the bids equal more than 35%, but less than 100% of your loan, you can accept less or try again."

Lending on Loanio - As seen below, lending on Loanio is similar to other p2p lending sites. At FINOVATE, Solomon told the audience, ""We believe that the use of co-borrowing and plantinum listings will provide a greater amount of security and confidence to lenders."

Co-borrow on Loanio - Borrowers have the option to add a co-borrower to their loan. Co-borrowers must have a credit score higher than the other borrower on the loan and must have at least a E credit grade.

Platinum verification - For a small fee, borrowers can improve their odds of funding through platinum verification. Platinum verified borrowers will have the following checked by Loanio - photo ID, income, bank account, employer, address, homeownership.

Loanio credit grades - To borrow on Loanio you must have a credit grade of E or higher. Loanio has established a credit grade system from A+ to F or no score (NC). An E credit grade is equivilant of Experian VantageScore 569-603. With a F or NC credit grade score you must have a co-borrower to use Loanio.

P2P lending company for sale

As reported by Rateladder, there is an unknown company that has offered their newly developed p2p lending site for sale. They posted the following announcement on p2ptechforsale.com:

We are from a company that is looking to sell all rights to our proprietary P2P lending technology. Our company has been quietly in development for the past year, though have made the very difficult decision to halt launch plans for reasons internal to our team. We hold extremely high hopes for the future of P2P lending globally, and believe very strongly in the value it provides borrowers and lenders.

We have developed a complete P2P lending web application that will provide any aspiring P2P company with technology to support rapid deployment in any geographical market. We built it from the ground up, and went through extensive internal testing and went so far as to conduct closed testing with users.

...The front end is fully branded, and a sale can be made to include branding, or packaged as a white-labeled solution. Available intellectual property includes company name, logos, taglines, and a number of top-level domain names.

Over the past few months there have been several individuals and teams that have tried to build, buy and sell p2p lending sites.

• Freelance projects - I've seen at least five different listings on freelance websites over the past couple months where people are looking for help to build a prosper clone. Here is another one posted a couple weeks ago.
• Loanio - Loanio has been in development for over a year. We first reported on them back in July 2007. Some have speculated the current site for sale is Loanio. I admit that was my first thought too. According to my recent email conversations with CEO Michael Solomon the technology is in final testing. The regulatory challenges of launching a p2p lending company are a very difficult barrier to entry (see Lending Club and IOU Central). According to p2ptechforsale, those selling the site "are not lawyers by trade." The founder and CEO of Loanio is, however, a lawyer. He has a Law Degree from Brooklyn Law School. Loanio is scheduled to present at FinovateStartup tomorrow.
• IOU Central - IOU Central launched in Canada earlier this year after purchasing a P2P lending startup from Denmark called Fairrates. Fairrates was built in 10 months by Arkadiusz Hajduk and opened in April 2007. They have since run into regulatory challenges and have halted lending.
• CommunityLend - Also from Canada, CommunityLend has built a platform, team and is reportedly ready to launch.
• SocialLendingGroup - Social Lending Group has a functioning website and tried to sell it in February but could not find someone willing to pay the $2,000 reserve.

Update: I have been contacted by Loanio, IOU Central and CommunityLend. None of these platforms are for sale.

Loanio nears launch...again

We first wrote about a new peer to peer lending startup called Loanio back in July 2007. At the time, there was little information available. Since then, Loanio has advertised extensively on P2P lending blogs and websites but they are still pretty quiet about their actual plans. As far as I know, the only time Loanio has talked to bloggers or the press has been the short interview Loanio CEO Michael Solomon gave me back in August. At the time, they were hoping to launch in the fall. Fall came and went and a notice on Loanio's homepage said they would open in January 2008. I eagerly visited their homepage almost every day last month hoping to get a first look at their new service.

Loanio is now in beta testing and, according to an email from Michael Solomon, is still a couple of weeks away from opening up testing to non-team developers. We hope to be invited to their beta testing and will bring you some early screen shots and a review.

Update (9/10/2008): Loanio screenshots

ScriptLance project: Prosper or Zopa clone

This is a time of dramatic growth for the p2p lending market. Over $100 million has exchanged hands on Prosper and investors have provided over $40 million in venture capital. Lending Club is growing rapidly, has expanded nationwide, and received $10 million in venture capital. GlobeFunder missed their planned October launch but should be opening their doors soon. Loanio also missed their planned fall launch but should open in the Spring. Zopa recently received $13 million in venture capital and expanded to the U.S. Canada's CommunityLend just raised $2.5 million and will be launching soon.

This exciting growth and the mainstream adoption of p2p lending in the general public will cause new p2p lending companies to emerge in the U.S. and throughout the world. We have observed several projects on freelance coding websites to build "Prosper clones."

1. The first advertisement was in late June on Rent a Coder. The winning bid was Hiren Kotadiya from India who agreed to build a Prosper clone for $250.
2. Next we found an ad on iFreelance.com from someone looking for help building a peer-to-peer lending site.
3. A third ad in July on ScriptLance asked for help building a site similar to Prosper.com.
4. A fourth ad, also in July, on Getafreelancer.com asked for someone to build a P2P lending site for the Asian market.

Another project just appeared on ScriptLance. Someone wants to build a "Prosper or Zopa Clone." The project budget is $300-600 and here is the description:

"We are looking for clone of either Prosper or Zopa or a mix of these two sites. We need full design, programming and setup of the website and the underlying databases. the clone must not be violating copyrights of prosper nor zopa.

1. Programming languages to be open source (e.g. PHP/mySQL)
2. has the features and functionalities of prosper or zopa
3. online payment gateway integrated
4. Daily communication / update during website building is necessary (via email/msn/or PMB)
5. Bidders please state clearly your delivery timeframe and link of demo. Thanks for bidding!"

As venture capital continues to flow into p2p lending companies we will see more competitors emerge.

Loanio prepares for fall launch

Last month we wrote a short article, What is Loanio?, about the new peer to peer lending startup Loanio. At the time, it was pretty clear that there is very little information available. About the best we could do was a whois lookup to discover who registered the domain name loanio.com. Although Loanio has done some limited advertising, they have been very reluctant to publicly release any information ahead of their launch which is expected this fall.

Michael Solomon, a New York lawyer, is the CEO and founder of Loanio and has agreed to share some information about Loanio with our readers. Solomon currently runs a fiancée visa attorney and marriage visa practice in New York City. In addition, he is the part owner and founder of Omnilaw Legal Plans, Inc. which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. He has a Law Degree from Brooklyn Law School and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a member in good standing with the American Immigration Lawyers Association and The New York State Bar.

Loanio will launch this fall and be focused on the United States. In addition, Loanio is working with some overseas partners and is expected to expand internationally in late 2008. Michael Solomon shared the following information about Loanio:

What inspired you to create Loanio?

"For the last 10 years, I have been running a company that provides over 4 million employees and families with legal and financial assistance. I have seen my share of ugly, unfair and/or lack of credit issuance and the inherent debt problems often associated with it. The idea of "leveling the playing field" by leveraging the internet is a powerful and socially conscious one that appeals to me. I have done lots of traveling in South America and for about 4 years I have been following the great things that have been happening with advances in the world's microfinance markets. In many other third world countries, great things are also being accomplished. A few years ago when peer lending started to show up on the internet, it got me thinking and wondering about other possibilities. It seemed only natural that the now emerging market of peer lending would evolve to where it is and where it is going now is something very exciting and some place I want to be."

When do you expect to launch?

"Fall 2007. While I prefer to leave the particulars out right now, I will say that we are building a platform that we believe will foster more loan originations (than other current platforms) with the possibility of greater security and probably make more "lenders and borrowers" very happy."

If you are interested, you can sign up on Loanio to receive an email when they are ready to launch.

Update (9/10/2008): Loanio screenshots

Zopa hiring for US launch

For over a year, Zopa has advertised that they are moving beyond the UK and will offer peer to peer lending in the U.S. Their website header contains an email form if you want to be notified of developments. For months there have been no emails. Until today.


In today's email Zopa announced, "We are in high gear on launching Zopa in the US" and are looking to hire great people. Specifically they are looking for a web developer, financial systems developer and an account manager. Here are the job descriptions:

• Web Developer - We need somebody to own, design, and build the presentation layer of the Zopa website in the U.S. So you'll need to be a sharp--even a C#--developer (and able to appreciate the odd bad joke). You'll need to be a great person in general, of course. But you'll also need to be a master of ASP.net, a core technology for us...
• Financial Systems Developer - We need a crack developer to work on the financial engine underneath our peer-to-peer lending system. This job is literally at the heart of everything we do, and you'll need to be a great person to wear the role well.
• Account Manager - Zopa is a financial service, and so we need some crack accounting folks. This position is a general accounting position with emphasis on reconciling our bank statements with our internal system of record.

Those interested in applying can send a resume to Zopa at jobs@zopa.com.

The peer to peer industry is in a significant growth phase right now. Prosper recently received $20 million in venture capital and announced they are expanding to Asia. Lending Club opened in the U.S. and is growing rapidly. Loanio and GlobeFunder are expected to open in the U.S. this fall. I've also found four projects on freelancing websites (ScriptLance, Rent a Coder, iFreelance, and GetAFreelancer) where people are looking for help to develop competitors to Prosper.

While competition seems to be heating up, Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche does not feel threatened by the other companies. In an interview with CenterNetworks yesterday he said, "Prosper is really the only other person-to-person lending marketplace available in the US at this point, but we do not feel competitive with them at all. Both Prosper and Lending Club can be very successful, and the success of both companies will be much more dependent on how fast we can grow the p2p lending space together rather than how well we compete against each other. With 2.4 trillion dollar in personal consumer debt (other than mortgages), it is a big market out there."

Third mystery Prosper competitor project emerges

Earlier this month we reported that someone was advertising on various websites in an attempt to find a programmer to build a competitor to Prosper. The first advertisement was in late June on Rent a Coder. The winning bid was Hiren Kotadiya from India who agreed to build a Prosper clone for $250. Next we found an ad on iFreelance.com from someone looking for help building a peer-to-peer lending site. Although the bidding on iFreelance ended nearly two weeks ago with 12 bidders it appears that a bid was not awarded. A third ad was just posted - this time on ScriptLance. According to the project description:

"We are building a site similiar [sic] to prosper.com. It is a peer to peer lending website -- where a person can register as either a lender or borrower. A borrower can post a request for a loan, and the rate they are willing to negotiate as far as interest/repayment. A borrower can bid an amount to loan. There can be as many lenders as the borrower wishes to accept. The most difficult thing about the site -- is it will need to call to a credit agency to pull a credit report/score (the API will be provided for that later on)"

Bidding ends on July 31st and the established budget is $100-1000. There are already six bids. Prosper's only true competitor in the United States right now is Lending Club. Loanio is expected to launch later this year.

What is Loanio?

Yesterday my interest was piqued when the Wall Street Journal mentioned Loanio, a new peer to peer lending service. As far as I know, this is the first time the mainstream press has mentioned Loanio. There is very little information on Loanio's website - just a logo, the subtext People Lending to People, and an email sign up box to get more information. Oh yea, and a picture of a stack of cash.

Information is scarce. In May WiseClerk noted that Loanio was advertising and asked, "What is the deal with Loanio?" The banner ads, which were running on Lending Stats, are no longer displayed. The ads generated some discussion about Loanio in the Prosper forums and traveler505 noted that Loanio's website was registered to Michael Solomon, a lawyer in New York. Michael Solomon currently runs a fiancée visa attorney and marriage visa practice in New York City. He has a Law Degree from Brooklyn Law School and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Washington University in St. Louis. According to his LinkedIn page, Michael Solomon is the president of Loanio and has been since November 2006. Last month Netbanker reported, "The founder is revealing little about the new company at this point."

As we have reported over the last few weeks, according to listings on Rent a Coder and iFreelance someone is looking for programmers to create a "working, stripped-down version of prosper.com." Lending Club just entered the peer to peer market with Prosper. Zopa plans to launch in the U.S. by the end of the year and it looks like there may be more competitors soon.

Do any of our readers have any more information about Loanio?

Update: Loanio CEO Michael Solomon provided some information about Loanio in an interview with us.

Update (9/10/2008): Loanio screenshots

Help wanted: Build competitor to Prosper

For the second time this month someone has placed an advertisement on a freelance website seeking developers to build a Prosper competitor. Last week we reported that someone had hired a developer through RentaCoder.com to create a "working, stripped-down version of prosper.com" by July 27th for $250. Yesterday someone posted a similar project on iFreelance. Here are the project specifications:

"We are looking to have a peer-to-peer lending site developed. It will have similar functionality to the existing sites in the market....For an example of a peer-to-peer lending site please see http://www.Prosper.com. We are looking to get started on this project immediately and are developing it on a very tight schedule."

Bidding on the project is open for a week and there are already four bids ranging from $3,000-$8,000.