It was not a question of if it would happen, just when. Well, now it is official. Today Lending Club officially overtook Prosper as the world’s largest p2p lender.
Lending Club has unofficially held this title for some time, with their monthly new loan originations much larger than Prosper or anyone else’s for that matter. But now, Lending Club can claim the title of world’s largest peer to peer lending marketplace, a title that Prosper has used for many years, based on total loan originations.
When I checked the statistics page at both Prosper and Lending Club a few minutes ago at 12:45pm PST these were the numbers reported. These numbers represent the dollar value of all loans originated on each platform since inception:
Lending Club: $217,750,275
Prosper: $217,716,525
Is this news really important? Not really. For those of us who follow the industry, it is more of a curiosity than anything, a marker of sorts. Sources have told me that Lending Club will not be making a big deal about this. They want a healthy and growing p2p lending industry and feel there is plenty of room for multiple companies to thrive.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.