The total amount of p2p loans issued by Lending Club and Prosper in October was just over $97 million. I really thought this month was going to break $100 million but Lending Club slowed down at the end of the month and Prosper ended with a down month. No doubt that milestone will be passed in November.
Lending Club Up $5 Million to $82 Million in New Loans
Another record month at Lending Club makes it 23 months in a row now of record growth. But this was a slow month by recent Lending Club’s standards. The $5 million increase was in fact the smallest monthly increase in five months. But I wouldn’t read anything into this relative slowdown. In fact, I expect Lending Club will break $100 million in December to finish the year with a bang.
Total loan volume since inception is tantalizingly close to $1 billion, at $996 million, so it is now a formality that milestone will be crossed very shortly. In October, Lending Club issued 6,263 loans at an average loan size of $13,098.The average loan size has stayed between $12,500 and $13,500 for seven months now – it is obviously an amount they are comfortable with.
It seems that we have reached a new normal with the number of loans on the platform. For most of the month there were between 500 and 800 loans on the platform. The other part of this new normal is that loans are spending less time on the platform than ever before – I don’t have any hard numbers to back this up but I see most loans being funded within five days or less.
Below is the 18-month chart for Lending Club. The black line is the three-month moving average.
Prosper Issues $15.3 Million in New Loans Down 3.2% From September
Prosper had much stronger loan volume on their platform this month but it didn’t result in more loans being issued. In last month’s roundup I lamented that there were less than 100 loans available on the platform for most of September. That number jumped back to a more normal 300-400 loans in October which was good to see. Despite more available loans the total volume of loans issued by Prosper in October was down slightly to $15.3 million. The number of loans issued was also down to 1,823 resulting in an average of $8,411 per loan.
According to the new statistics site called Prosper Stats part of the blame for this down month can be linked to the top institutional investors. While I am working with the site’s owner to verify the numbers it appears that Worth-blanket2 was down significantly from last month.
Prosper has a tough act to follow with Lending Club growing so rapidly and about to pass $1 billion while Prosper is still months away from crossing $500 million. They have become the tortoise to Lending Club’s hare. Their 18-month chart reflects that difference.
I haven’t been able to put new money to work with Prosper in months. The issues I have are: too many early pay-offs, too many lates/defaults, long origination times, and the biggest problem by far – poor quality/selection of borrowers to choose from. I’m constantly spinning my wheels in keeping up with what I’ve already invested. I’m in my 14th month with Prosper and prior to Prosper Premier (which began last July) I had no issues with finding enough borrowers that met my criteria, but now there are so few I can barely keep up with the maintenance of existing investment, let alone adding any new funds. I really want to expand and grow with Prosper but am currently finding that impossible.
Dennis, I am in the same boat. I haven’t been able to put new money to work for over two months now. Just reinvesting cash has proven difficult enough. I am not sure if it is Prosper Premier as much as more investors, large and small, investing with the API. I see Worth-blanket2 fully fund loans within 3 minutes that I would have invested in if my Automated Quick Invest was able to run. I am going to be having a chat with Prosper on Monday to see if they have any timetable for changes.
I have the Premier account, and looking at a random selection of loans I’m invested in, by no means am I consistently one of the earliest investors. I often seem to be 10th or later on the list, about 10-20 minutes after the first investor, but sometimes as long as a day or more after the loan has been posted. I found one in which Worthblanket was invested, and they were well ahead of me on the list. I have no idea what the criteria are for order of play. I’d also be curious as to who “Berniemadoff” and “SweatyBalls” are–or perhaps not.
Thanks Mia, it is good to hear from a Premier investor. This gels with my understanding of how the process works – the Premier investments are run alongside the Automatic Quick Invest. But it seems that the API investors get first preference over everyone.
Yes, that is also my impression. I see worthblanket consistently takes 90% of a loan within 2-3 minutes of it going up, and their filter seems to be run before anyone else’s. When they take substantially less than 90% of a loan, it seems to be at other times, so probably not part of the same API.
Also, from what I can see, the Premier account is simply running a group of Quick Invest filters based on some boxes I checked off. I’m not really seeing what’s distinctive about the Premier service.
I think you are right about that. The selling point for Prosper Premier is that you don’t need to setup your own investment, just check a few boxes and away you go. They are promoting it for ease of use and a hands-off approach more than anything.