November Produces More Growth for U.S. P2P Lenders

Last month I wondered whether the holiday-shortened month would impact the record run that Lending Club and Prosper have been on. But as the month closed this evening the staggering growth for these U.S. p2p lenders continues unabated.

Lending Club Issues $28.3 Million in New Loans

Lending Club set another record with $28.3 million in new loans for the month. This was up from $27.5 million last month and $11.6 million in November last year. They issued 2,232 new loans which was also a record. With the Thanksgiving holiday break this was a very impressive performance from the world’s largest p2p lender. No wonder Forbes magazine named them one of America’s most promising companies in an article on their site today.

Lending Club is closing in on $500 million in loans issued since inception and are probably on track to reach their target of $1 billion in total loans by the end of next year. Their 18-month chart below demonstrates the amazing run they have been having. The black line is the three month moving average.

Lending Club 18-month chart showing growth in p2p loans

Prosper Shows Loan Growth for the 14th Month in a Row

Prosper broke $9 million for the first time in their post quiet period (Prosper 2.0) operations. This was helped along by a huge influx of new cash from Worth-blanket2, their largest institutional investor. They chipped in around $2.4 million in new money for the month which brings their total investment since coming on board in May to $10.8 million.

But they were not alone. If you look at the top 20 investors by dollars lent on Lendstats for Prosper 2.0 you will see six new lenders in that list. Each one of these big new investors have come on board in just the last three months. Managedfund is the largest of these new investors and they kicked in around half a million dollars in new money this month.

Prosper continues to get a great deal of support from institutional lenders, but they are not ignoring individual investors. This was evidenced by the great bonuses for new investors announced earlier this month. Prosper doesn’t share the breakdown in numbers between the two types of investors but any way you slice it their growth in the past year has been impressive.

Prosper 18-month chart of p2p loan growth

  • Peter Renton

    Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of Fintech Nexus, the world’s largest digital media 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.