One of the problems with comparing default rates at Lending Club and Prosper is that you are really comparing apples with oranges. What do I mean by that?

Each company has a completely different underwriting model and they grade loans differently. Does a AA-grade loan on Prosper match up with an A-grade loan on Lending Club? It depends. If the interest rate, loan terms and the credit data of the borrowers are all similar then I would say yes. But I have heard from many borrowers who have received very different interest rates from both companies when applying for a loan with identical terms.

P2PXML Brings Standardization to P2P Lending

Earlier this year I wrote about the release of P2PXML, an attempt to bring an open standard to analyzing p2p loans. P2PXML is an open source project by Michael from Nickel Steamroller and it is very useful in doing a legitimate comparison between Lending Club and Prosper. The problem has been these companies store data in very different ways so even though you can download the entire loan history from each company it has been difficult to make realistic comparisons.

P2PXML stores the data from both companies in exactly the same format. It is not perfect because not all the same data is available from both companies but it does provide enough information to make the first real apples to apples analysis of default rates. [Read more…]