The two largest peer-to-peer lending firms, Prosper and Lending Club, originated a total of $9.2 million in loans during the month of November.
Out of the $9.2 million in peer-to-peer loans that these two companies Lending Club generated the lion’s share with $6.8 million in new loans that were created during the month. Lending Club has been picking up speed, increasing the amount of loans that they fund by hundreds of thousands each month. Lending Club had originated about $6.4 million during the month of October and $4.3 million in loans during the month of August.
Prosper also saw growth in loan origination, increasing from $2.0 million in new loans during October to $2.4 million in new loans during the month of November. Prosper has recently been on an advertising spree by launching a new affiliate program and by displaying ads online and on CNBC.
Prosper still has a long way to recover before it returns to its highs of $7 million in monthly loan originations that it saw before the SEC came hammering down on the company for selling unregistered securities. Prosper is hoping to alleviate its revenue woes with the help of a newly appointed chief revenue officer (CRO). The new CRO, Nick Talwar, was previously the chief-executive of Citibank’s consumer business in Sweden.
Although Prosper has originated more total loans than Lending Club, mostly because the company has been in operation longer, Lending Club is quickly gaining ground on Prosper and could overtake Prosper’s total loan amount sometime during the next year.
