September 5th, 2009
There are now nineteen live listings on WikiLoan.com. Not surprisingly, none of the listings have been issued funds from a lender. The borrowers are asking for outrages interest rates based on their credit ratings. There are borrowers asking for 4% interest rates for their unsecured loans! Most of the listings have F ratings (scores between 0-599) and are asking for rates under 10%.
I can’t blame the lenders for avoiding this site for now. WikiLoan should advise their borrowers of reasonable rates based on their credit scores. LendingClub sets the rates, and prosper shows lenders how likely their loan will be funded for a range of rates.
January 3rd, 2009
Fynanz.com appears to be officially shut down. I can’t say for certain because there are no notices, no announcements, and no emails to registered users. These jokesters just left us with a maze on their website. When you visit the site, you are left with two options, “Financial Institutions” and “P2P Borrowers and Lenders”.
Select “P2P Borrowers and Lenders” and you are only able to log into your account. If you are a lender and click on browse borrowers, you are sent back to the beginning. You can’t do anything in your account. The only thing I was capable of doing was transfer funds and visit their “help” section. In the “help” section they don’t mention anything about shutting down. What a joke!
The only message on their site that confirms they are not doing business is; “We are currently not accepting new borrower applications.” You can only find this message when you try to become a registered borrower.
The other option on their main page is for financial institutions. From what I see, fynanz.com has turned into a company which offers student loan platforms for other financial institutions. Basically, they create a student loan site for another company.
“Are you a financial institution interested in establishing a private student loan program?
If so, Fynanz can help!
The Fynanz Student Lending Platform is a turn-key, web based solution that allows you to penetrate the growing private student loan market.”
Goodbye to peer lending fynanz.com.
December 26th, 2008
As of today 12/25 Fynanz.com has no borrowers. I did an initial review back in November and found only six borrowers. Over the past month the number has dwindled to zero. Here were a few problems with the site I noticed during the review on 11/19.
1 – No borrowers!! In fact as of 11/19/2008 there is a total of SIX borrowers. (None Today!)
2 – These are long term loans – there is no sale of the note for the initial year and only a possibility of option to sell the note later.. but no promise according to Fynanz.com
3 – With so little borrowers I do not see the “guaranteed fund” to be fully capable of repaying defaulted loans.
4 – There are many states that Fynanz.com is not currently licensed with.. they claim they will be adding more with time. Here’s a link to the states they are currently able to do business with -http://www.fynanz.com/help/state_licenses
5 – Low interest rates to lenders compared to other P2P lending sites.
6 – High interest rates for borrowers compared to other student loan options. Fynanz.com warns borrowers that government loans are more beneficial. “Borrowers: Before considering an OpenLoan, please exhaust federal loans, which in most cases will cost less.”
No Borrowers = No Lending = No Revenue = No Profit = DEAD
Fynanz.com has a huge barrier to jump in order to stay a float. Hopefully the lack of borrowers is due to the end of fall semester. However, they better make some changes.. and do it fast!
E.M.
November 26th, 2008
LendingClub.com announced today that they will be raising interest rates, processing fee, and the minimum fico score requirement for borrowers.
-Interest rates will be raised by .75% ranging from 6.69% – 19.37%.
-Processing Fee will be raised by .75% for borrowers.
-Minimum fico score for borrowers is now 660.
This change will not effect lenders and only create larger returns on the investment. Here’s the original announcement:
“Hope all is well. There are a few changes becoming effective today that matter to you as a lender:
Minimum FICO score raised to 660
As the economy continues to slow down and create additional risks in the lower FICO bands, we are tightening our credit policy. To ensure a higher quality of loan applications is available to you as a lender, we are raising the minimum FICO score to 660. Simultaneously, we are increasing our marketing spend on qualified lead generation channels to ensure a sustained flow of borrower applications with no decrease in the quantity of applications available on the site.
Interest rate increase by 0.75%, taking the average rate to 13.80%
In response to the same market conditions, we have increased our base rate by 0.75% for all grades other than A, by 0.25% for A4 and A5 grades and left it unchanged for A1-A3 loans. Interest rates, after deducting our service charge of 1%, now vary from 6.69% to 19.37% with an average of 13.80%.
Note that we are also increasing the processing fees charged to borrowers by an average of 0.75%. The additional revenue will fuel continued investments in Website development, collections and loan servicing, and general operations.” LendingClub.com
E.M
