YES Summit: Lending Club pitches credit union partnerships
Posted by Brent Dixon on December 3rd, 2007
John Donovan of peer-to-peer lending community Lending Club kicked off his presentation by comparing his company to an “online credit union.”
Lending Club began solely in Facebook and launched independently in September of this year.
Using Google’s OpenSocial platform, Lending Club is placing themselves inside of popular social networks “the same way you put a physical branch where people are.” From their blog:
OpenSocial offers the ability to retrieve information about a user, and get distribution, across many social networks. What it means is that Lending Club borrowers will be able to leverage their network of connections more broadly, that lenders will be presented with better opportunities to invest in people they trust and feel more comfortable with (such as friends of friends), and that a broader distribution will help find better matches between lenders and borrowers.
John also brought up the prospect of a white label partnership between Lending Club and credit unions. In this scenerio, Lending Club would play back-end provider to a CU-branded P2P lending community. This is pretty interesting considering Zopa’s announcement last week. I wonder if they were planning that before they heard about Zopa’s US plans.
Also, in July they hosted a consumer-generated video campaign, asking users to explain the value of Lending Club and P2P lending. Here’s one particularly well-done submission, followed by one particularly wacked-out submission:
(I dedicate them both to Ron Shevlin)
Thanks for your updates on the YES Summitt. I think P2P lending is a movement that needs to be followed closely. Can you help me understand what’s proposed? Would Lending Club and Zopa provide the structure for P2P lending among there own members?
It’s interesting that at the YES Summitt it appears that Lending Club is setting themselves up as a competitor of Zopa. I just read a CUNA bulletin about a Gen Y, Facebook-like site being launched by CUNA’s Web Manager Christoper Morriss called the YES CU Community. Is CUNA trying to compete with Facebook?
I can assure you that CUNA can in know way compete with Facebook.
The new facebook-like site is only for CU people to discuss ways to better serve young adults and for them to get comfortable with the technology.
@Christopher – thanks for the clarification. I missed the fact that it’s for “credit union personnel”. I’m a board member and I’d be interested in having a look.
@ Ginny, here’s a WSJ article that explains Zopa + CUs much better than I can:
Online Lending Gets Easier and Safer
Also, a check out the comments in this OSCU thread.
As for Lending Club, I think it would work like you said – a CU would use Lending Club’s interface and tools, with their logo slapped on it, for social lending within its own membership.
They already have university partnerships , but I’m not sure how they verify alumni status (aka if they fall within the field of membership).
I’m also not sure how they share the spread with their partners.