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ines
April 14, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Hey Robert, I think the concept is genius – nothing like utilizing social media to do something creative. I just visited Zopa.com and you can even see what different people are borrowing money for. Talk about getting involved in choosing who will borrow your CD money.
I remember when INGDirect came out with their Orange accounts and how different the whole Internet Banking concept was – I’m curious to see how it pans out.
Ann Cummings
April 14, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Robert,
What an interesting concept that is – I looked around Zopa’s site a little, and found their ‘how it works’ to be pretty creative. Looks like it might just be worth a little consideration….
Denver Mortgage Broker
April 14, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I don’t think anything could be better for this country than for something like this to catch on and the big banks to lose their stranglehold on the American people. I would like to see social networking at the local bank level — so that borrowers and depositors would become attached to people. It would facilitate community and break the big bank cycle. It would keep the money inside the local communities.
Denver Mortgage Broker
April 14, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I read about something similar called Kiva — https://www.kiva.org/
You can lend to entrepreneurs in the developing world to help eliminate poverty. It’s a great idea, and of course, you get to see their profiles and receive updates.
Jon Griffith
May 26, 2008 at 2:42 pm
After reading a bit on the “how to” at Zopa.com, I can see that it may be a much better route than prosper.com. 20 months ago, I invested $1000.00 at Prosper.com, bidding on borrower’s request at a rate of $50.00 per borrower. I opened up 20 loans with an average rate of return in the 18% range. After 20 months, I have a net earnings of $259.00 less defaults, bringing my gain to $125.00. I’m no financial genius, but I calculate this out to being an 7.8% annual return. The current problem I have with prosper is that of the 26 current loans (the proceeds re-invest themselves as well) only 23 are current, and when there is a default, my profit is slashed. That is why my $259 is only $125. I should have been realizing a return of approximately 15.54%.
But, that’s risk, and considering I haven’t had to do anything to manage the account, 7.8% is, well, just okay, but nothing to be terribly excited about. And, it’s not secured or guaranteed…so I could lose it all.
I would prefer to be investing somewhere that would yield a 30% return…who wouldn’t?