Social Lending with LendingClub – Your Thoughts?
As you all probably know by now, personal finance is one of my interests. I read quite a few RSS feeds (and books when I can make the time) on the subject. While I am in no way an expert, some posts in one of the feeds I follow has been catching my eye. The subject of these posts is a website called “LendingClub” – basically it allows folks to apply for micro-loans which are socially funded by the Internet populous ($20 from you, $30 from me, etc). From a borrower perspective, you can generally get a better rate than you may get from a bank (as well as the ability to “plead your case” to potential lenders). From a lending perspective, the potential exists to get a much higher return than you would get from a typical high-yield savings account.
While I’ve found myself in more of a “save money and pay off debt” mode lately (thanks to the many posts I’m reading and lessons learned from the recent economic downturn), I’ve been mulling the idea of jumping into LendingClub. I’ve held a “high-yield” savings account for years, but as most bank-related things have done with the downturn, the “high-yield” isn’t so high. I was thinking of using LendingClub as a new way to build some savings through interest. One of the bloggers I follow, FiveCentNickel, recently published a post on his own loan selection criteria that seems to be working for him. He’s written a post that provides an overview of LendingClub, with instructions on how to create an account.
Have any of you looked into LendingClub and/or joined the social lending game? What have your experiences been thus far?
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