The numbers keep rolling on. After posting just over $50 million in total new loans between them in March, Lending Club and Prosper continued their steady rise with $53.7 million in new loans issued in April. The growth remained very strong at Lending Club while at Prosper the growth rate has slowed down somewhat but volume is still heading upward.
Lending Club Now Over $42 Million in New Loans a Month
The growth engine at Lending Club kept chugging along in April. Most of the month saw over 1,000 new loans available for investors on the platform at any one time – this seems to be the new normal now at Lending Club. They have really hit on a winning formula which was evident when I spoke with Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, earlier this month. He indicated that they could actually grow much faster if they chose to, but they are limiting their growth to this steady pace. This way, they can avoid stressing their systems (both IT and people) too much and provide better service to both borrowers and investors.
When you look at the numbers Lending Club issued almost $42.1 million in new loans this month. The total number of new loans was up substantially (over 10%) from last month with 3,230 loans issued. This meant for the second month in a row their average loan size reduced – in April it was $13,019. The total loans issued since inception is now around $612 million and with eight months left in the year it is clear that Lending Club will cross over $1 billion in total loans before the end of the year.
Below is their impressive 18-month growth chart for new loans. The black line is the three month moving average.
Prosper Issues $11.6 Million in New Loans This Month
Over at Prosper the rapid growth that they experienced during the last few months seems to have stalled a bit. Over the last year many times there was month over month growth of more than 10% but that hasn’t happened for the last three months. There are some signs that the number of loan listings is improving, though, so I actually think the growth will pick up quite a bit from here, possibly as soon as next month.
Their largest investor, worth-blanket2, had another busy month. According to Lendstats, worth-blanket2 invested over $3.1 million in new loans in April. There was a new kid on the block at Prosper this past month that goes by the screen name of Cash-Flow – they invested over $600,000 to make them the second largest investor in April. The usual number two, Index_Plus, kicked in just over $330,000 and just one other investor (another new entrant), tolerant-responsibility051, invested more than $100,000 according to my research.
So just like March Prosper enjoyed a wide base of investment spread between retail and institutional investors with probably a bit more volume on the retail side. Below is their 18-month chart.
A reader emailed me this month and asked why I didn’t include Peerform in the monthly numbers. I would be happy to, and have extended an invitation to them a couple of times, but they do not wish to disclose their monthly numbers yet. My guess is that once they are doing some substantial volume they will be happy to be included here.
