Which countries are poised for the next great marketplace lending revolution? (Part 1)
Originally @ Lending Times Online marketplace (or peer to peer) lending exploded in size, growth, and ubiquity over the past decade. An April report by American Banker quantified this growth at 700% over just 4 years – not uncommon for a relatively new market like online lending, but impressive nonetheless. Yet the meteoric rise of this industry has been contained to a few relatively homogenous, developed credit markets. As online lending reaches its adolescence and moves past what critics dismissed as its ‘fad’ phase, a lingering question remains – which markets are next? The opening bell for marketplace lending rang in 2004 when the consumer lender Zopa launched in London. Soon after in 2005, Prosper Marketplace was founded in San Francisco. The original marketplace lending model was a variable rate auction market, much like an Ebay in which lenders and borrowers could bid to provide and receive loans. The idea was to create something similar to a community credit union, online