As a site that promotes market forces in everyday life and encourages transactions by, for and of the people, we decided to put our meager earnings where our keyboard is and invest with Prosper.com.

Prosper.com is an online P2P community which allows users to provide loans to those who need it. The rates are slightly higher than the major banks for the borrower (which translates to greater earnings to the lender), but they can be bid down by other lenders if the rate is seen to have an abnormal earning capacity. As a borrower you can also see who will be willing to provide what sort of loan, and decide whether to take it or leave it. As a lender you can choose to invest money with whomever you feel will be reliable enough, or have a high enough return, or both, and earn the interest while getting repaid.

We must give notice that these are unsecured loans, and therefore we are starting with a small(ish) amount to test and see for ourselves how the whole P2P financing plays out.  We will let you know how it went in the coming months.

If you would like more information about Prosper.com or other similar services, please do not hesitate to let us know.