March was a record month for peer to peer lending in this country. Lending Club set an all-time record for any p2p lender with $16.5 million in new loans in March. This record helped cap off a dominant quarter for the world’s largest p2p lender.
First quarter loans came in at $45.9 million which was a 95.5% increase over the first quarter of 2010. As you can see in the chart below, after a relatively flat previous quarter the three month rolling average (the black line you see below) is starting to trend upwards again.
One thing I found curious is something that appears to be a new trend at Lending Club these days. On the last day of the month a huge volume of money comes in to Lending Club. I have been told it is mainly the institutional investors that are causing this but let me show you how dramatic it is. At the end of day on March 30th, Lending Club stood at $12.6 million in loans for the month. In that last day they basically took in $4 million in new loans, almost 25% of their monthly total in one day. Around half of all the loans that were waiting for funding on the platform at the end of day on March 30th funded on the last day of the month.
Lending Club is very close to breaking the quarter of a billion dollar milestone in total loans originated since they started operations in 2007. It should happen on Monday or Tuesday next week.
Prosper Also Has a Strong Month
While the total numbers at Prosper definitely lag Lending Club their rate of growth is just as impressive. They ended the month at around $4.5 million in new loans (a record for their post quiet period) with total first quarter loans of $11.5 million. This was up 93.3% over their first quarter last year.
The management of Prosper have to be happy with the current trajectory. After changing their lending model in December their growth has really started to take off as you can see in the chart below. It will be very interesting to see if they can keep this rapid growth going.
