There was a surprising announcement from the presidential campaign of Donald Trump this morning. Sources inside the campaign revealed that Mr. Trump has successfully applied for and received a $35,000 personal loan from Prosper. He has committed those funds to his campaign.
I was astonished to hear this news given Mr. Trump’s large personal fortune so I contacted the campaign myself this morning. Here is Mr. Trump’s statement released just a short time ago:
It is very important to me to have a well-funded campaign. I decided to take out this loan on Prosper, not because I needed the money, I don’t, but it was a good business decision. I negotiated an incredible interest rate of 5.99% and decided to jump on this opportunity.
I immediately reached out to Aaron Vermut, the CEO of Prosper, for comment on such a high profile borrower and the huge boost in PR this must be for Prosper. But unfortunately he would neither confirm nor deny the existence of a loan from Mr. Trump citing Prosper’s privacy policy.
But Aaron did have a general comment about loaning money to wealthy individuals:
Billionaires have funding needs just like the rest of us. If they need a loan to put a down payment on an Aston Martin, repairs on their private jet, a new Rolex , a diamond encrusted toilet or even a presidential campaign we are here to help provide financing up to $35,000.
While the Trump campaign did not release the terms of his loan we can deduce from Mr. Trump’s statement that his loan is likely a 3-year AA-rated loan. The 5.99% APR is the lowest interest rate Prosper offers to first time borrowers which would be for those loan terms. Regardless, I expect this loan will be paid back early given the campaign has less than eight months to go.
I am very interested to see how this plays out in the media but as of this writing I have seen virtually no press coverage of this news, which is also surprising. Still, I expect we will see some articles written about this as the day goes on and this will indeed provide an expected PR boost for Prosper.
Regardless of your political views I am interested to hear what Lend Academy readers think of this interesting development. Please share your thoughts in the comments.
