Given the amount of institutional investors, the involvement of banks, etc... peer-to-peer lending may not be the best name to describe that industry anymore.
Granted, it won't change the fate of humanity, but I thought it would be nice if we could agree on a universal term.
Prosper still uses that term
Lending Club uses 'peer lending' but last time at the LendIt conference they said the term is outdated
Charles Moldow from Foundation proposed the term 'Marketplace lending'. While I like it, I'm afraid it's a bit too long to really catch up
At LendingRobot, we began using 'direct lending'.
So... any opinion???
Of the four choices, I like Direct Lending best, but if Something Else comes along I might like that better.
So I can't vote. How about another choice, for Direct Lending OR Something Else?
I suggest you vote for Direct Lending for the moment being then. When I created the survey I allowed voters to change their mind later...
I think direct lending is already used in a broader sense.
As a retail investor it will always be somewhat peer to peer since I'm lending to others. However, as the game has changed - 'Marketplace Lending' makes more sense as I view Lending Club, Prosper etc. as marketplaces that bring together borrowers and lenders. I have some other gripes like the hashtag #marketplacelending being too long and my poor choice in blog/website name
Reminds me of the early-2000's when all the companies that had recently spent millions of dollars rebranding themselves as .com's spent millions of dollars rebranding themselves as whatever they were before.
How about just "Lending"?
"Indirect Lending" is a widely used term. Direct lending is usually just used for the rest where someone is directly lending to another.
"Crowd Lending"
Even if some loans are in a whole loan pool, the collection of all loans on a platform are funded by a Crowd.
A new proposal: 'market lending'.
Your take?
Community Finance
Here's some advertising copy:
"Fire your bank. Community finance is more efficient. Also, we'll will never try to sell you an Annuity or an upgraded checking account."
-Jon