New here? You may want to subscribe to the RSS feed or browse the site map. Thanks!

I planned to blog in commiseration with Tom about being denied for a loan. Tom was denied for a Zopa loan and I was rejected for a GE Money Bank credit card through Amazon. GE Money Bank took 10 days to tell me that they could not verify my identity despite the promise on Amazon.com of a 30 second approval process. I have a 800 credit score and provided all information including a phone number and they could not verify my identity. They did not bother calling to verify and customer service told me the process is computer automated. Ten days for a computer program to return results? I doubt it…

Sorry /Rant Off
I’ll skip the remainder of my planned rant about Amazon’s relationship with GE Money Bank and their horrible off-shore service and move on to saying good bye to quasi p2p lender Zopa. Zopa has closed its lending in the United States due to the credit crunch. Since the loans were actually funded by credit unions, this should make you question the stability of the credit unions backing the Zopa operations. I have friends on the board of my credit union and they have been mentioning the lack of loan opportunities for lending out depositors’ money. My credit union is flush was cash, and these CUs can’t make a few small dollar P2P loans.

The credit crisis should be creating a BONANZA for P2P lending — horrible stock market returns combined with people needing credit.

Another P2P Bank Bites the Dust
The P2P lending space seems to be taking casualties quickly. Lending Club is still not taking loans allowing lender bidding on loans despite the not-so-recent SEC filing due to the SEC imposed quiet period. One shop never even got off the ground and turned to blogs to sell itself likely for cheap. Prosper is raising fees like it is bailing water and Loanio opened very late to little fan fair.

Blogging Proof of a P2P Downturn
It is obvious that the P2P lending space is losing steam as fast as a broken particle collider when Kevin @ Rate Ladder only has five posts from September 2nd to October 4th. Once upon a time, long ago in the P2P lending space — a year ago — he posted daily.

When I hosted the 10th peer lending carnival, Lazy Man and Money and I traded a few emails including one where he lamented the downturn and lack of excitement for the industry. And as I think about returns long-term, despite the recent great performance of P2P loans versus my stock portfolio, now is likely a much better time to buy stocks.

Good Bye Zopa
So good bye Zopa. I know you offered potentially holy grail negative interest loans to borrowers, but it looks like you could not hack a market down turn. I am glad I never signed up for Zopa and do not plan on signing up for any new P2P lending services for a while even if they are paying great referral bonuses.

What is next?
In the near term, I plan to plow my extra cash into a doubling up my emergency fund, doubling down my long-term bet on the US stock market, and buying extra camera lenses. And I plan to spend my time working hard and enjoying my family (and my camera) — not checking the gloomy news or my already-tanked portfolio.

So what do you think about Zopa closing and the state of P2P lending?