How to Lend Money
Join Private Lenders Like You
Social lending is a cutting-edge new investment platform, emerging asset class and online business opportunity. Lending Club is a leading social lending network where members can borrow money and lend money, transacting direct loans among themselves at better interest rates than are available elsewhere.
- Begin by joining Lending Club as a basic member. In this short process, you will create your sign in information, including a screen name that will identify you to other members. We will also ask you to verify an email address.
- Next, go to [Lend > Lend Money] and provide basic information that will help us verify your identity and match you with suitable borrowers. You might also tell us how much risk you are willing to take, so that our matching system can generate recommendations that match your risk level. It will take up 2–3 business days to verify your bank account, and another 4 business days for you to transfer funds from your bank account to your Lending Club account. You can also fund your account by mailing us a check or by wiring money (which will let you start lending faster).
- You can either build loan portfolios by browsing and selecting loans one at a time, or ask for a portfolio recommendation, in which case our matching system will recommend a well-diversified portfolio that matches your risk preferences and includes borrowers from your networks, groups or associations. This is important because we believe borrowers will feel more compelled to repay loans on time when they know the money comes from real people they feel connected to.
- You will most likely invest small amounts of money in a large number of loans. After you've committed your selection, your funds will be held in reserve until the loans close, after which the money will be transmitted to the borrowers. If a loan that you selected does not get fully funded and as a result does not close within a maximum of 14 days, your funds will be returned to your account and become available for lending again. After a loan closes and the funds are transmitted to the borrowers, we will service the loan, withdraw the payment amount from the borrower's verified bank account every month, and deposit your portion of these funds into your Lending Club account.
