NetBanker 2.0

Prosper's year-end numbers

Prosper, the first, and so far only, person-to-person loan marketplace in the United States, ended the year with 140,000 members and $27 million in loans booked (see screenshot below).

It's a good start for a company yet to see its first birthday and is slightly above our projections made last March (see Online Banking Report #127). However, the company will have to do something to boost revenues (see note below) if it hopes to see its third birthday. We expect to see a broadening of its products and services in 2007 (see previous coverage here).

Note:
Prosper's revenues in 2006 are estimated to be approximately $300,000, primarily from the 1% loan-origination fee assessed to borrowers.

More supply than demand at Zopa

In a blog post today, person-to-person lender Zopa told its U.K. lenders that, due to a seasonal "lack of creditworthy borrowers," it would take a bit longer to lend out their money this month. However, the company predicted a seasonal upturn in January as more good borrowers looked for funds. The company reminded lenders that they still earn 4.25% on idle funds held by Zopa.

Vehicle auctions hit the homepage at Houston Federal Credit Union (HFCU)

Many financial institutions sell or auction repossessed vehicles to the public. However, not many use this by-product of installment lending as a prospecting tool on their homepage.

We came across this novel approach at Houston Federal Credit Union <houstonfcu.org> while putting together a presentation titled "Extreme Website Makeovers" for an upcoming American Bankers Associate conference. The first place we looked for inspiration was the client list of Trabian, a talented new website designer concentrating on the credit union market (grab a feed to their outstanding blog, OpenSourceCU here). 

Trabian's client, HFCU, includes a link to its vehicle auctions on the right-side of its homepage (see screenshot below). Clicking on the box takes users to the main auction page where any registered user may bid on the vehicle (in this case, just a single motorcycle was up for auction).   

Analysis
Everyone loves a good deal, and unlike retailers who can drop a loss-leader on their homepage to generate excitement, financial institutions have far fewer options. Vehicle auctions provide an interesting way to encourage members to check back periodically to see if they could get a smoking hot deal on a used sedan, truck, or bass boat.

It's also a good prospecting tool. Nonmembers are allowed to register on the site and bid. This provides the credit union an immediate opportunity to make a sales pitch such as the "Wish your auto loan was at HFCU instead?" in the center of the page.

The email address supplied by the bidder also enables the CU to market to the nonmember in future emails. Finally, anyone who buys the auctioned vehicle is a great candidate for an HFCU loan, which are positioned in the upper-right of the auction page (see screenshot below).

Making it even better
We love the idea, and it works well even in its relatively simple form. It would be even better with a few additions:

1. It would drive even more traffic with an email and RSS feed option for receiving information on new auction items and for monitoring bids.
2. The credit union would generate more interest by including a variety of vehicles (even if they bought a few at auction to seed the site). Today's sole entry was a 2005 Suzuki motorcycle with a buy-it-now price of $6300.
3. The auction format and tools are relatively crude by today's standards. For example, it wasn't obvious who the other bidders were, how long it had been up for auction, or what the next bid needed to be. There are numerous auction services that could provide a more eBay-like experience.
4. It would be helpful to integrate the auction more closely with the loan center so users could easily calculate monthly payments, insurance costs, etc.

Zopa to offer lender guarantees

In a blog post today, person-to-person lending pioneer Zopa announced several usability improvements in its upcoming release, a new My Zopa screen and Quick Lend area.

But what caught our eye was Zopa's upcoming option to guarantee the return of principal for its lenders. There's no free lunch, of course, so an insurance premium must be paid when lenders choose this option. Even though that will cause returns to fall to a more "normal" rate, it could be a psychological boost that brings in more funds. At minimum, it will generate press coverage.

The new guarantee is still awaiting U.K. regulatory approval. We'll look at it in more detail when it becomes available. 

Online lending still an afterthought

BAI's Retail Delivery Conference continues to offer an excellent array of speakers on almost every delivery topic, from the "branch experience" to "optimizing multi-channel delivery." But one area that's barely covered is loan originations. 

Only one session, out of 36 total, dealt with lending issues this year. And it was a last-minute replacement, not even in the program guide, substituting for NetBank and UPS's Banking on Brown, scrubbed after the announcement last week that the effort was being shuttered (see our coverage here).

Cornerstone Advisor's Steve Williams presented Consumer Lending: It's Not Just a Transaction Anymore. Although lightly attended, due to its placement at the closing moments of the show, he discussed a number of great ideas for improving loan originations, both online and in other channels. We'll look at some of them in more detail in coming weeks.

The presentation is available via email from [email protected]. 

Prosper books its 4,000th loan

Nine-month old Prosper announced its results to date (press release here):

$20 million in loans originated
4,000 loans booked ($5,000 average)
100,000 registered users

It's a good start for the person-to-person lender, running about 25% to 30% ahead of our projections made when the company launched (see Online Banking Report #127).

However, they are a long way away from profitability, booking just $200,000 in loan fees during the first nine months, plus less than $50,000 in servicing fees and some pocket change in late fees, which are shared with lenders.

The company may need to consider hosting advertisements to prop up the bottom line. With high CPMs in the loan and personal finance market, Prosper could potentially make more on advertising than it does on the loan originations.   

Prosper launches group ratings, schedules user meeting

Person-to-person lender, Prosper, announced its first annual user meeting next February in San Francisco. Registration is a refundable $25 and includes an all-day session with dinner on Monday, Feb. 12, and a half-day on Tuesday, Feb. 13.

The agenda has not been published. Online signup is here.

The October newsletter (see End Notes for screenshot) also announced the arrival of the group ratings, an important milestone for the nine-month-old service. Group ratings promise to help lenders locate borrowers with better-than-expected likelihood of repayment. If it works, Prosper could become a major force in consumer lending. If it doesn't, the company will have to find another way to beat the loan default odds. 

For more information:

• For prior coverage of Prosper and its U.K. rival Zopa, look here.
• For detailed analysis of the market, see Online Banking Report #127 published in March

End Notes (click on the link below to see Prosper's Oct. newsletters)

U.S. Bank adds payday loans to online banking

Here's something we hadn't expected, payday loans from a major bank delivered through its online banking program. Minneapolis, MN-based U.S. Bank, not known for its pioneering work in online banking, quietly added payday lending to its platform recently.*

How it works
Users are alerted to the feature through a green link at the top of their checking-account transaction detail (see below).

Clicking on the link returns the well-designed "advance" pop-up screen where users can elect to take an advance from their next paycheck or from one of their pre-existing credit accounts (see below).

After selecting payday advance, users choose the amount and then follow the instructions to complete the loan. Funds are moved in real-time with no credit check. Since we don't have a direct-deposit paycheck, we didn't expect to qualify for an advance. However, we did receive a token "advance limit" of $80 (see "Available Credit" in lower-right box below).

Pricing & Disclosures
The advances are priced at 10% of the advanced amount, with a $20 minimum advance. Advances are automatically deducted from the checking account in one month if not already repaid. The APR if the amount is outstanding for the full month is 120%. Only one advance can be outstanding at a time.

In our example below, we chose a $20 advance and were required to repay $22.

The program is well-disclosed with a lengthy FAQ and Disclosure Statement (click on the continuation link at the bottom to see these documents).

Analysis
Putting an advance button at the top of checking-account transaction data is a great idea. However, at least in our case, the bank's implementation was questionable. Although we maintain as low a balance as possible in this checking account, we often run $10,000 or more through it. Also, we have an open credit limit of $20,000 on a U.S. Bank credit card linked to this account. Offering us an $80 advance limit is ridiculous.

Also, we're not sure that online payday lending is strategically very smart. Why charge 120% APR on small advances of one-month duration, risking customer and press backlash, when you could instead upsell an overdraft line of credit with a reasonable APR? 

The bank would stand to make much more on a reasonably priced overdraft line of credit, which could be delivered nearly as seamlessly. For example, a $2,000 outstanding balance on an 18% line of credit would provide $200 or more of annual profit vs. about $40 for a pair of $200 advances. And the customer will likely be more satisfied with the credit line. 

Although the bank demonstrates in its disclosures (see notes below) that its program is less expensive than an NSF fee or a typical payday loan, the 120% APR will likely create a bit of a furor with consumer advocates lambasting the bank in the press. It appears to have escaped notice so far.   

U.S. Bank deserves a pat on the back for its innovation, but without more consumer-friendly pricing, the payday-advance program may backfire on them.

*We have several accounts at U.S. Bank and noticed it this week for the first time.

End Notes (click on the following link for more information):

The Money Store's comeback marred by flawed website

Flipping through a pile of American Bankers on the plane last night, I came across a page one story on The Money Store <themoneystore.com>. If you've been in the business at least ten years, you probably remember the sub-prime lender that created a household name for itself with heavy TV and print advertising featuring baseball great Jim Palmer and others. But shortly after First Union (now Wachovia) paid $2.1 billion for it in 1998, its sub-prime portfolio tanked and the bank shut it down in 2000.

Why First Union/Wachovia didn't use the famous Money Store brand for other lending pursuits is a mystery, but I'd wager that after blowing a couple billion dollars on the acquisition, senior management, and shareholders, didn't want to hear that name ever again. 

Fast forward five years. MLD Mortgage, a NJ-based lender founded by former Money Store Vice Chairman Mortan Dear convinced Wachovia to sell him the Money Store brand name. The brand was then repositioned as an online loan exchange along the lines of LendingTree, brokering mortgages for 50 lenders including Washington Mutual, NetBank, and Flagstar Bank. 

Analysis
The use of the Money Tree name is good, although they absolutely must secure the <moneytree.com> domain name. The online loan-exchange business model is sound, and its lending partners offer good credibility. However, the company's website execution is deplorable.

The busy home page doesn't even mention the product it sells (see screenshot below). We could write an entire report on what's wrong with the site, but we'll review just one small section here to give you an idea of the problems.   

At first glance, the "three simple steps" graphic in the upper-left looks promising, although the type should be bolder for readability (see inset).

As users struggle to understand what the company offers, many will start here due to its location, color, and shape. Unfortunately, most users will become even more confused after reading it due to three significant usability errors:

Mistake #1: Scaring off potential customers. The goal of a financial website is to make users confident in transacting there. Money Tree does the opposite. The very first thing users see is step 1, "Provide your personal information." In today's paranoid times, that's a huge red flag from a relatively unknown website. Before you cause even a smidge of user-apprehension about the application process, you must make visitors want your product. Try starting with a benefit statement such as "lower your mortgage payment" or similar.

Mistake #2: Amateur copywriting with no benefit statements. Always use a professional copywriter, even for bullet points. The Money Store is obviously cutting corners here. For instance, the first line above says "price your loan today." That makes almost no sense to a consumer. It's industry jargon. It should be a benefit statement, like "lower your mortgage rate today" or something similar that can be easily grasped. My fifth-grader could have come up with a better opening line.

Mistake #3: Steps that lead to the wrong product. For the life of me, I can't figure out what the company was thinking with its third step. Here's a synopsis of the three: 
1. Provide personal info.
2. Select product
3. Get your credit score
Huh? Are they selling credit scores or saying you need to go somewhere else, find your credit report and then finish the process? Either way, they are going to lose just about anyone that's gotten this far.

Instead, the steps should lead to a recognizable benefit such as:
1. Tell us what you want
2. Compare all the great prices we'll provide
3. Choose the deal that saves you the most money
4. Enjoy your extra cash!!

The Money Store homepage (Oct. 9)

Wells Fargo blog is off to a good start

After a slow start, with no new entries during its first week, the student loan blog from Wells Fargo is off and running. Since its Sep. 5 launch, the site has averaged about two posts per week, each running 300 to 400 words, a good length. (See inset for jump page to the bank's two blogs, <blogs.wellsfargo.com>)

Furthermore, the writing is surprisingly good, with little corporate-speak, a trap that's so easy to fall into when every word has to be approved by a team of attorneys and compliance officers. Interestingly, the one off-topic post, written by the freelancing college-student mom, Caroline Hansen, was pulled from the site a day or two after it was posted. Either her step-daughter, or more likely, Wells Fargo management didn't like the story about her new tattoo.

The site is obviously aimed at parents, with warnings about credit card abuse and an instructive post about transferring money online to pay for a $573 book tab (ouch!).

While the bank does a good job of not blatantly pitching its products, it seems that most links within the posts lead to a wellsfargo.com page. The blog would have more credibility, and readership, if it linked to more outside resources.