Personal Finance Blog By MoneyRates - Loand & Lending
Can Lending Club jump-start banking?
September 15, 2011
Learn about the new trend towards peer-to-peer lending, and what you should know before you invest.
Preventing a Last-Second Tax Disaster
April 15, 2009
Today is a day of panic for millions of Americans. Today is April 15th or "Tax Day". For households who are just now realizing that their checking account or savings account lacks the funds in it to pay their tax bill, viable options remain. What you can't do is procrastinate and not file your return. [...]
President-Elect Obama's Plan for Student Loans
December 2, 2008
One of the biggest concerns for parents in the United States is affording the cost of higher education. President-Elect Obama has highlighted on his website his plan to make loans available for parents. The plan has two elements:(1) Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: President Obama will make college affordable for all Americans by creating [...]
Zopa Borrowers with 0.00% Loan Rates?
July 23, 2008
Zopa US is offering the closest thing to a win-win proposition for borrowers and lenders who use their social lending site. Borrowers are able to lower their interest rates on personal loans by using a personal profile and social networking tools like e-mail, blogs, Facebook, and MySpace to get help on her loan from lenders. [...]
Savings for College: Investment Options, Student Loan Programs, and Savings Programs Designed to Pay for Children's College Education Costs
June 24, 2008
Money-Rates.com has updated their College Savings page with two new sites which offer parents new ways to pay for college for their children. The two sites Simpletuition.com and Greennote.com are described below with the rest of college saving alternatives.529 Plans - A 529 plan, named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, is a [...]
Social Lending Matches Lenders and Borrowers Online
May 21, 2008
Social lending sites have taken off in 2008 with Prosper, Zopa, and Lending Club already in operation and several new startups expected to be online by the end of the summer. Prosper is the highest profile peer-to-peer lending site in operation today and provides an online bidding system for borrowers to reduce their lending rates [...]
Social Investing Sites
January 8, 2008
Social investing sites give investors a new way to invest their money, as socially-conscious lenders, either through small loans to third-world borrowers (Microfinance) or through peer-to-peer lending (Social Lending). Both types of social investing are aimed at helping entrepeneurs thrive. The sites below have been reviewed by money-rates.com:Prosper.comProsper has 490,000 members and offers loans from [...]
Social Lending Back in the News
December 3, 2007
Social lending has been around for a couple of years now, but is back in the news with the launch of Zopa US this week. Typically, social lending or peer-to-peer lending has allowed borrowers to receive loans directly from other people and not banks or financial institutions. A reduction in loan fees and rates paid [...]
E-Loan Auto Loan Rates
August 29, 2007
Consumers have been relunctant to do the same rate shopping for auto loans that they do with mortgages, savings accounts, and credit cards. Frequently, the financing offered by the dealer is sold with the automobile with very little comparisions. In the day and age of 0.00% financing many of the deals offered by the dealer [...]
Formalizing Private Loans to Family or Friends
August 12, 2007
Loans between families and friends have increased over the year as the American consumer has become more reliant on alternative methods of financing mortgage debt, credit card debt, and small business loans. Private lenders are advised to use a service like circlending.com to formalize their loans even if the loan is to a close family [...]
