Earlier this month we reported that someone was advertising on various websites in an attempt to find a programmer to build a competitor to Prosper. The first advertisement was in late June on Rent a Coder. The winning bid was Hiren Kotadiya from India who agreed to build a Prosper clone for $250. Next we found an ad on iFreelance.com from someone looking for help building a peer-to-peer lending site. Although the bidding on iFreelance ended nearly two weeks ago with 12 bidders it appears that a bid was not awarded. A third ad was just posted - this time on ScriptLance. According to the project description:
"We are building a site similiar [sic] to prosper.com. It is a peer to peer lending website -- where a person can register as either a lender or borrower. A borrower can post a request for a loan, and the rate they are willing to negotiate as far as interest/repayment. A borrower can bid an amount to loan. There can be as many lenders as the borrower wishes to accept. The most difficult thing about the site -- is it will need to call to a credit agency to pull a credit report/score (the API will be provided for that later on)"
Bidding ends on July 31st and the established budget is $100-1000. There are already six bids. Prosper's only true competitor in the United States right now is Lending Club. Loanio is expected to launch later this year.
