New website, original idea - www.prosper.com

Over the weekend, I came across a web site that I thought some folks here would be interested in. It's called Prosper (www.prosper.com) and is basically eBay for unsecured personal loans. The best part is that it will allow you to either be a lender, a borrower, or both.

For lenders, it is an opportunity to loan your money out for higher interest rates like those enjoyed by banks and other corporate lenders. Prosper takes care of deducting loan payments from your borrowers' checking accounts and depositing it in your checking account when it is due. You can browse loan requests and bid as you see appropriate, which allows you to diversify between higher risk/higher reward and lower risk/lower reward loans.

For borrowers, it offers the opportunity to secure a personal loan at your specified interest rate without a hit on your credit. Prosper does run your credit so that it can report it to prospective lenders, but they do a soft hit on your credit report so it doesn't ding you.

So say you want to start up a Flower Shop and don't have the funds. Prosper would be a great way to get some start-up capital without nailing your credit and without battling banks for an impossible-to-get small business loan.

I'm not sure if I'll ever try out the Prosper system, but I thought it was an interesting and original idea and wanted to share.