Fed finally announces bailout to help Main Street

Lita Epstein — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:34:00 EST

Filed under: Good news, Personal Finance, Housing, Federal Reserve

We've been watching as banks continue to hoard the bailout funds, maybe buy up some other banks, but nothing has trickled down to Main Street. Well, the Federal Reserve announced today that it's committing up to $800 billion to make it easier for Main Street folks to borrow money for cars, tuition bills and new homes. The Treasury Department is giving up very little of its Congressional bailout funds -- just $20 billion -- to the Fed's consumer lending program.

Did Congress really intend for so little to go to Main Street? I doubt it and I hope that when Henry Paulson comes begging for the second half of the bailout he's told it's not his to spend. Congress might want to wait for the new administration because many are not happy with how Paulson is spending it.

I'm glad to see the Fed is moving in a much more appropriate direction to help get Main Street back on track. The Fed intends to provide up to $200 billion to investors who plan to put the money towards consumer loans, such as credit cards, auto loans and student loans, as well as some forms of small business loans. These will be in the form of one-year loans available only for newly-issued consumer debt. These type of loans totally dried up in October and are essential to get the economy moving again.

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Fed finally announces bailout to help Main Street originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lending Club: Borrowing from Facebook

Tom Taulli — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:40:00 EST

Filed under: eBay (EBAY), Next Big Thing

Lending Club is a spring chicken, having launched its online lending service in late May. To get momentum, the company has leveraged the Facebook platform (which has become increasingly popular). Last week, Lending Club snagged $10.26 million in a first round of venture capital. The investors include Canaan Partners and Norwest Venture Partners.

Think of Lending Club as an eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) for borrowers and lenders. That is, if you need some money, you can post a proposal on the site -- and then a variety of lenders will offer money (loans range from $500 to $25,000). Cool, huh? Although, borrowers need a credit score above 640.

Interesting enough, on the Lending Club's blog, there are interviews with the firm's VCs. For example, Canaan Partners' Dan Ciporin says: "The consumer credit market is an absolutely gigantic market and yet paradoxically one of the few sectors that has not yet been completely upended by the internet. I think the Lending Club approach to consumer lending is not only a great disintermediation approach in a large, established market sector, but also through the focus on affinity relationships takes what has been proven to work on the web and applies it uniquely to the lending marketplace."

Then there is Jeff Crowe, who is a general partner at Norwest Venture Partners. In fact, he is a lender on Lending Club. And, so far, his portfolio is yielding about 13%. But, I'm sure he wants to make a lot more from his venture investment in Lending Club.

If you want to check out more venture capital investments, click here.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Lending Club: Borrowing from Facebook originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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