Mint.com has partnered with Lending Club, a popular peer to peer lending website, in its newly launched “Goals” feature which helps users of Mint to get out of debt and set other life goals. Mint hopes that its partnership with Lending Club will help its users get out of credit card debt sooner and pay less in interest.
Lending Club has turned heads in the finance industry itself. The company offers unsecured personal loans starting at 7.93% APR or less than half of the average APR of credit card interest rates. Lending Club, part of the fledgling industry known as peer to peer lending, is able to offer such competitive interest rates because the loans are funded by individual investors that pick and choose which loans they want to fund. Lending Club has issued $125 million in loans since 2007 and hit a record in monthly loan origination during May 2010 with $10 million in loans funded.
“Currently, over 60 percent of Lending Club’s personal loans have been made to people who want to wipe out their high-interest debt, which is often from credit cards,” said Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club. “Like Mint.com, our goal is to help consumers make the most of their money. With our simple online application you can get a low-interest rate quote instantly and a personal loan in an average of seven days.”
Lending Club offers personal loans with a fixed interest rate in three or five year terms. The loans have no prepayment penalties and Mint.com says that the “online application process is simple, secure and confidential”
“We launched Mint Goals to help people get what they want in their lives. For those in debt, getting out from under that burden is the first step they need to take toward achieving the others,” said Aaron Patzer, vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group and founder of Mint.com. “Helping people get the lowest APR on their outstanding debt can save them hundreds or thousands of dollars that they can then use to save for retirement, buy a home, or reach other life goals.”
