NEW YORK-Loanio, Inc joined the swelling ranks of peer-to-peer lenders that have recently surfaced to try and take advantage of "underserved" markets such as college students and individuals with bad or no credit histories.
The start-up's CEO, Michael Solomon, said Loanio will easily find its niche in what is becoming a fast-growing sector. "Only around 10% of borrowers on P2P sites wind up getting a loan," he said in a statement. "Many of them have less than stellar credit profiles. With options for these borrowers drying up elsewhere, we believe this feature and others on the website will fill a sorely needed void in the P2P lending arena."
Other websites have similar models to Loanio, such as Zopa, Calif.-based GreenNote also recently opened its site for business, offering fixed loans geared exclusively towards students.
