After 12 years in the P2P lending business, U.S. P2P lender Prosper announced a significant addition to its product offerings today, as well as a major bank partner.

Together with BBVA U.S.A., Prosper has created a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) solution that enables borrowers to apply for a HELOC and receive pre-qualification in minutes. The offering, hosted on Prosper’s website, offers competitive rates and does not charge origination fees.

“We are thrilled to have a partner like BBVA that believes, as we do, in the power of technology to improve efficiency and deliver a great customer experience,” said Prosper CEO David Kimball. “Working closely with BBVA, we’re excited to be able to offer our customers the opportunity to quickly and easily apply for a HELOC online, which can be a smart and affordable financing option for things like home improvement and debt consolidation.”

In addition to being hosted on Prosper’s website, there will also be a BBVA-branded version of the HELOC. BBVA is making that version available to a select number of its own customers.

This news comes after Prosper teased the launch of a HELOC product in late 2018. The HELOC is available to Prosper customers in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, and Texas, and will roll out to additional states “in the coming months.”

“We look forward to expanding this product offering to more states and continuously improving the experience,” Kimball added.

According to Prosper, available home equity is at an all-time high, reaching $6.3 trillion in the second quarter of this year. Despite that figure, 2019 brought a drop in HELOC popularity because of high interest rates. However, with the Federal Reserve’s recent trend of lowering the interest rate, today’s launch may be timed perfectly.

Prosper presented at FinovateSpring 2009 as well as the inaugural Finovate in 2007. The company has raised a total of $410 million and is valued at $550 million.

U.S. peer-to-peer lending company Prosper launched a mobile app for investors on its platform this week called Prosper Invest.

The new app, which allows investors to manage their portfolios, offers a visually-rich view of their investments, allows them to transfer to and from their bank account, and shows a clean breakdown of their portfolio and annualized returns.

Unique to the app is an impact map that details how many borrowers the investor has funded. This feel-good feature also shows a high-level geographical view of investments and breaks down the total by each borrower’s stated loan purpose. Adding a more personal touch, the app shares individuals’ stories from Prosper’s #MyProsperStory contests. Held from 2014 to 2017, the annual contest encouraged users to share how the loan has impacted their lives.

In my opinion, the most useful feature of the app details return on investment. The tool shows how much the investor has received in payments over the lifetime of their account and breaks it down by their principal and interest received. It even shows the default/chargeoff amount and net gain.

The native app, available on both Android and iOS, is quite a step up from the web-based app the company launched in 2012. Until this week, the web-based version of the site served as the only way for investors to manage their investments on-the-go.

Today’s app launch comes well after the brief existence of Prosper Daily, a borrower-focused mobile app that was born out of Prosper’s purchase of BillGuard for $30 million in 2015. Launched in 2016, the app was only available for a year before it shuttered in 2017. The launch of an investor-focused mobile app in the absence of a borrower-facing one may indicate Prosper currently has a higher balance of borrowers than investors. Peer-to-peer lending sites have often wrestled with the chicken and egg issue– they can’t get borrowers without enough lenders and they can’t attract lenders without enough borrowers.

Today’s launch isn’t the only release from Prosper we expect to see this year. In November of last year the company disclosed plans to unveil a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) product that will streamline the application process and offer rates competitive to banks’ offerings.

Prosper presented at FinovateSpring 2009 as well as the inaugural Finovate in 2007. The company has raised a total of $410 million and is valued at $550 million.

P2P lender Prosper announced today that it will expand its offerings next year to include a new digital Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) product.

“We are taking advantage of our expertise in consumer credit and personal loans to build a product that removes the complexity and time-consuming barriers in applying for a HELOC,” Prosper Marketplace CEO David Kimball explained. “For many of our customers, a HELOC could be a better choice for their financial needs and we’re thrilled to be working with our bank partners to render the traditional process obsolete with a new digital HELOC process that is simple, fast, and painless.”

In a press release, Prosper cited a TransUnion study that indicated rising home values encourage homeowners to consider HELOCs as an option for financing. The study estimated that 10 million consumers would pursue HELOCs between 2018 and 2022, more than 2x the number of HELOCs taken out between 2012 and 2016.

Prosper and its bank partners will look to serve this demand by streamlining the HELOC application process, including offering an online application that can be completed in minutes, and an instant HELOC prequalification offer. No origination fee will be charged with HELOCs originated via Prosper, which pledges to offer the same competitive rates as the banks.

Founded in 2006 and one of Finovate’s earliest alums, Prosper demonstrated its P2P platform at our first conference in 2007. Since then, the company has originated more than $13 billion in loans to help borrowers finance debt consolidation, home improvement projects, medical expenses, and special occasions.

“Maintaining a balanced marketplace that provides value to both borrowers and investors remains our highest priority,” Kimball summarized when the company’s Q2 results – and its milestone of more than one million loans originated – were announced in August. “Throughout 2018, Prosper has been raising interest rates and significantly tightening credit in order to ensure that we continue to provide a fair price for borrowers and a solid risk-adjusted return for investors,” he said.

The company unveiled Q3 2018 financial results this week, underscoring Prosper’s emphasis on “credit and pricing discipline” as well as plans for new products like the new digital HELOC offering.

Prosper has raised more than $428 million in funding, most recently closing a $50 million Series G round led by FinEx Asia.