Why does it take so long to transfer funds into Prosper? Is it just for the first transaction or will it take this long every time? Security reasons?

I want to lend... :(

I feel your pain. The site states that my transfer should complete today, but my account hasn't been credited yet (but my bank account has definitely been debited!).

Zoomie

Hi guys,

Yeah, we want to speed this up, too. We're looking into faster options for the future, but for now, it looks like transfers are taking about 4 business days for everyone (you're not alone).

Best regards,
Andrew

any chances of a paypal option.

PayPal would be subject to PayPal disputes and charge backs so I don't think you would ever see that as an option. Direct checking account transfer is the only real way for prosper to ensure funds already loaned out don't suddenly disappear.

Are you able to transfer money from ING Direct?

achmuck I move alot of money thru paypal. I don't think what your saying is correct.
In fact I bet you see funding by credit card on here soon... As silly as it sounds.

I would think that as long as you have ING Direct's (or Emigrant Direct, or HSBC, or whomever) routing number, and your account number, then you should be able to transfer funds from there into Prosper.

But I'm not a Prosper insider, so I might be way off-base.

I don't think it is silly I just don't think it is profitable. Even if prosper could get a 1% credit card rate a 10,000 loan would eat up the entire closing fee anything much higher than that and Prosper wouldn't make money at all. Unless there is some way prosper can pass the fees onto the lender there is no way to make money doing it.

Yeah, but I'd get 1.5% cash back <BG> All prosper needs to do is buy their own small bank and follow the Wal-Mart model. Linking up with paypal would provide and extra boost of credibility.

My bank shows that my account was debited yesterday but my funds will likely be available until tomorrow. This time delay seems incredibly long. Lets hope my funds are available then.

Not profitable? Are you kidding? Get yourself one of those 0% interest on balance transfer cards. The tricky part is getting the debt onto the card without paying a cash advance fee somewhere else, but nothing you can't figure out if you think about for a few minutes. I'm on my second 0% interest card...I keep a few thousand dollars of debt on the card, put the cash in ING Direct, and make minimum payments every month. It's like I'm saving the minimum payment every month, except I get all the cash up front to earn interest.

I've very risk averse, at least, credit-card debt risk averse, so I'm not putting that capital in anything that isn't FDIC insured...but seriously, it's free capital for a year.

PS - Yeah...I'm still waiting for my money from my checking account too...but I guess that's life. I hope they figure out a way to speed it up a little.

Andrew,Wells Fargo Is selling you a story if they say they cannot instantly transfer the money. They are playing the usual bank float game. They have collected funds and not crediting them to anyone so they have capital to invest at least overnight, looks like 3 nights.

Not profitable? Are you kidding?

You are right it could certainly be profitible for a lender. However I meant it would not be profitable for Prosper. The processing fees would eat up any profit prosper would make on loans made with the money transfered in.

There has to be a faster way -- I requested funding on 2/15, and the funds were gone from my checking account on 2/16, but they were not available for lending until 2/21. Six days is way too long for an EFT or ACH debit. Where oh where was the money during the time I did not have access to it? I would hate to find out that it was in a money market account earning interest for Prosper.com for five days instead of being made available for my use.

Hi guys,

As I've said before, we're working on improving this.

In the case of bigpotato, I did want to comment, though. He said that the transfer began on 2/16 and wasn't available until 2/21. Unfortunately, he got stuck in the holiday weekend shuffle. If it weren't for weekends or bank holidays (like President's day, 2/20), the funds probably would have cleared on 2/18. Instead, he had to wait an extra 3 days. Not much you can do about it...

But again, we're working on it... stay tuned.

Best,
Andrew

You guys have got to give Prosper a break. It's been operational for two weeks. Like Andrew said as soon as they get everything worked out they'll have a faster means to do this. Lord knows that when I play online poker they find a way to get money out of my checking account immediately, haha.

Yep, everything worked out fine. :)

Also, you don't need $1000 to start lending.

Yes I'm still waiting for my money to transfer to Prosper to start bidding on loans as well. I will get caught by the weekend so it will be a few more days. Cutting down on the time it takes these transactions would be a great service for lenders but I know Prosper is working on it. Now I just hope there will be plenty of loans to bid on when my money is available.

I had to wait 7 days to transfer a measly $200 from Wells Fargo to Prosper. I suggest that Prosper adds a line to its FAQ and email notices indicating that lenders can expect to wait up to 7 to 10 business days for the transaction to complete. Then at least we'd know what to expect.

Did I miss something? I thought there was a $1000 minimum to lend. Can anyone clarify?

$50 minimum
$25,000 maximum (to one individual)
$100,000 maximum allowed in the Prosper system

Where'd you get the $1,000 figure from?

The original (and perhaps still) wording of the Lenders Agreement stated that the Lender had to deposit a minimum of $1,000 with Prosper to begin lending. That is misinformation. So far as I know, there is *no* minimum requirement. As of a week or two ago, the Lenders Agreement still contained the erroneous information, and someone on the support line to whom I made initial inquiry confrimed (wrongly) that (erroneous) minimum.

The site is still a roll-out, in my opinion still somewhat of a Beta site, but Andrew has been responsive to inquiries and problems, and (later rather than sooner, alas) problems do appear to get resolved or at least are being worked on.

Me, I'm engaged with Prosper on a small preliminary scale: here as a lender with a little amount deposited for lending, as a test, and with one small loan application pit, to experience the process rom the borrower's point of view.

Great! Thanks, E. I too am experimenting with it. I'm just too curious not to give it a try and take advantage of the opportunity.

Hey junebug,

It says on the transfer forms that they typically go thru in 2-4 business days. So its likely your 7 day transfer included a weekend. It could have been a holdiay weekend, or maybe you made your transfer request after our sameday processing cutoff time.

Also, when you confirm your transfer you should see an estimated completion date that will give you a heads up on when the funds should be available for use in Prosper.

Cheers,
Jon

Yea, I just started out with a $150 just to test the waters. That's one of the great things about it, you don't need to invest a lot to see how it works since it's so new. I really like the idea of helping people get out of the credit card trap and making a little money doing it. Great concept!!

I've noticed that it was taking 4 business days and now they are estimating 3 days.

I was able to activate my ING account, so I'm assuming I'll be able to transfer money back to Prosper. You can call ING and they'll give you the ABA code.

I'm not surprised that this is a popular post. I'm starting my second round of transfers and need to wait until next Tuesday. I'm a bit curious on how business days are calculated. Do transfers not happen on weekends? It was my impression that the banks could not close their doors for more than 2 days at a time. This leads to some interesting midweek banking holidays which has been somewhat alleviated by being open on Saturdays. Does this only apply to the bricks-and-mortar part of the operation?
Or maybe these are Prosper business days?

For now it looks like our best bet is to transfer funds on Sunday night and hope it's complete by Friday.

So far, I've found the estimated completion date to be always accurate -- and also fairly consistent (eg, throw out all weekends and nationwide bank holidays, etc).

The only thing I'm unsure of is the cutoff time for transfer start dates.

I have done 3 separate transfers now and they have all gone through without a problem in the 4 days that was estimated. I do notice that the funds aren't available until after 5PM on the expected completion date so be aware of that if you are waiting for your funds to be completed.

If ING transfers can be done I'm definately looking into linking that account with Prosper. I'd rather keep my money in that account and transfer that way (because of the interest) than have to keep my money in my bank's checking account to transfer to Prosper.

I don't know about ING, but I was able to link my Fidelity account to Prosper. Seems if the account has an ABA # available you can link it.

All I did was call Fidelity and was able to get the ABA # in a couple minutes.

Tom

If Andrew from Prosper takes a look at this. Check out Cygnus eTransactions to process the electronic transfer. I bet they can do the transfer faster.