Hi have been following the peer-to-peer lending industry. its been a resounding success in the UK,USA and Oz for both investors and borrowers. Basically you as the investor lend money to a someone/business that wants to borrow, basically cutting out the bank. obviously you take the risk that the bank otherwise would have, but you get a much better return. Hell if you did it in south africa you could get up to 60% interest on the money you lend out (like lewis etc do), but you can only lend up to R500000 until you must register as a credit provider with the NCR.
One of the big ones in the USA is 'Prosper'. They have apparently funded something like $3 Billion dollars in loans through this method.
One in Australia is SocietyOne.
As for South Africa there is only one I know of called RainFin. It looks functional but neglected, and does not seem to be developed any further, hence I have not used them. The other is Yiba.co however it has failed to launch, looks dead.
The reason why I think it there aren't more is that there seems to be a lack of legislation in South Africa, such as what rights does an investor have to get repayment of the loan, what are the rights a borrower has, dept collection etc etc.
