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LendingClub

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5.8

Overall Score

Author: Kaitlyn Short

LAST UPDATED: March 1st, 2024

LendingClub is a peer-to-peer lending marketplace. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company's lending platform connects borrowers with people looking to invest. It funds business loans, auto refinancing loans, medical loans, and personal loans for many purposes, including debt consolidation and credit card refinancing. 

How does the LendingClub process work?

Consumers can pre-qualify online, either individually or with a cosigner. This means that you can check which rates you will likely be offered, and whether you qualify to borrow, all without impacting your credit score.

Once you select a loan offer, you fill out the real application. Only once your loan application is approved, a hard pull is done on your credit report, with the traditional credit bureaus. Your funding will be available in about four days. 

LendingClub provides fixed-rate loans to applicants with good to great credit. Loan amounts vary from Most borrowers use the company's loans to as debt consolidation loans, to refinance higher-interest loans or credit card debt. After having a personal loan for three months, some borrowers have been able to raise their FICO score by 21 points.

Approved loans are fully funded by lending partner WebBank, member FDIC. Since January of 2018, all loans issued through the LendingClub platform have been issued with 100% investment backing for the full amount approved (as of March 2019). Most loans are fully invested in and issued within three days of approval. LendingClub is the largest online personal loan lender in the world, having provided over $50 billion in loans since 2008.

Keep reading for pros and cons, plus LendingClub reviews from consumers like you. 

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The Good

  • Few Fees
  • Simple Online Loan Application
  • Investment Opportunities
  • Lender Statistics

Few Fees

A huge money-saving feature of a LendingClub personal loan is the lack of a prepayment penalty — common in the personal industry, but not a feature adopted by everyone.

For example, if you take out a $10,000 personal loan to consolidate multiple high-interest debts with a maximum loan term of 36 months (three years) and are able to pay it off in only a year and a half, you will not have to pay as much interest as you would have otherwise and you will not be assessed a fee for paying the loan off early (a common loan personal loan fee with traditional lenders). 

The opportunity to make early principal payments, without a fee, can be worth thousands of dollars in savings over the lifetime of the loan.

In additon, you'll never have to pay an application or broker fee.

While LendingClub doesn't have excessive fees, it does charge an origination fee ranging between one and six percent of the total loan, depending on what loan grade a borrower has been given. This fee is included in your quoted APR.

Simple Online Loan Application

Applying for a personal loan from LendingClub takes very little time and energy. You can even check your rates without affecting your credit score. 

To apply, first, you will be required to provide basic information (loan amount, purpose of loan, and your credit score). Next, you will be required to provide basic personal information (name, address, date of birth, yearly individual income). 

After providing this information, you will be presented with a number of different personal loan options. These will likely vary in both total dollar amount and maximum term limit. These quotes are provided to you through a soft credit pull that won't affect your credit score.

The process for getting your rates can take as little as five minutes. After doing careful research, you will be able to choose the LendingClub loan that best meets your needs. From there, your loan will be listed and made available to the network of peer-to-peer lenders that LendingClub uses. These lenders review your profile and can choose to fund part or all of your loan. 

Investment Opportunities

Consumers can open a LendingClub account and invest in the marketplace, to earn returns by helping to fund peer-to-peer loans. Historical returns for investing range from 5 to 8 percent. 

Lender Statistics

It's not common practice for a lender to provide easily accessible information about loans issued, and repayment, as well as late and default statuses. LendingClub even provides a full page of statistics about recent loans, payments, and investment returns. Shadier lending sites omit this type of transparent information. 

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The Bad

  • Low-Credit Approval is Difficult
  • Low Debt-to-Income Ratio Required
  • High Interest Rates

Low-Credit Approval is Difficult

The most consistent complaint among LendingClub applicants is the company's potentially challenging approval process. 

The company requires higher than average scores for its minimum credit approval, compared to other traditional and online lenders. While some lenders have a minimum credit score listing of 620 or 640, only applicants with good to excellent credit history are approved for a LendingClub In fact, the average LendingClub borrower has a 699 credit score and roughly 16 years of credit history.

Further, LendingClub does not approve applicants who have had any late payments on their report in the last 12 months. Because of these reasons, it can be a huge challenge for applicants with bad credit to get approved.

Low Debt-to-Income Ratio Required

Similarly, the debt-to-income ratio required for approval is much lower than some other competing personal loan companies, making it more difficult for applicants to qualify. According to LendingClub, the average debt-to-income ratio of its borrowers is 18.32% (not including a mortgage). This means that an applicant with an income of $40,000 a year and has over $10,000 in debts (a 25% debt-to-income ratio) is going to have a difficult time being approved. 

Many individuals looking to consolidate debt will have a much higher debt-to-income ratio than what is required by LendingClub for approval.

High Interest Rates

LendingClub personal loans have APR rates that are slightly higher compared to others in the industry. The lending site advertises fixed rates ranging from 10.68% to 35.89%* (as of June 2020), which is on the higher side of the personal loan APR range, however those with great credit score should be able to secure a fair interest rate.

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The Bottom Line

LendingClub offers personal loans to good to excellent credit applicants at fair interest rates. These loans are ideal for consolidating high-interest debt. 

How's your credit history?

For applicants with good credit, decent income, and a relatively low debt-to-income ratio, LendingClub is a good option for taking out a personal loan. Conversely, if you have fair to poor credit or a high debt-to-income ratio, you will likely not find success with LendingClub.

*All loans made by WebBank, Member FDIC. Your actual rate depends upon credit score, loan amount, loan term, and credit usage and history. The APR ranges from 10.68% to 35.89%. For example, you could receive a loan of $6,000 with an interest rate of 9.56% and a 5.00% origination fee of $300 for an APR of 13.11%. In this example, you will receive $5,700 and will make 36 monthly payments of $192.37. The total amount repayable will be $6,925.32. Your APR will be determined based on your credit at time of application. The origination fee ranges from 2% to 6% (average is 4.86% as of 7/1/2019 – 9/30/2019). In Georgia, the minimum loan amount is $3,025. In Massachusetts, the minimum loan amount is $6,001 if your APR is greater than 12%. There is no down payment and there is never a prepayment penalty. Closing of your loan is contingent upon your agreement of all the required agreements and disclosures on the www.lendingclub.com website. All loans via LendingClub have a minimum repayment term of 36 months or longer.

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4.3

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103 Reviews

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7%

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3%

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CYNTHIA LEWIS

I have just received notice that you closed my account and you did not State My Account was in Good Standing and that my Loan had been paid in full and it took me M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, to pay my 6000.00 dollar loan off at a 39.99% rate. Which is so creeping high, but I did it and now you want make this known on my Credit Report, I am looking forward to you resolving this in a positive manner. PEOPLE READ MY COMMENT AND LEARN,,,,I PAID THIS OFF EARLY AND THEY STILL TOOK FUNDS OUT AND REFUND ME THE AMOUNT THEY TOOK AND IF YOU PAID IF OFF EARLY YOU GET NOTHING BUT CHANGE BACK 8 months NEVER LATE AND PAID IF OFF BEFORE 5 YEARS.

7 years ago

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Damien kore Venus, TX

Please do not borrow from lending club. It is a very dishonest company. I took out a $ 14 000.00 loan with them back in 2017. I Made payment for almost three years to bring balance down to $ 8700 . On october of 2019. I refinanced my house and sent them a $ 9000 checque thru my mortgage company to pay off the remaining balance (8700) of my loan. Basically i overpaid my loan, and i have been trying to get back my $ 300 . they have been giving me the round around. .

5 years ago

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gricel valdez AZ

Don't waste your time! This company did exactly the opposite of what they advertised. My loan process exceeded 45 days! 45 days of them telling me my loan was in process and all that was left to do was a welcome call from customer service and I would have my money in no time. Never happened. The call center stinks as does the customer service. Don't even attempt a chat with them. You wait forever and then when you get close to chatting with someone it kicks you off. If I didn't know any better I would have thought this company was a scam by the way they operate. They are legit. Just severely understaffed and mismanaged. It's a shame because they have a good concept. Their problem is no one knows how to run the company!

2 years ago

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Harriet Keene Kent, WA

I was denied a loan by Lending Club. No problem. I have a problem with them following with an email encouraging me to apply at One Main. I did. Denied instantly. I did not need the extra report effecting my credit score. Why they sent me that email encouraging me to apply elsewhere was unnecessary and unappreciated.

7 years ago

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Dustin Independence, MO

We've used them twice in the past, however now, with their preapproval, similar credit, an increased income, and complying with their hundreds of hoops to jump thru its becoming near impossible to get approved. They have become a joke, plenty of other options for financing.

9 years ago

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Steve Ashby Portland, OR

Giving LendingTree my info has been the worst thing I did in the last year...and this has been a bad year. They have given out my information to the refinance world and they won't leave me alone!

4 years ago

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Dean Meridian, ID

don't use this company. I have no customer service skills and will try to cheat you out of your money

5 years ago