Lending Club has announced that Google has acquired a minority stake in the company as part of a secondary transaction whereby new and existing investors acquired shares from existing investors. Buyers include Google and existing investor Foundation Capital.

"Lending Club is using the Internet to reshape the financial system and profoundly transform the way people think of credit and investment," said Google’s David Lawee. "We are excited to be a part of it."

"Few companies have such an in-depth understanding of the Internet as Google," said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. "We believe our relationship with Google will be very helpful in better serving our customers. We couldn’t be more excited to have them on board."

[Editor's note: see also this TechCrunch story on this latest round of financing for Lending Club.]

On the web:

• A Year Later, Google Wallet is Nowhere - Here's Why - Business Insider

On the wires:

• 2012 NACHA Operating Rules & Guidelines Now Available as eBook
• National Family Mortgage Originates $30 Million in Peer-to-Peer Mortgage Loans
• MoneyGram and ICBC Expand Direct-to-Account Service to Money Sent from Japan into 200 million ICBC Accounts
• Elastic Path Partners with Aria Systems, Enables Enterprises to Capitalize on Subscription Economy
• Tabbedout Continues Expansion; Makes Mobile Payment a Reality in Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex
• Front Flip "Mobile Engagement" Solution Launches Nationally

On the web:

• Girl Scouts Adds Mobile Payments to Drive Cookie Sales - Mobile Commerce Daily
• German P2P Lender Auxmoney Sees Growth - Peer to Peer Lending News
• Here’s How PayPal Is Pitching Mobile Payments to Major Retailers (Slideshow) - AllThingsD
• Facebook Teams up With Bango for Mobile Payments - PCWorld

On the wires:

• Plastic Jungle and InComm Announce Strategic Gift Card Partnership
• Ceridian Introduces Virtual Terminal Enabling Web-based Transactions
• New Aite Group Report on Big Four U.S. Payment Card Networks
• Heartland Handles Nearly 44,000 Transactions as Official Concessions Processor of Super Bowl
• Computop Paygate 5.0 To Expand Support for International Payments

On the web:

• Google Offers Credit Card to Advertisers - New York Times
• EBay's PayPal Going Offline, Targets Big Retailers - Reuters
• Dwolla Now Processing $1M per Day, Milne Hints at What's Next (Video) - Silicon Prairie News
• Nokia: No Mobile Wallet Support in Current NFC Phones - NFC World
• U.S. Peer-to-Peer Lending Hits Record High for Seventh Month in a Row - NetBanker
• Mobile Payment Growth Comes Slower Than Expected - ClickZ

On the wires:

• Dynamics Inc. Reveals One of the Largest Patent Portfolios in Payments Industry
• ACH Alert Granted Patent for Fraud Protection System
• Banker’s Toolbox Launches WireFraud Manager to Combat Growth of Wire Transfer Fraud
• Net1 Signs Contract with Banamex to Provide Mobile Virtual Card Technology
• Shift4 and Digital Dining Work to Remove Cardholder Data From POS
• Network International Signs 3500 Merchant for Planet Payment's 'Pay in Your Currency' in UAE
• ADP ALINE Pay Offers New Payroll Solution Designed to Offer Compliance in 50 States

On the web:

• Future of Money: Crowdsourcing Cash - New Scientist
• PayPal VP: Supporting Payments In The Physical World Is Critical For PayPal - TechCrunch
• Google’s Punchd Acquisition to Push Mobile Wallet Uptake - VentureBeat
• UK Cheques Will Not Be Scrapped in 2018 (Because There Are No Better Alternatives) - Mail Online

On the wires:

• EFT Canada to Acquire Credit Card Gateway
• CHEFS Catalog Serves Cash Consumers with eBillme’s Payment Option
• National Bank (Canada) Launches its International Direct Payment Solution
• New Mercator Advisory Group Report on Non-Prime Credit Card Segments

On the wires:

• Discover Announces Agreement with Banco Popular de Puerto Rico
• Liberty Bank Selects Premier from Fiserv
• Intuit GoPayment One of First Mobile Payment Apps Developed for Android 3.0
• INSIDE Secure Brings True NFC Hardware Independence to Google Android “Gingerbread”
• Cardlytics, NetSpend Partner to Bring Targeted Rewards Offers to Underbanked Consumers via Prepaid Debit Cards
• Plastyc Secures Strategic Investment from Core Innovation Capital
• This Is Money: Credit Card Rates Hit a 13-year High in UK/a>

• BusinessWeek: In Broken Market, 'Swipe' Fees Must Be Regulated
• New York Times: Peer-to-Peer Lending: What the Future Holds
• Portals and Rails: Cash Acceptance: A Risky Proposition for Merchants
• BostInnovation: Clovr Media: Forever Changing How You Redeem Offers

Prosper.com, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace with over $205 million in funded loans, has announced that it has surpassed the one million member milestone. “It’s pretty incredible that one million people – a population greater than our headquarter City of San Francisco – have engaged with Prosper,” said Chris Larsen, CEO and Co-founder of Prosper.

Prosper.com has announced that it has raised $14.7 million in a Series D round from new investors TomorrowVentures, LLC and CompuCredit Holdings Corporation and all of Prosper’s existing investors: Accel Partners; Benchmark Capital; DAG Ventures; Meritech Capital Partners; Omidyar Network; QED Investors; and Volition Capital (formerly Fidelity Ventures). Including this latest round of financing, Prosper has raised a total of $57.7 million to date. READ MORE »

Lending Club has announced closing a $24.5 million investment round led by Foundation Capital with participation by existing investors Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. READ MORE »

In an article titled "In a Tight Market, Borrowers Turn to Peers", Nancy Trejos writes for the Washington Post about the growth in popularity of peer-to-peer lending - noting that "analysts expect the industry to grow as customers who face rising credit card rates search for new ways to refinance their debt."

Yesterday, Prosper announced the successful completion of its registration process with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, Prosper's peer-to-peer (P2P) loans marketplace "has resumed for borrowers nationwide and lenders in 14 states with others soon to follow. Prosper is the first Internet auction-based P2P loans platform to have its registration statement declared effective by the SEC — a move that marks a significant breakthrough for the P2P lending industry." READ MORE »

In a Netbanker post titled "Open Letter to SEC: Leave Peer-to-Peer Lending Alone", Jim Bruene writes an open letter to SEC Chairman Chris Cox about his disappointment with the way the SEC has dealt with US peer-to-peer lending companies while not paying enough attention to major issues such as the Madoff affair (see today's New York Times story "S.E.C. Says It Missed Signals on Madoff Fraud Case").

Bruene writes: "Your agency came to the surprising conclusion that loans made between individuals in a regulated peer-to-peer market, are securities and needed SEC oversight. ... Had these companies been left alone, journalists would be writing stories about how P2P companies were stepping into the lending void left by the turmoil in the banking sector."

Jim's bottom line: "Leave the P2P lenders alone; their open approach is an order of magnitude better than the broken regulatory model employed on Wall St."

In an article titled "Lending Alternative Hits Hurdle", Brad Stone writes for the New York Times about some recent challenges being faced by the person-to-person lending companies in the US market. Last week, Zopa announced it was exiting the US market. Yesterday, Prosper.com announced it stopped accepting new lenders pending registration of its securities with regulatory authorities. Earlier this week, Lending Club announced it had completed its registration of $600 million in securities.

On his NetBanker blog, Jim Bruene takes a deeper look at the S-1 Registration Statement filed with the SEC last Friday by Lending Club. On Friday, the company updated its website with more information about the filing.

A new Online Banking Report has been published titled 'Online Investing Communities: Will social networking revolutionize saving & investing?'. From the announcement: 'We believe social networking will eventually play a large role in online investing, and evidently we are not alone. We found 54 companies involved in investment information exchange and only six of those have monthly traffic of 100,000 or more.'

Jim Bruene's Netbanker reports on person-to-person lender Prosper.com's new marketing initiatives including its new slogan: "Let's bank on each other." More on the Prosper Blog.

In an article titled 'Where Either a Borrower or a Lender Can Be', Jane J. Kim writes for the Wall St. Journal about person-to-person lending networks (like Prosper.com, Lending Club.com and Zopa.com) and how small business owners are increasingly turning to those networks as access to bank credit has become more difficult.

Update: Jim Bruene gets this one right over on his NetBanker blog - it's actually about person-to-business lending!

Springwise notes that person-to-person lending provider Fosik has launched in Australia.

Barron's takes a look at the person-to-person lending market including Prosper.com, Circle Lending, and Lending Club.

Jim Bruene's announced the latest edition of his Online Banking Report newsletter - this issue titled on "Person-to-Person Lending 2.0: Disruptive service or market niche?".

From the abstract: "Person-to-person lending is the perfect product for the Web 2.0-social-networked consumer. Why, then, has growth been relatively slow compared to other networked services? Because it’s a difficult business. Not only are P2P lenders competing with 20,000 other financial institutions for good borrowers, the are up against thousands of investment alternatives for funds to lend, all the while waging a fierce battle with fraudsters and deadbeats. It’s not a business for the faint of heart. "

Zopa has launched what it says is "an online community that offers unprecedented benefits to borrowers and investors, by offering safe, market rate Zopa CDs to individual investors that are linked to lowering the payments of an individual borrower’s unsecured personal loans."

In an article titled 'Online Lending Gets Easier and Safer', Jane J. Kim writes for the Wall St. Journal about Zopa's entry into the US market. Rather than doing everything itself, Zopa will be "working with several credit unions to offer person-to-person loans to prospective borrowers."

Prosper.com has updated its People-to-People Lending Market Survey to reflect results through the end of September. In September, $5.4 million in loans were funded at an average loan size of $7,175. Over average over the month, 2,298 borrowers were looking for loans. A market commentary by CEO Chris Larson addressed the question of whether the Prosper lending marketplace anticipated the Fed's recent 50 basis point cut in interest rates.

Prosper has introduced its first monthly People-to-People Lending Market Survey that provides key statistics including: membership and loan volume statistics, marketplace returns; borrower rates; mix of prime, near prime and sub-prime loans, noteworthy marketplace statistics/trends and a market commentary by Chris Larsen, Chief Executive Officer of Prosper.

BankServ has announced that Lending Club's collaborative person-to-person (P2P) lending platform is built upon BankServ's Magex Payment Platform, ACH reporting and cash management solutions.

In an article titled 'Options Grow For Investors To Lend Online", Jane Kim writes for the Wall St. Journal about new web-based services enabling investors to lend money to strangers online. She reports that Prosper.com has about $60 million in loans outstanding so far this year and cites the Online Banking Report's estimate that a total of about $100 million in loans will be originated by all providers this year.

Claus Lehmann writes for Springwise about PPdai, a new peer-to-peer lending business in China saying that "PPdai primarily aims to standardize and facilitate loans between family and friends, which are more common in China than personal loans from banks."

Hiawatha Bray writes for the Boston Globe about peer-to-peer lending and how its another example of how "the Net reshapes nearly every business it touches." He reports on Zopa, Prosper, CircleLending and Lending Club - and notes that "peer-to-peer bankers face tough challenges."

James Gardner, Head of Innovation and Research in Group IT at Lloyds TSB in London, muses about personalization on his blog: "It is users themselves, everywhere else, that are deciding not only how things are personalised, but also what content should be shown in the personalised context. We can see where social finance is going when examining Mint, Wesabe and others of their ilk."

Lending Club, a Sunnyvale, California-based startup, has launched a new person-to-person lending service on the social networking service FaceBook. From the company's web site: "Lending Club is an online lending community where people can borrow and lend money, bypass the banks, and get better rates. By working together, members can borrow money more easily and at a better rate than they would get from a bank, or invest in a pool of loans at higher rates than those served by savings accounts or CDs." Lending Club is using the recently introduced Facebook Platform for integration into Facebook. Read more on the Lending Club blog.

Virgin USA has announced that it has acquired a majority stake in CircleLending, Inc., a financial services company that "pioneered the business of managing loans between relatives and friends."