Prosper.com

According to prosper.com, Prosper is the first peer-to-peer loan website based in the United States. Their process works based on a social loan system, allowing borrowers to post their loan in an official listing, while potential lenders (other regular users of the site) can choose to invest as much or as little money in the loan as they wish.

Loan Information

Prosper deals primarily in personal loans, which can be used for a variety of non-business related purposes. The quantity and crowd-sourced nature of their loans lends itself well to financing adoptions, which is why they have partnerships with groups like the National Adoption Foundation (NAF).

Loan Quantities

Loans can total as little as $2,000 or as much as $35,000 dollars, meaning that with one particularly large loan adoptive parents could potentially finish their adoption all at once. Due to the nature of peer-to-peer loans, however, this kind of goal may not be the recommended one, as interest rates can be relatively high in a peer-to-peer loan as an incentive to investors.

Interest Rates

Those with excellent credit histories and a high credit score can get a total APR of about 6%, while those with a medium score will likely have an APR of about 15%. Any credit scores lower than about 600 run the risk of interest rates that come to an APR of about 15-30%, the latter being likely for first-time borrowers.

Investor Information

Investors can put as little as $25 toward a loan, or they can fill the loan entirely on their own. There's no need for direct correspondence between the investor and the borrower, however, as Prosper's whole function is to act as an intermediary between the two.