Here are three updates I've added to the posts from the last week:

• Credit Karma, which we discussed here last week, is in private beta. But they have agreed to give NetBanker readers the invitation code to come in and kick the tires: CKFRND. Let us know what you think.
  
• Prosper, discussed here yesterday, was named one of the Fast 50 2008, the 50 most innovative companies in the world by Fast Company magazine (here). The list is in the March issue. 
  
• GlobeFunder: I finally caught up with GlobeFunder founder Ben Decio last week. I noted in my NetBanker post a few weeks ago that the company was not yet accepting money from individual lenders. It sounds like that may be permanent. The company's current business plan is to use money from institutional lenders to fund all loan requests. That doesn't alter the value proposition to borrowers, since money is money, but it does move the company out of the P2P lending space. 

Three new P2P lenders are known to be preparing to go to market in 2008:

• GlobeFunder: Opened for loan applications earlier this month, but is still not accepting individual lenders at this point. I tried testing the loan application, but it would not accept requests from Washington state.
  
• Fynanz is the latest P2P lender to surface. According to the Prosper Lending Review blog, the company is gearing up to enter the U.S. market specializing in student loans, a space that Virgin Money USA has said it will enter later this year. Fynanz founder is Chirag Chaman, although he is not listed on the company's website.
  
• Loanio: Has been saying "coming in January" for the past several months.
  

In addition, I know of three others in formation and I'm sure there are dozens of others circulating business plans. With 100+ million potential customers in the United States, there is probably room for dozens to co-exist, although only a few will ever become household names.

For a complete analysis of the market see our most recent Online Banking Report (here).  

Less that two years after the first P2P launched in the U.S., it looks like we'll soon have at least five companies chasing this new market, six if you include Virgin Money.

The most well known is Zopa, the person-to-person lending pioneer which opened in the UK in 2005 and now has nearly 200,000 members. Its long-awaited U.S. launch is scheduled for next week. I'll be speaking with marketing director Wade Lagrone tomorrow, but Jane Kim broke the news in today's Wall Street Journal (here). The market forecast in the article, predicting as much as $9 billion in P2P originations by 2017, is from our upcoming Online Banking Report on P2P lending (note 1). 

Zopa is working with six credit unions, including FORUM Credit Union, to match lenders with borrowers. And unlike other P2P lenders, Zopa's is guaranteeing the lender's principal. That will reduce potential returns, but make participation more like buying a CD from a bank. So, it will be interesting to see how the company differentiates its offering from traditional bank/credit union fare. We'll have more when the site opens to the public next week.

We also hear that GlobeFunder and Loanio are about to launch, possibly yet this year. Loanio has not revealed its strategy, but GlobeFunder is positioning itself as a microlender in the same vein as the Nobel prize-winning approach of Grameen Bank. For more info, read the GlobeFunder blog.  

All three will be included in our upcoming Online Banking Report (note 1). We'll also look at Prosper, Lending Club, LoanBack, and Virgin Money (formerly Circle Lending).

Note:

1. Online Banking Report subscribers will have access to the report as soon as it is published on Dec. 8. Nonsubscribers can put their name on the announcement list here and receive a prepublication discount code to save 10%. Please mention "P2P report" in the subject line.