Dear Mr. Cox:

I don't have to tell you that the Madoff mess has dominated the Wall Street Journal headlines for the past few days. You probably saw Jane Kim's recap today tallying the $25 billion in known losses so far in a wide-reaching, long-running fraud perpetrated by a firm overseen by your agency.

It's not that I blame you for the Madoff fraud. The cops can't catch every crook. But now that you have your hands full with this matter, I have an idea as to how you can free up some staff resources to sort out the mess Mr. Madoff left.

You've probably been too busy to read Netbanker (see note 1), but if you had, you'd know that I haven't been very happy with the way the U.S. peer-to-peer lending industry has been treated by the SEC this year. Thanks to your agency's efforts, the three major providers have all been shut down for extended periods and several others have been dissuaded from opening at all.

Currently, just a single company, Lending Club, remains in operation, but they were crippled much of the year by a dark period as they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars meeting SEC registration requirements. Thankfully you approved their registration statement and they are now open for business, albeit weighed down by massive ongoing reporting requirements. 

As recently as last year, we had as many as a dozen companies in various stages of launching companies in this space. The goal is to connect people with excess funds to those in need of money with a fair rate of interest established via open bidding in a transparent market. What more can you ask for? 

And even before the SEC became involved, it's not like these companies were skating by with no regulation. They spent considerable time and money obtaining lending licenses in individual states and/or working with existing regulated financial institutions to originate loans. In addition, the startups all had to comply with a myriad of federal consumer protection statutes. In fact, you could say they were already operating as highly regulated companies.

The biggest of the group, Prosper, even made all its data available to the world including the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. They could very well be considered the first open source financial institution in the world. Their unique transparency gave us all a ringside seat to watch the ebb and flow of a new market gaining traction. 

No, Mr. Cox, it has not been a smooth ride for Prosper. More than 20% of the loans made the first year have already gone bad, and ultimately the losses may end up above 30%. But with an average interest rate of 17% on the 70% of the balances ultimately repaid, most lenders will get most, if not all, their principal back from their speculative bets. That's a better return than blue chip stocks over the same period. And I'm sure the investors in Madoff Securities would be happy with to have 98% of their principal returned.

But even before the SEC got involved in P2P lending, things were improving for lenders. The open market fostered quick learning as lenders learned from both from their own mistakes and those of others in the community.

And the exchange operators were learning even faster. Prosper now makes much more borrower info available and began verifying certain applicant statements. As a result, returns appear to be improving. Although, against the backdrop of a severe recession, it's hard to make good comparisons.

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. And how wise the U.S. regulators were in letting this new area thrive amidst the collapse of HIGHLY REGULATED financial companies around the world.

But instead, the SEC decided it needed to keep closer tabs on the tiny $100 million annual volume originated in these markets (that's just a single day's worth of fraud by Mr. Madoff). 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. And based on recent events, what exactly does that even mean? Besides requiring a flood of documents uploaded to your servers, are you really going to assign an agent to watch over these $3,500 loans. I don't know what your 2009 staffing plans are, but I'm guessing everyone will still be pretty busy.  

The decision to classify these loans as securities will ultimately cost Prosper as much as $10 million, a potentially fatal blow. Prosper has been shut down as it goes through the SEC-registration process. The SEC ruling has already cost the company at least $2 million in cash: $700,000 just to create the documentation for your agency to review, $1 million to pay-off state securities regulators, and an undisclosed amount to settle with your agency. And the company must still settle or fight the class-action suit, where lenders, who knew perfectly well the risks they were taking (Hello... they were lending to strangers on the Internet!), will try to win back their loan losses by asserting that Prosper was selling unregistered securities.

Furthermore, you are driving innovation and competitors out of the market. The original pioneer in the industry, Zopa, withdrew from the U.S. market, despite a thriving business in the United Kingdom because of the threat of SEC registration. End result: There is just a single U.S. P2P loan exchange operating today. Had you stayed out of it, we'd have at least five, probably more. 

I have this to say to the SEC:

• Rethink your oversight model: We've seen hundreds of billions lost by SEC-regulated companies this year. You weren't even able to sniff out a $50-billion Ponzi scheme in your own backyard. Maybe you don't have enough resources. I buy that. Even mammoth funds with virtually unlimited resources were duped by Madoff. So let me ask the obvious question. If you are short on staff, why are you wasting them on controlling the $100-million P2P market where every bid, loan, and repayment are open to scrutiny by the community. 
• Embrace openness: Instead of stomping on a new, open and self-regulating market, maybe you could learn from it. As Don Tapscott proposed in his BAI Retail Delivery keynote last month, let's open source financial holdings. If Madoff had made his trading data public, his customers could have monitored the flow themselves, and figured out about $49.9 billion dollars ago that he was fabricating his results. 

Bottom line: Leave the P2P lenders alone. Their open approach reflects an order of magnitude far better than the broken regulatory model employed on Wall St.

Regards,

Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder
Online Banking Report & Netbanker.com

<whew!...stepping off soapbox>

Note:
1. In the spirit of openness, Prosper, Lending Club, Zopa, Loanio, Pertuity Direct and other P2P startups are customers of ours, buying research reports and admission to our events. But the total gross revenues from the sector amounted to less than 2% of our total revenues. We do not invest in any companies we cover, nor do they pay us for consulting, or influence our editorial coverage in any material way. 

It's been awhile since we've had an installment of What NOT to Do! (note to self: think of a catchier title). There have been a number of candidates in recent weeks, but the winners are HSBC, M&T, and TCF, which have elected to get out of the federal student-loan business (FFEL) (see notes 1, 2).   

Although overshadowed by the Bear Stearns debacle and other unpleasant economic news, these three banks managed to make the first page of Thursday's Personal Journal section in The Wall Street Journal (here) as well as a number of regional news sites (here and here).

It's a difficult time for financial companies (except Visa of course), so I understand how it would be appealing to exit this relatively low-profit market until the credit markets calm down. However, what's a sound short-term financial decision could be a public relations and brand image disaster.

If there's one thing most Americans believe in, it's the importance of education. Sen. Kennedy's recent statement from the Senate floor provides a sample of how the general public views student loan support or lack thereof (the full text of the March 8 address is here):

Americans are anxious about their economic futures. They’re seeing volatile markets, disappearing jobs, home foreclosures, rising debt, and declining benefits. Now the crisis in the credit markets stemming from irresponsible lending practices in the mortgage industry may impact their ability to secure student loans at fair rates so their children can go to the college of their choice.  

With consumer confidence down, investors losing faith in the financial markets, and Congress pointing fingers at mortgage lending practices, this is not the time to exit a business that's associated with all things good about our country. It's like saying you're temporarily eliminating charitable contributions until the economy picks up. 

If there is something fundamentally unprofitable with student lending, by all means pull back, raise prices, redeploy resources, lobby Congress, whatever you have to do to save the bottom line. But unless you are in dire financial straits, don't risk your brand's reputation by turning your back on a market segment that needs your support now more than ever. 

What to do
This is a perfect opportunity for banks and credit unions to distance themselves from the big banks pulling out of student lending: 

• Develop a multi-media campaign, "we're on your side" that reaffirms your support of higher education through all that you do: scholarships, internships, donations, and a variety of loan options.
• Contact the local press and reiterate the above points and make executives available to speak to the strategic importance students and student loans are to your company.
• Release a microsite that serves as resource for students weighing financing options.

Notes:

1. We have less of an issue with the smaller lenders that have exited the FFEL program including: Boeing Employees Credit Union, First Niagra Bank, Spokane Teachers Federal Credit Union, and Kansas State Bank of Manhattan (see the full list of dropouts at FinAid.org here). Smaller financial institutions, with less of a brand name to protect and fewer resources, may have to make the hard decision to exit an unprofitable product line. 

2. The graphic image is for effect. We do not expect HSBC to close their online Student Center, although it will need a major redo, and quickly.

At 8:30 AM today, we heard an unusual advertisement on classic rock radio for the Bank of America Alaska Airlines affinity card.

It wasn't the ad itself that was so spectacular, although it's not every day that you hear credit cards being pitched on radio. And it wasn't the offer that made the ad stand out, although 20,000 bonus miles is a pretty good perk.

What made it memorable was the call to action, "visit myalaskacard.com." They didn't even bother to throw an 800 number into the spot.

It's hard to say whether a radio spot will prove cost effective, but using a memorable URL should help. It's far easier to remember than a telephone number, and prospective applicants can be immediately greeted with an effective sales pitch reinforcing the product benefits and bonus offer.

Analysis
However, once again BofA stumbles with its search engine support (see previous article). Searching on Google for "my Alaska card" brings up a single ad for a Web-based portal site, CreditStep.com (click on inset for closeup).

In fact, we tested every variation of "my" + "alaska" + "airlines" + "credit" + "card" and BofA was nowhere to be seen UNLESS we dropped "my" from the search query. Interestingly, Chase was an aggressive advertiser on several of the search terms offering a competing airline card with 15,000 bonus miles. BofA showed up as an advertiser only when we dropped the "my" from the search query.

The lack of advertising against "my alaska card" is especially damaging because the first few organic search results do not link to BofA or Alaska Airlines. Also, if you type a similar URL, such as www.alaskacard.com or www.alaskaairlinescard.com you either end up at a generic link site or an error page. At this point, potential prospects will either apply at the wrong place or give up on the search. 

If you correctly input the exact URL, you end up at the following landing page. It's OK, but should reinforce the impressive benefits of applying now, a free ticket right away and a $50 companion ticket every year on renewal (see screenshot below).

Action Items
Here's what you should do to ensure better search-engine support for your offline advertising:

1. Advertise at search engines on likely search terms that would be used by consumers responding to your advertising
2. Create a memorable URL that is not easily mistyped
3. Register or purchase domains similar to the advertised URL (including common misspellings), or pay the owner to refer traffic to your landing page
4. Design a landing page that boldly supports the benefits in your advertising and includes a prominent "Apply" button