I invite you to watch the video I shot last week in Paris with Jean-Christophe Capelli. I met JC for the first time in NYC, the day before the very first Finovate event back in 2007. Time flies... I am glad we finally managed to shoot an interview about the innovative FriendsClear.com, the first P2P Lending marketplace in France.
We covered a lot during this session. I asked JC to introduce FriendsClear, talk about the challenges he had to overcome to launch in France, the partnership he managed to put in place with Credit Agricole PG to make the service available to the French SMEs, the successful contest they launched to increase the visibility of the service (with 120 applications from startups and SMEs).
Even though Jean-Christophe couldn't share much stats except they are closing on to 500,000 euros of loans, he shared some exclusive info on their international growth strategy... Merci encore JC! ;-)
I will be following FriendsClear closely as there is more to come from the French startup in 2010: the company is recruiting, they will increase the number of partnerships and lead referrals, they plan to launch applications on Facebook, they are thinking of organizing more frequent competitions for entrepreneurs...
I am curious to see how the relationship with Credit Agricole will develop, and if, or how, the other leading French banks will respond. The main remaining question mark is about the potential for P2P Lending in France: it will be interesting to see if the French people are confident enough to lend money to strangers via the platform. From my opinion, the biggest potential lies indeed with startups and SMEs.
Either way, good luck to the dynamic FriendsClear team!
Home Page (20 March 2010)
Contest - mon projet pro
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* Interview with Tiffany Fox, Communications Director at Prosper.com
* Interview with Patrick Gannon, SVP Loans at Lending Club
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We covered a lot during this session. I asked JC to introduce FriendsClear, talk about the challenges he had to overcome to launch in France, the partnership he managed to put in place with Credit Agricole PG to make the service available to the French SMEs, the successful contest they launched to increase the visibility of the service (with 120 applications from startups and SMEs).
Even though Jean-Christophe couldn't share much stats except they are closing on to 500,000 euros of loans, he shared some exclusive info on their international growth strategy... Merci encore JC! ;-)
I will be following FriendsClear closely as there is more to come from the French startup in 2010: the company is recruiting, they will increase the number of partnerships and lead referrals, they plan to launch applications on Facebook, they are thinking of organizing more frequent competitions for entrepreneurs...
I am curious to see how the relationship with Credit Agricole will develop, and if, or how, the other leading French banks will respond. The main remaining question mark is about the potential for P2P Lending in France: it will be interesting to see if the French people are confident enough to lend money to strangers via the platform. From my opinion, the biggest potential lies indeed with startups and SMEs.
Either way, good luck to the dynamic FriendsClear team!
Home Page (20 March 2010)
Contest - mon projet pro
Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Interview Doug Dolton, Global CEO at Zopa
* Interview Chris Larsen, Founder & CEO at Prosper.com
* Interview with Tiffany Fox, Communications Director at Prosper.com
* Interview with Patrick Gannon, SVP Loans at Lending Club
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs)
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