We want to send a big warm welcome to the lovely province of British Columbia which, as of today, is the latest province to be added to the CommunityLend online lending system along with Ontario and Quebec.
As of today, potential borrowers and qualifying lenders from anywhere in the province of British Columbia are free to visit CommunityLend and apply for a loan or set-up a lending account. So whether you live in Vancouver, Vanderhoof or Vernon, you are now invited to join CommunityLend.
In honour of this momentous occasion, we thought we would include some fast facts on our newest operating province (source here).
- British Columbia (B.C.) entered Canadian confederation in 1871 and is Canada’s third most populated province with over 4.4 million people.
- B.C. is Canada’s third largest province by land mass as well, occupying about 10 per cent of Canada’s land surface.
- B.C.’s provincial motto is "splendor without diminishment." which they take quite seriously as more than 14% of British Columbia is “protected” – more than any other province in Canada.
- B.C. is the largest film and television production centre in Canada and the third-largest in North America – after New York and Los Angeles.
We look forward to working with the residents of British Columbia to help them change the rules of lending in their province!
- The CommunityLend Team
I have a couple questions in regards to your lending service. Since CommunityLend appears to act as the servicer for the loans made through its service, if a borrower defaults on a loan, is that particular lender at risk or is the risk shared amongst all lenders? As well, does CommunityLend sell any kind of creditor insurance (or offer the ability to require) creditor insurance from borrowers?
Finally, how do you verify our certification as an “accredited investor”? Or, is that just a legal technicality to let you guys off the hook? What happens if someone certifies themselves as an “accredited investor” but isn’t?
Cheers,
Doug M.
Thanks for the comment. The amount a lender has lent is always at risk. So if a lender lends $100 against any one loan, then that $100 is at risk. By spreading the amount lent across many borrowers the risk can be spread.
With regard to accredited investor certification, this is taken seriously and we use industry standard methods to ensure that individual investors are protected under Canadian securities regulation.
Ah, okay. Thanks, Colin.
Basically, it sounds like no one person can fund the entire loan to another person thereby spreading the risk.
I just don’t understand the “accredited investor” thing. I think there are potentially many investors, who don’t meet the criteria as an “individual accredited investor”, including myself, who may be willing to say, put up a small amount $1000 and lend that to various parties and that $1000 makes up little more than 1-2% of net liquid assets (cash) but total assets are still not enough to meet the above definition. Can individual investors sign a waiver?
Cheers,
Doug
The accredited investor ruling is just that – a rule laid down by securities regimes that defines investors as requiring protection from losses. That is why the classes of investments available to Accredited Investors are broader. Unfortunately it is not something people can waive. The idea of Accredited Investors is common to all western countries.
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In the U.K. Zopa does not require people to be accredited investors to lend their money out to borrowers with good credit ratings.
Is there no possibility of waiving the accredited investor requirement for people lending to borrowers with good credit ratings (though perhaps retaining the restriction with regards to lending to those whose credit rating is poorer)