Parts of this article gloss over important facts. > These new platforms are able to create a marketplace where lenders and borrowers can find one another and a

Parts of this article gloss over important facts. > These new platforms are able to create a marketplace where lenders and borrowers can find one another and agree to terms, all without the involvement of retail banks or credit card companies. Credit card companies provide revolving lines of credit; the author's "marketplace lenders" provide term loans. These are two different beasts. While some folks do use term loans to pay off debt with a higher interest rate under a revolving line of credit, the non-professionals eager to finance consolidation loans would be wise to heed Mark Cuban's advice, "Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don't find one, it's you." > And instead of receiving 1% interest for keeping their money in a CD, active lenders on marketplace platforms receive, on average, an 8% return on their investments. Most CDs are FDIC-insured. Casually comparing an FDIC-insured certificate of deposit to an unsecured note that has both credit and interest rate risk is insanely foolish. > Earlier this year my whitepaper on marketplace lending forecast that the sector has the potential to originate $1T in loans globally by 2025. "Marketplace lenders" are absolutely here to stay, but the influx of capital to this space has a lot to do with ZIRP. The author doesn't acknowledge this, but when interest rates start to rise, which could happen within the next year, the environment for "marketplace lenders" is going to change.