As I am sure most of you guys are aware, interest rates are quite low, and for the savvy investor looking to generate a decent return, the options are pretty limited. However, one investing option which is generating a lot of interest lately is Lending Club (pun not intended just enjoyed).

Lending Club is basically a way to crowd source consumer lending which allows peer-to-peer lending. So you can either be the borrower or the lender and in theory you can get the low interest rates or the higher returns than through other mediums. Since Lending Club generously publishes their aggregated lending data, anyone is able to look at it and see if their claims add up. And that is exactly what I did.

What I found was that for the most part all the numbers that they post on their site are exactly as expected, with one exception; there is a sizeable amount of loans which get paid off early. This is not something I expected and could lead to actual returns being...