Prosper Gets Rid Of App Designed To Protect Identities

Prosper Marketplace, the online lender, is reportedly getting rid of its Prosper Daily mobile app, which enabled customers to monitor their personal finances, like credit scores, and would protect them from identity theft.

According to a news report in American Banker, citing a blog post penned by the FinTech company, the mobile app, formerly called BillGuard, was pulled by Prosper Marketplace since it isn’t a core service for the online lender, with the company saying the move is “part of Prosper’s continuing focus on creating a category-defining experience for borrowers, as well as for investors interested in consumer loans. Prosper continues to see growth and momentum across its business, and our current position of strength gives us the opportunity to further enhance the experience for borrowers and investors.”

Prosper said it will not have access to the personal finance accounts of users once the mobile app is shut down and that it plans to pay back annual subscribers. The app was free, but customers had the option to pay $9.99 a month or $83.88 annually for identity theft protection, noted the report.

In lieu of the loss of the consumer finance app, Prosper Marketplace suggested in a blog post for its customers to use Clarity Money, which has partnered with Acorns.

The move comes at a time when the FinTech is struggling with declining loan volumes. In March, via a filing the company disclosed, its net losses for 2016 had more than quadrupled. The loss, according to the in-house explanation, comes as the result of lower loan volumes, higher costs, legal settlements and restructuring efforts.

Prosper isn’t alone in the losing money department — OnDeck reported $85.5 million in annual losses for 2016, and LendingClub is looking at $146 million. Loan volume was nearly cut in half this year over at Prosper, falling a full 41 percent to $2.2 billion. That slowdown in consumer finance did not come from lack of borrower interest, but from the money managers who used to buy the loans who have looked to “pausing or significantly reducing their purchases of the company’s credits,” according to the filing.