I have zero experience with this. The one attractive thing about a bank is that they're backed by the FDIC. When I deposit funds and they subsequently use those funds to loan money at an interest rate, my money is protected up to a threshold, I think $100k. Is there any such financial protection in place for these types of sites? Do you loan directly to a person or is a savings account and the site loans it to people? Are people backing specific projects a-la Kickstarter or are they putting there money in a pool with an expected return a-la a bank savings account?

I love all of this stuff, I think it's fantastic but I'm just skeptical of nefarious sites using the infancy of such things to rip people off.

edit: Also, it would seem that the real attraction from the perspective of one that needs capital, is that it may be more readily available. Banks have been pretty tight since 2008 because they frankly don't make shit anymore. Money is very cheap right now at the prime rate. Still, the amount of businesses and people that qualify for a prime interest rate are very small. So, when people say, "rates are so low" they're right, they are for the top 5% of people with credit worthy of prime, but most people aren't in that bucket.