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Asking a friend or family members to borrow a large amount of money is a stressful situation. Who do you ask, and for how much? How do you set up a payment plan that works for all involved? Nothing. But. Stress.
Google Wallet, Square Cash and PayPal all offer convenient methods for lending money, but none of them are automated. Each time someone wants to send money, it requires the person to launch the app and follow a series of steps.
Ledge is a service you access using an application on your mobile phone, currently iOS or Android. The service acts as a middleman, where you set up a campaign to borrow money. You give your campaign a name, set the amount you want to borrow, an interest rate you’re willing to pay those who participate, and the amount of time you’ll repay your debt.
You can view a sample Ledge campaign here.
Enlarge ImageScreenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
You can borrow anywhere from $50 all the way up to $5,000, depending on the laws where you live.
Each month, Ledge will charge your linked Venmo account for a portion of the loan amount and divide it up between those who lent you the money. Monthly payments will be made until the loan is repaid in full.
You can think of Ledge as a similar service to that of GoFundMe, only the people who give you money will eventually get it back plus a little more.
After creating your campaign, you can share the link far and wide, asking for friends and family members to loan you money. Contributors get to enter how much they want to loan you, eliminating the need for you to ask for the full amount from one person, or determine just how to split it up.
As soon as your campaign is fully funded, Ledge will charge the lenders Venmo accounts for the pledged amount, then transfer the money into your Venmo account. You have 30 days to convince enough people to give you money before the campaign closes.
For its part, Ledge currently doesn’t charge users to use the service.
