eBay has officially moved into the peer-to-peer lending space with the purchase of MicroPlace. This is significant because eBay is far from the first to enter this space - which is currently dominated by Kiva, Zopa, and Prosper - however, they are by far the largest, by a long shot.

This is not the first entry onto the list of ebay’s questionable acquisitions (skype for $4.1 billion?) but its probably the most interesting. Does eBay see a market for online auctions at the Bottom of the Pyramid for auctions, online banking (paypal), or communications (skype), or is something brewing that we haven’t even thought of yet.