Now Lending Club is trying to cultivate another corner of the traditional financial industry by selling its loans to community banks that need to diversify their asset portfolios. It has agreements with seven small banks who buy loans that Lending Club originates and services, and who now account for almost 10% of its financing. The company is also working with some of those banks to make personal loans to their customers — a service that Lending Club and its partners see as an opportunity to compete with bigger banks like Citigroup (NYSE:C) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) that dominate the credit card market.

One such institution using the new service is MainStreet Bank, which has been buying Lending Club loans since August. The bank, which has $272 million in assets and 5 branches, has purchased more than $7 million in loans from Lending Club, at $2 million in assets per month.

As of this month, the San Francisco-based company has made $3 billion in loans and is planning to expand into small business loans. 

Lending Club demonstrated at the very first Finovate in 2007 and at Finovate 2008. The company plans to go public next year.