Peer-to-peer lender Zopa narrows losses despite revenue growth slowdown October 4, 2018 Peer-to-peer lending platform Zopa narrowed its losses while investing heavily into its impending digital banking effort last year, as it chases the coattails of freshly-listed rival Funding Circle. In accounts published late last night, Zopa Group, the parent of its online lending and financial services businesses, reduced its losses to £4.2m for the financial year [...]
Paypal’s new peer-to-peer payment service Paypal.me makes it even easier to send people money with just a link September 1, 2015 With just a tap of your phone – or even your watch – it’s never been easier to pay people back. Now Paypal wants to make it even easier, with a personalised URL. This could be a good thing in the age of an ever-growing “sharing economy”. Asking friends for money back after footing a [...]
P2P lender Zopa has a new chief executive Jaidev Janardana as Giles Andrews steps aside August 30, 2015 Peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Zopa has announced that former chief financial officer Jaidev Janardana has been promoted to the top spot with immediate effect. Janardana will implement the lenders strategy for its next phase of growth, as it targets £1bn in new loans for 2016, and aims to build a brand that becomes a mainstream service for [...]
Including peer-to-peer lending in the new innovative finance Isa will provide boost for millions of Brits August 26, 2015 Something momentous has happened to the UK peer-to-peer lending industry, as the government finally confirmed its plans to introduce a new type of Isa covering peer-to-peer loans. This boost for the sector comes a decade after my company Zopa pioneered the concept back in 2005. Read more: Peer-to-peer lending isn’t shadow banking – it’s now [...]
Following the Kids Company fiasco, what does alternative finance such as peer-to-peer and crowdfunding offer charities? August 20, 2015 What's the connection between charities and alternative finance? Currently, the answer is not a lot – charities are often big, well-oiled machines, and peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding platforms are still very new. But do the latter offer the former something? The ongoing Kids Company fiasco has put the charity model under scrutiny. And the [...]
Zopa becomes the first UK peer-to-peer lender to crash through £1bn of loans August 18, 2015 What a difference a decade makes. Just over 10 years after it was first launched, UK platform Zopa has become the UK's first peer-to-peer lender to crash through the £1bn loans barrier. Read more: How marketplace lending is becoming part of industry furniture You only need to look at the rapid rise of alternative lenders [...]
Are old-school financial services running scared of peer-to-peer? Or do they just not understand it? August 11, 2015 I was heartened recently to read the chief executive of Bibby Financial Services – what I would call an old-school financial services company – warning of a ‘bubble’ in peer-to-peer lending. As the co-founder and chief executive of one of Europe’s largest peer-to-peer lenders, I knew this warning meant one of two things; either the [...]
P2P lending trust raises fresh £400m as investors clamour for income July 31, 2015 P2P Global Investment has raised £400m from its latest C-share issue, as investors clamour for alternative sources of income. The trust is managed from London and lends through a number of online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms around the world, including Lending Club in the US, which is the world's largest P2P platform. In the UK it [...]
How peer-to-peer lending can help wean the UK off artificially cheap credit July 13, 2015 The Budget contained headline-grabbing announcements on banks and pensions. But there’s been little commentary on the chancellor’s declaration that “the government is against unfair subsidies wherever we find them”. This immediately got me thinking about some of the disparities in the financial system and, in particular, the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS). It’s almost [...]
Peer-to-peer lending isn’t shadow banking: It’s now more transparent than ever June 3, 2015 Whether we in the industry like it or not, peer-to-peer lending has for some time been lumped together with the likes of hedge funds, offbeat types of investment vehicles and even payday lenders in what is known as the “shadow banking sector”. This term was originally designed to cover those entities outside the regular banking [...]