Zopa marks three years of Social Lending with launch in Japan

Social lending pioneer Zopa (uk.zopa.com) is three years old today which also marks the third birthday of peer-to-peer lending.

Zopa was the very first company of its kind when it launched on 7 March 2005 – and now there are more than 20 P2P lenders around the globe.

Today Zopa also announces its imminent launch in Japan - its fourth country after Italy (it.zopa.com) and the US (us.zopa.com) since it launched in 2005 in the UK.

The launch in Japan further strengthens Zopa’s position as the leader in its field. As well as being the world’s first, it is also the first global brand in social lending and will be the first peer-to-peer lender in Japan.

Since launch, Zopa has arranged more than £20m in unsecured personal loans in the UK. More recently growth has been boosted by the global credit crunch which is driving unprecedented demand for P2P loans as banks become less competitive and tighten their lending criteria. All of this has also pushed up returns to Zopa lenders to an all time high.

The growing appeal of social lending was highlighted further by the recent report from Gartner that predicted peer-to-peer lending would represent 10% of the personal loan market by 2010.

Giles Andrews, co-founder and Managing Director of Zopa said “With recent average returns for lenders the best they have ever been at 8.1%, with some enjoying more than 10%, social lending has never looked so attractive. Borrowers continue to enjoy rates normally much lower than they can get from the banks, and despite months of turmoil in the credit markets, our state-of-the-art credit and affordability checks have maintained our remarkably low default rate at less than 0.1%.”

“We are delighted to be celebrating our third birthday with news of our upcoming launch in Japan. We look forward to helping even more people around the world enjoy the big benefits of cutting out the banks by borrowing and lending with other people instead.”

Since launch, Zopa has quickly grown in size to over 190,000 members in the UK alone and has won many international awards along the way for its innovation and technology - including a Webby (2007, Best Banking Website) alongside the BBC and Guardian, two CNet Technology Awards (2006, Internet Innovation of the Year and 2007 Technology Project of the Year) and even one from the banking industry itself (2007, The Banker Technology Award - Best Internet Project).

Zopa has attracted over £18 million of backing and proven to the banking industry that social lending is relevant to people all around the world. Indeed, recent research from Gartner said that by 2010, “Social-banking platforms will have captured 10% of the available market for retail lending and financial planning”. The banking industry recognises this, with Zopa recently being short-listed for ‘Most Threatening Non-Bank Competitor’ in the 2008 Retail Banker International Awards and for Innovation in the 2008 Efma Retail Finance Awards.