The British business launched on March 8th 2005 after being founded in a barn in Buckinghamshire. It has since spawned a global industry worth more than $10 billion worldwide, with over £2.3 billion of money being matched in the UK alone.
The business has this week surpassed £750 million in loans to UK customers, and expects to pass the £1 billion mark this summer. The UK’s oldest and largest peer-to-peer lending service has now lent money from more than 58,000 individuals across Britain to over 107,000 individual borrowers for cars, home improvements and paying off existing debts.
Zopa has delivered an average rate of return of 5.6% (after fees and any losses from bad debts) over the past ten years to its lenders, fulfilling its promise of delivering better interest rates than high street banks. For example, a £10,000 investment in Zopa on day one would today be worth 70% more at £17,000 due to the compound interest effect of relending on Zopa. By allowing consumers to bypass the banks, Zopa and its borrowers have returned over £46 million in interest to its lenders so far. Almost a third of that interest total (£14m) was returned in 2014 alone.
Giles Andrews, Zopa CEO and co-founder, comments:
“Our customers are at the heart of what we do and this is reflected in the multiple awards we’ve won for outstanding customer service.
“It’s hard to believe that we’ve gone from an idea in a barn to a global industry now lending billions of pounds in the course of a decade. We created Zopa because we saw the potential to bring people together over the internet without having to go through a bank. This has prompted a revolution in the financial sector worldwide. We are very proud to have pioneered a new way to do finance by allowing people to achieve their life goals through lending or getting a loan at a great rate. I see Zopa becoming the norm in the same way eBay has. Peer-to-Peer lending is certainly here to stay!”
