Zopa - Coming to America
As some of you may know that have had to sit through one of my Future Trends in Lending conference presentations, I have been closely following the evolution of Zopa a web based company out of the UK that has a credit union grass roots feel to their business model. They facilitate peer-to-peer lending in a unique way. Isn't this the same as credit unions? We take money in for deposit to loan it out, right? I won't try to describe everything that Zopa does because it is easier to simply check out their web site as they do a fabulous job of explaining exactly who they are, what they do, why they do it and where they are headed - refreshing, huh? Back to the point, some breaking news on Zopa - play Neil Diamond Coming to America in the background, they are moving into the US market. This will be interesting.
Credit Union Tech-Talk (An excellent weekly source of credit union technology information via email) even recently reported the following on Zopa, "Zopa Ltd., a London-based online exchange for consumers willing to borrow or lend money, plans to open up a US operation early in 2006. Zopa, which stands for "zone of possible agreement," is a little bit like eBay, but with money being bought and sold instead of goods and services. In the UK, Zopa's lenders are obtaining an average return of 7.8%. The service is currently available to any UK resident over 18 who passes a credit check. To reduce risk, each lender's cash is spread among at least 50 customers, and loan amounts are capped at about $28,700."
Stay tuned as I hear more on this 2006 Zopa introduction to the U.S. I will keep you posted.
As some of you may know that have had to sit through one of my Future Trends in Lending conference presentations, I have been closely following the evolution of Zopa a web based company out of the UK that has a credit union grass roots feel to their business model. They facilitate peer-to-peer lending in a unique way. Isn't this the same as credit unions? We take money in for deposit to loan it out, right? I won't try to describe everything that Zopa does because it is easier to simply check out their web site as they do a fabulous job of explaining exactly who they are, what they do, why they do it and where they are headed - refreshing, huh? Back to the point, some breaking news on Zopa - play Neil Diamond Coming to America in the background, they are moving into the US market. This will be interesting.
Credit Union Tech-Talk (An excellent weekly source of credit union technology information via email) even recently reported the following on Zopa, "Zopa Ltd., a London-based online exchange for consumers willing to borrow or lend money, plans to open up a US operation early in 2006. Zopa, which stands for "zone of possible agreement," is a little bit like eBay, but with money being bought and sold instead of goods and services. In the UK, Zopa's lenders are obtaining an average return of 7.8%. The service is currently available to any UK resident over 18 who passes a credit check. To reduce risk, each lender's cash is spread among at least 50 customers, and loan amounts are capped at about $28,700."
Stay tuned as I hear more on this 2006 Zopa introduction to the U.S. I will keep you posted.
1 Comments:
Right on, Doug!
Have you happened to come across what Canadian-CU Vancity is doing with peer-to-peer lending?
I came across a post called Now That's What I Call Social Capital that discusses Vancity's innovative program - reminds me a lot of Zopa.
Great to see the blog taking off! Keep up the great work!
By Trey Reeme, at 6:57 PM
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