Zopa officially exits P2P lending

The world’s oldest peer-to-peer lending platform is officially closing its P2P business today (31 January), returning all investment funds to its retail lenders.

Zopa will no longer allow retail investors to fund consumer loans on its platform, for the first time in the company’s 17-year history. Instead, the Zopa brand will focus on developing its banking business and a forthcoming public float.

Zopa Bank won its full banking licence in mid-2020 and started offering savings accounts in August of that year.

By January 2022, the bank reported that it had attracted more than £1bn in deposits to its fixed term savings account.

Within 18 months of its launch, the bank had more than £1bn of loans on its balance sheet, and it had issued more than 200,000 credit cards, becoming a top five credit card issuer in the UK.

Last year, a $300m (£220m) fundraise valued Zopa at $1bn, making it the latest UK-based fintech unicorn.

Zopa is expected to go public on the London Stock Exchange later this year, following in the footsteps of other alternative lenders such as Funding Circle and LendInvest.

Zopa was founded in the UK in 2005 by Richard Duvall, James Alexander, Giles Andrews, David Nicholson, and Tim Parlett. Andrews is the only co-founder still involved with Zopa’s operations, as a board member of both Zopa Bank and Zopa Group.

Read more: P2P veteran leaves Zopa Group board amid reshuffle