Zopa’s P2P brand sold and rebranded as Plata Finance
Zopa’s winding-down peer-to-peer lending brand has been sold and rebranded as Plata Finance.
Zopa – which was the world’s oldest P2P lender – announced it was exiting the P2P lending space in December last year, to focus on its banking business and a forthcoming public float.
The P2P business was subsequently sold to Plata Holdings UK, a sister company of Zopa’s long-time shareholder IAG Silverstripe, a Zopa spokesperson told Peer2Peer Finance News.
“As a result, Zopa Limited has now changed its name to Plata Finance Limited,” said Lucas Germanos, director of communications and public affairs at Zopa.
“This is only a name change and there is no impact on Zopa Limited’s customers as they continue to be serviced by Zopa Bank.
Read more: The P2P lenders replacing Zopa and Funding Circle this ISA season
“No action is required by any customer as a result of the sale but we are communicating the change to Zopa Limited loans customers in line with our legal obligations. “As a reminder, Zopa Limited is a separate entity from Zopa Bank, which is a fully regulated bank and remains unimpacted by this change.”
Plata Holdings UK became a majority stakeholder in Zopa’s P2P business on 10 February, according to Companies House documents, with a stake of at least 75 per cent.
The name of the business was changed to Plata Finance on 8 July, after a special resolution to change the name was agreed and passed by the members on 5 July, according to Companies House.
Nicholas Aspinall and Scott Christopher Jones, who sit on the boards of Zopa Group and Zopa Bank, were both appointed as directors on 10 February.
Zopa launched in 2005 as a P2P consumer lending platform and unveiled its intentions to launch a digital bank in 2016.
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.
Zopa has made no secret of its ambitions to go public. Last year, a $300m (£220m) fundraise valued Zopa at $1bn, making it the latest UK fintech unicorn.
