Zopa to quit peer-to-peer lending market

Zopa is quitting the peer-to-peer lending market that it once pioneered. Chief executive Jaidev Janardana said the company would close its peer-to-peer book in January after concluding it was no longer “commercially viable”. Zopa was founded in 2005 and invented the online peer-to-peer model, matching individual investors with borrowers, including many property developers. Zopa will instead focus on its banking and credit card business. The bank will buy the peer-to-peer portfolio at face value and investors will receive their funds back by the end of January. Zopa was one of the “big three” of peer-to-peer. The others were Ratesetter, which was acquired by Metro Bank last year and has closed its peer-to-peer business, and Funding Circle, the listed small business lending platform, which now gets the majority of its loan funds from institutions and has been closed to retail investors since the pandemic. The Times (£)