Social Lending:
the big idea
Zopa is a marketplace for Social
Lending. People lend and
borrow money with each other,
sidestepping the banks.
A better way
Social Lending is a smarter, fairer and more human way of doing money. It's like borrowing and lending with your friends and family - except there are thousands of people you can lend and borrow with.
Both lenders and borrowers get better rates, because Social Lending is more efficient than the traditional banking model. Banks have massive overheads, with thousands of employees to pay and hundreds of branches to maintain. So they have to take large margins on the money that passes through them.
An online marketplace where people meet to lend and borrow has huge cost advantages – which is why Zopa members get a fairer deal when it comes to their money.
The rise and rise of Social Lending
Zopa was the world's first lending and borrowing marketplace. By demonstrating that Social Lending works on a large scale, Zopa has changed the financial sector for good.
In Zopa's wake, copycats – such as Prosper in the US, Smava in Germany and Boober in the Netherlands – have sprung up across the world.
Social Lending is a financial category of genuine and increasing importance.
Next... how does it all work then?