P2P Lending News

Correction: The initial post stating that the Bank of Italy reneged on their agreement with Zopa was inaccurate. Thanks to the Zopa Italy team for clarifying things. A corrected post is shown below.

In an update on their blog today, Italian P2P lender Zopa Italia has announced that the site will not relaunch until October or later. Zopa has been working on the establishment of sub-accounts for lenders as part of an agreement with the Bank of Italy, and is pushing the relaunch date out now that they have more details on the technical integration issues involved.

read more »

A month after their lending license was suspended by Italian regulators, today Zopa Italia published an email to its users explaining what has been going on, and what their plans are for relaunch. Zopa sources told P2P Lending News back in July that the Bank of Italy was concerend with Zopa Italy’s “transit lender account”, where lender funds are parked before they are disbursed as loans. According to regulators, this aggregated account qualifies Zopa as a banking institution because Zopa is holding money on behalf of lenders for a non-trivial period of time (more than a day, in some cases).

read more »

What is it about social lending that inspires people to write music and create videos promoting their favorite services? Okay, sometimes it’s just cold, hard cash, as in Lending Club’s $3,000 or Zopa UK’s £500 prizes for the top video posted on YouTube, or it’s a trip around the world, as with Zopa Italy’s launch-focused Zopacontest. But other times, it’s just creative folks with a little extra time on their hands who want to promote their favorite site.

read more »

Seemingly out of nowhere, Zopa Italy’s license to operate as a financial intermediary was cancelled by Italian regulators at the Bank of Italy. As a result, Zopa Italia has halted all lending activity on the site, and has posted a message on the home page linked to an FAQ. This is the message:

Zopa entra in standby

In data 10 luglio 2009 è stato notificato a Zopa il decreto del Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze che, su indicazione di Banca d’Italia, ha cancellato dall’elenco degli intermediari finanziari ex art. 106 la nostra società. Come conseguenza immediata ci vediamo costretti a sospendere la trattazione di nuovi prestiti e l’ingresso di nuovi Prestatori.

La società sta valutando tutte le iniziative, anche di natura giurisdizionale, per tutelare la propria posizione e la community. Vi terremo informati su tutte le attività che metteremo in atto per salvaguardare un’iniziativa innovativa, etica, sociale e vantaggiosa per tutti i partecipanti.

read more »

Social lending juggernaut Zopa announced today, on its third birthday, that they will open a P2P lending site in Japan, the world’s second largest economy. The joint venture, Zopa Japan KK, will be led by finance veteran and chairman Takeshi Yoneda and CEO Tatsuya Kuboi.

No date has been set for the site’s launch, but Zopa follows American P2P lending company Prosper, who announced a joint venture with SBI Holdings to launch a Japanese site in August 2007. During 2007, Zopa launched sites in both the United States as well as Italy.

On August 13, Zopa solicited feedback in an online chat for a new feature they’re calling “Zopa Listings”. If you’re familiar with what a listing is on Prosper (basically, a public and personal request for a loan), then you know what a Zopa listing is.

The differences between a Zopa listing and a Prosper listing are few. Zopa has adopted a similar set of features for listings, including:

• Pictures
• Description
• Friends
• Endorsements
• Questions & answers
• Public bid history

One of the only differences is that Zopa listings are active for 12 days by default, whereas Prosper offers 3, 5, 7, and 10 day options. One of the complaints from Zopa members who commented on the new design was that he didn’t like the idea of tying up his funds for 12 days waiting for the auction to end.

Kudos to Zopa for soliciting feedback on the upcoming feature in advance, although they could have done a better job of cleaning out any Prosper artifacts that were still in their mockups. For example, the “Funded/Forecast” graph that’s prominent on Prosper listing pages is also shown prominently on the Zopa listing mockup.

We’ll see if Zopa makes changes based on member feedback as they develop and release this feature over the next few months. This may be the feature that allows Zopa to follow through on their long awaited launch in the US market, which is slated for some time this fall.

The winners of the Internet’s answer to the Cable Ace Awards, The Webby Awards, were announced today. And in true internet style, startup Zopa beat two huge banks in the category of top Banking/Bill Paying web site. The real irony is that Bank of America won the People’s Choice award.

Kudos go to design agency Poke out of London, who created the award-winning design for Zopa’s redesigned site, which launched in late 2006.

Yesterday, Zopa sent out yet another email message to its US audience announcing the imminent launch of Zopa US. This marks the third time that Zopa has made serious claims about launching a P2P lending site in the US:

1. Crossing the Pond - Jan 2006, launch estimated for “early this year (2006)”, later revised to “Q2 2006″
2. Zopa raises $15m for US launch - Mar 2006, launch estimated for “later this year (2006)”
3. Zopa revises plans for U.S. debut, will start with national service - Apr 2007, launch estimated for “later this year (2007)”

Let’s hope they pull it off sometime this decade…