Peer-to-peer lending, also abbreviated as P2P lending, is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns compared to savings and investment products offered by banks, while borrowers can borrow money at lower interest rates, even after the P2P lending company has taken a fee for providing the match-making platform and credit checking the borrower. There is the risk of the borrower defaulting on the loans taken out from peer-lending websites.
Zopa Bank Ltd. is a British online bank which offers deposit accounts, personal loans and credit cards. It began as the world's first peer-to-peer lending company in 2005 and gained a full banking licence in 2020. The peer-to-peer side of its business closed in December 2021.
Block, Inc. is a U.S. listed company founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009. It is a financial technology conglomerate. The company reportedly serves 56 million users and 4 million businesses, and processes payments worth US$228 billion annually as of 2023.
Funding Circle is a commercial lender. Originally it was a peer-to-peer lending marketplace that allowed the public to lend money directly to small and medium-sized businesses. Through this exchange businesses access lower costs of financing than they would get at a bank and the public are able to become lenders and in doing so make a return on their capital. It closed its lending option to "retail investors" between 2020 and 2022, and then announced, in March 2022, that it had made the closure permanent.
RateSetter is a British personal loan provider, founded in 2009 as one of the pioneers of peer-to-peer lending. The London-based company traded in the United Kingdom and through a locally-owned and run business in Australia. The UK business was acquired by Metro Bank in September 2020, leading to closure of the peer-to-peer products in April 2021.
MicroVentures is an equity crowdfunding website that offers investments in early stage companies. It connects accredited investors with startups, businesses and services looking to raise funds or participate in select secondary market opportunities.
Assetz Capital is a British company which makes property-secured loans to businesses. It was established in 2012 as a peer-to-peer or "marketplace" lender which allowed private and institutional investors to lend money directly to small businesses (SMEs) and property developers. In December 2022 it became solely funded by institutional capital for new lending.
SoFi Technologies, Inc. is an American online personal finance company and online bank. Based in San Francisco, SoFi provides financial products including student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, credit card, investing, and banking through both mobile app and desktop interfaces.
Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company that now manages stablecoin USDC, a cryptocurrency the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in October 2013. Circle is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. USDC, the second largest stablecoin worldwide, is designed to hold at or near a stable price of $1. The majority of its stablecoin collateral is held in short-term U.S. government securities.
Peer-to-peer investing (P2PI) is the practice of investing money in notes issued by borrowers who are requesting a loan without going through a traditional financial intermediary and who are unknown to the investor. P2PI is not to be confused with Peer-to-peer lending (P2PL) which deals with the borrower's part. Investing takes place online via a peer-to-peer lending/investing company. There is an individual investor and an individual borrower. The notes can be sold as a security and so investors can exit the investment before the borrower repays the debt.
Peerform is a peer-to-peer lending company based in New York City, which matches prime and near-prime qualified borrowers in the United States to accredited high net worth and institutional investors on its online platform. Its algorithm to determine loan eligibility focuses on a variety of factors including but not limited to FICO scores. In January 2011, Peerform raised $1.3 million during an angel funding round. In April 2014, Peerform raised $1.1 million in a seed funding round led by Corporest Development, a European investment firm.
Chris Larsen is an American business executive and angel investor best known for co-founding several Silicon Valley technology startups, including one based on peer to peer lending. In 1996, he co-founded the online mortgage lender E-Loan, and during his tenure as CEO E-Loan became the first company to freely provide consumers' FICO credit scores. By 2000, E-Loan's market value was estimated at $1 billion In 2005, Larsen left the company when it was sold to Banco Popular. In 2006, he co-founded Prosper Marketplace and he served as CEO until 2012. Later in 2012, he co-founded the company Ripple Labs, Inc., which developed Ripple, software that enables the instant and direct transfer of money between two parties.
FOLK2FOLK is a Marketplace lending platform (MPL) specializing in secured lending for business owners across the rural and regional parts of the UK. It matches businesses looking for capital with individual (retail) and institutional investors who receive a fixed interest rate from 7.5% p.a. secured against UK land or property. Investors receive the same interest rate that the Borrower pays, with FOLK2FOLK making its profit from an arrangement fee and annual renewal fee charged to Borrowers.
LendingRobot is an automated investment service for Peer-to-peer lending for retail investors. It is based in Seattle, Washington, and was the first SEC-registered Investment Advisor in the Peer to Peer Lending industry.
Revolut is a global neobank and financial technology company with headquarters in London, UK that offers banking services for retail customers and businesses. It was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. It offers products including banking services, currency exchange, debit and credit cards, virtual cards, Apple Pay, interest-bearing "vaults", personal loans and BNPL, stock trading, crypto, commodities, human resources and other services.
Ezubao was a peer-to-peer lending scheme based in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui. It was set up as an online scheme in July 2014, attracted funds of about 50 billion yuan from 900,000 investors, and ceased to trade in December 2015. On 1 February 2016, the scheme was closed down and 21 involved people were arrested. Zhang Min, the president of the parent company, Yucheng Global, told investigators that the company operated as a Ponzi scheme. Following its establishment, Ezubao grew rapidly, masquerading as a legitimate investment opportunity while operating under the guise of peer-to-peer lending. Revelations about the fraudulent nature of Ezubao’s operations emerged after an exposé in late 2015, leading to public outcry and intensified scrutiny by regulatory authorities. The scale of Ezubao’s Ponzi scheme, which orchestrated a sophisticated ruse involving fake projects and returns, was unprecedented in China, contributing to an estimated loss of billions of yuan for investors. The scandal not only devastated the finances of nearly a million individuals but also prompted a nationwide tightening of regulations on the peer-to-peer lending industry, aiming to close loopholes and restore investor confidence.
Financial technology is an industry composed of companies that use technology to offer financial services. These companies operate in insurance, asset management and payment, and numerous other industries. FinTech has emerged as a relatively new industry in India in the past few years. The Indian market has witnessed massive investments in various sectors adopting FinTech, which has been driven partly by the robust and effective government reforms that are pushing the country towards a digital economy. It has also been aided by the growing internet and smartphone penetration, leading to the adoption of digital technologies and the rise of FinTech in the country
Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange owned and operated by iFinex Inc, and is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Bitfinex was founded in 2012. It was originally a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange, and later added support for other cryptocurrencies.
Funding Societies is a Southeast Asian digital financing platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), headquartered in Singapore. It was the first such platform in Singapore to engage an escrow agency to independently and safely manage investors’ funds. In Indonesia it is known as Modalku. Since its launch, it has disbursed more than US$2.6 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 5.1 million loan transactions.
BondMason is a direct lending investment manager based in Harpenden, England.
