Wednesday, 12 August 2009

Six Months Is Still A Long Time In Social Lending

Two interesting tables from P2P Banking. The first shows all 'social lending' from the time Zopa kicked off in the UK in March 2005 until 28 October 2008 (Virgin Money figures include CircleLending friends & family loan volumes from 2001-'07). The second shows volumes for the six months to end July 2009, with strongest growth in the UK and Germany.

The subdued activity in the US is partly due to regulatory issues, and the burden of complying with the overblown securities registration and marketing regime for such a simple activity as low value lending between individuals. Unless you adopt the Virgin model, of course, which merely documents loans agreed in principle off-line. That's a different business, really, and not one that appears to be growing much on these figures.





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