P2P Money Blog

Encash predicted lending £1million to businesses in 2012, but their first peer-to-business loan failed to be funded, having raised only a fraction of the £5250 requirement.

Within the question and answer section for the loan, one of the potential lenders stated:

I shall probably get banned for saying this, but perhaps you should look at a much bigger, better P2P lending site like Funding Circle?

Encash has arranged 27 peer-to-peer loans in 2012 for a total of £74,570 which was a drop of 71% (by loan amount) from 2011.  Unfortunately Encash has not experienced the same success as Zopa which arranged loans worth over £79million in the same period.

The newcomers FundingKnight and ReBuildingSociety, also operating within the peer-to-business loans are already having more success.  With the growing number of companies entering this arena there will be further casulties, and we wish Encash the best of luck in turning the situation around.

The P2P money website has published its predictions for 2013, and reviews those made in 2012.  Next year will be see further exciting changes within peer-t0-peer lending in the United Kingdom.

We've finally taken the plunge and joined Twitter, so please follow us @P2PMoneyUK or use the hashtag #P2PLendingUK. We're also following the peer-to-peer companies in the UK, who are all on Twitter.

This may sound counter-intuitive but the government use of peer-to-peer lending should be good news for lenders.  Why you may ask, as increasing supply should reduce the rates.  The answer is, by itself, the government involvement would reduce the rates, but not by much as Funding Circle are experiencing a phenomenal 200% per annum growth rate, so an 20% additional influx of funds wouldn't have that much effect.

What will make a big difference is the additional publicity within the borrowing community who are looking for alternative sources of funding.  Funding Circle have been very effective in funding loans of £50k to £100k for small and medium size enterprises, but with the increase in maximum loan to £500k will attract more medium size enterprises that may have previously discounted peer-to-peer lending as too small.

The year 2013 should be another exciting and momentous year for peer-to-peer lending.

Following our earlier post we can confirm that Zopa will be extending its loans to encompass sole traders.  Zopa made the announcement on their blog this afternoon.  This is a new development that will move Zopa into the peer-to-business market.

Here is their brief statement:

We are pleased to announce that we will be taking part in the Government’s Business Finance Partnership scheme to help small businesses.

As part of this scheme, the Government will contribute up to £10million to help Zopa lend to small businesses over the coming years. We hope the additional money being lent through Zopa will help thousands of sole traders to further their business and help build the economy.

We’re really excited about this news and will be developing a process that is tailored for sole traders over the coming months - we’ll keep you posted.