P2P Money Blog

For years Zopa were regarded as the "largest" peer-to-peer lender in the UK.  This should not be surprising as they were the first and had been been running for several years before any serious competition emerged.  However RateSetter now state the following on their home page:

RateSetters know size isn't everything, but being the UK's largest P2P platform helps

But how true is this statement?  After compiling the annual statistics for the peer-to-peer sector we can try to answer this question.  We have ranked the peer-to-peer companies in the UK by various criteria.

Ranking by value loans arranged over all time:

1. Zopa
2. Funding Circle
3. RateSetter

Ranking by value of loans arranged in 2014 :

1. RateSetter
2. Funding Circle
3. Zopa

Ranking by value of outstanding loans:

1. Zopa
2. Funding Circle
3. RateSetter

Ranking by ivalue of outstanding loan increase in 2014:

1. Funding Circle
2. RateSetter
3. Wellesley & Co

It is clear that RateSetter arranged the highest value of loans in 2014, but their loan book did not increase as much as Funding Circle.  This is perhaps affected by RateSetter's monthly market, as money will be go through more borrowers over the same time period.

The metric we prefer is the value of outstanding loans, where Zopa as still (just) ahead of Funding Circle, but with the growth of Funding Circle, RateSetter and Wellesley & Co, Zopa have some serious competition in 2015.

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