P2P Money Blog

As we reported recently, Zopa have redefined their zone of possible agreement.  We take a look at the updated lending screen.

The "In the zone" image will indicate the lending offer is within the new ZOPA - zone of possible agreement - but some even more important data is revealed by pressing "More info".

The "More info" button will reveal data that lenders can use to maximise their returns and - at the same time - control their lending speed.  The last column will indicate the percentage of loans you would be contributing to at the rates you have specified, which is nice to know but isn't particually useful.  However the lending forecast, which is an estimate of the amount of money you could lend over the next 30 days, is a very important piece of information.  Using this you can adjust your lending rate to reduce or increase your lending forecast.  If, for example, you only have £100 in your lending offer, and you are happy to lend that over the next 30 days, you can afford to increase your lending rates until the sum of the lending forecasts are roughly equal to the £100 you want to lend.

In the example above, using the default rates, you would be able to lend out over £3500 over 30 days, which is probably more than most people would have in their lending offer.