P2PFA member lending exceeds £8bn
MEMBERS of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA) have lent more than £8bn since their launch, figures from the trade body reveal.
The eight P2PFA platform members – Crowdstacker, Folk2Folk, Funding Circle, Landbay, Lending Works, Market Invoice, ThinCats and Zopa – have cumulatively lent a total of £5bn to businesses and £3bn to individuals, as of the end of 2017.
New loans originated by P2PFA members increased to £837m in the fourth quarter of 2017, up from £733m in the previous quarter.
Of this, £571m was lent to businesses and £266m to individuals, according to the data, which was released on Friday.
The value of outstanding loans stood at £3.3bn at the end the year, of which £2bn was to businesses and £1.3bn to individuals.
The number of borrowers stood at 263,110, with the vast majority – 214,276 – being individual borrowers. Meanwhile, there were 138,829 lenders at the end of 2017.
Read more: P2PFA adds stress testing member requirement to operating principles
The figures are not representative of the whole peer-to-peer lending industry as they do not take into account non-member platforms. This includes ‘big three’ lender RateSetter, which left the association in August after breaching its transparency rules.
In addition, they include just one quarter of lending data from Crowdstacker, which joined the P2PFA in January, and three quarters of data from Folk2Folk, which joined in February last year.
Robert Pettigrew, director of the P2PFA, said the narrative underpinning 2017 for most P2PFA member platforms was one of sustained momentum.
Pettigrew added that even though members have facilitated significant growth in lending volumes over the course of the last decade, default rates remain low. He said this shows their “emphasis on credit quality is unrelenting”.
Read more: P2PFA widens membership with eight new associates