P2PFA members lent out £9.5bn with unexplained absence of MarketInvoice
FRESH data from the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association has shown that its platform members cumulatively lent out £9.5bn by the end of 2018 – a decline on the previous quarter due to the mysterious omission of MarketInvoice.
Figures from the trade body showed that the cumulative loanbooks of its eight members – CrowdProperty, Crowdstacker, Folk2Folk, Funding Circle, ThinCats, Landbay, Lending Works and Zopa – finished 2018 at a total of £9.5bn.
This was a marked increase from £6.6bn at the end of 2017.
The update does not include data from business finance provider MarketInvoice – which joined the P2PFA in 2014 – but is no longer listed as a member on the P2PFA’s website.
A third-quarter update from P2PFA, released last December, showed that its platform members had already reached £10.9bn of lending, but this figure has been pushed down by the absence of MarketInvoice.
MarketInvoice confirmed that it left the P2PFA in December 2018 but would still work closely with it.
The data showed that P2P investors funded £809m of loans in the fourth quarter of 2018, up from £720m in the third quarter and £672m in the fourth quarter of 2017.
P2P business lender Funding Circle has retained the largest loanbook, coming at at £4.6bn at the end of 2018.
Consumer lender Zopa came in second place, having lent out £3.9bn by the end of the year. It announced that it passed the £4bn milestone this February.
Read more: P2PFA members confirm plans for loanbook data
The number of borrowers across all platforms was 288,829, up from 260,256 in 2017, and the number of lenders increased from 138,493 to 151,207.
“There was marked growth in levels of new lending facilitated by P2PFA members during the last three months of 2018, as the contribution of P2P lending platforms to UK businesses and consumers has become increasingly significant,” Robert Pettigrew, director of the P2PFA, said.
“The increase in the number of lenders and borrowers during 2018 confirms growing awareness of, and confidence in, the offering of P2PFA platforms.
“There is clear evidence that the UK P2P lending market continues to mature, with discerning consumers increasingly aware of the variety of choice available to them across the broader market for loans.”
The figures are not representative of the whole P2P lending industry as they do not take into account non-member platforms, including ‘big three’ lender RateSetter, which left the P2PFA in 2017 and has reached £3bn of lending.
