Zopa marks 15th anniversary with £350m interest milestone
Zopa has revealed that it has returned £350m in gross interest to its investors, as it starts to celebrate its 15-year anniversary.
Zopa was the first and only peer-to-peer platform in the UK when it launched in March 2005. To mark the anniversary, the platform worked out that if a consumer had invested £1,000 in the year of Zopa’s launch, they would have seen their money grow to £2,090 today, based on Zopa’s average annual returns across all investors over the period.
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Zopa’s blended return rate over that time is 4.9 per cent, including through the financial crisis, and takes into account compounding interest, but does not include additional money invested by the person into their account.
Over the past decade and a half, the platform has generated interest earnings of £158m for its retail investors and £193m for institutional investors who lend through the platform – a combined total of £351m.
“15 years ago, Zopa created the P2P lending model, focusing specifically on personal loans as an asset class,” said Natasha Wear (pictured), chief executive of P2P at Zopa.
“Offering investors a unique balance of risk and reward, tens of thousands of people have enjoyed a stable, reliable and attractive return on their investments.
“We firmly believe that our asset class, approach to risk management, and lending expertise, gives us a distinct advantage over both mainstream and alternative investment options.”
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