UK

Bigcarrots – P2C Lending in the UK

wiseclerk 1 Comment

Bigcarrots.com wants to bring business and lenders together. Peculiar name, isn’t it? Images from Bugs Bunny cartoons floated on my mind. Positive indeed – but not at all related to finance.

Bigcarrots applies the concept of peer to peer lending to funding companies. Lenders can lend in chunks of 25 GBP, and a company can apply for unsecured loans of up to 25,000 GBP for 3 to 36 months loan terms. Lenders even have the possibility to exit early by reselling portfolios on a reseller platform.

The level of information provided on the website is low, the FAQ is short. For example their is no description how the risk assessment of applying companies is done by Bigcarrots. The About section gives little information on the background of Bigcarrots. I used the contact form to ask for more information, but did not receive an answer.

Zopa Partnerships Bring in New P2P Lending Borrowers

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British p2p lending company Zopa has recently entered two partnerships.

Zopa Prime

Zopa partners with the Charity PRIME to offer loans to entrepreneurs over 50 starting or running a business. The loan is not a loan to the business but a personal loan of up to 15,000 GBP (approx 24,125 US$). PRIME is the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise. The charity’s role is to vet the business plan of the applicant.

Lenders benefit because all Zopa prime loan listings are 50% guaranteed by PRIME. More details on how to obtain a loan.

Zopa and Good Energy

Zopa also partnered with Good Energy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier. Customers of Good Energy can use a Zopa loan listing to fund the initial installation cost of solar panels or wind turbines. In this partnership Zopa uses affiliate links with a branded landing page:
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/affiliates/zopa

Benefits for Zopa from the partnerships are:

  1. More borrowers
  2. More quality without more costs – borrowers are vetted/screened by partners
  3. 50% of loan amount secured for PRIME loans
  4. Possibly earning referral fees from the affiliate link to Good Energy
  5. Great story for press coverage and marketing (catchwords:  “Prince Charles”, “renewable energy”, “credit crunch”, “older age”, …)

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Interest Free Loan

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The borrower who receives the 10,000th loan from Zopa UK will be lucky – it will be an interest free loan.

Furthermore Zopa has a referral promotion in July. Zopa pays 100 GBP (approx. 165 US$) to members that refer a borrower who successfully gets a loan in July.