This week Zopa celebrated the milestone of 100 million GBP in p2p loans funded (since it’s launch in 2005).
Here is how ITV London tonight featured Zopa yesterday:
growth
Zopa Expects Record Loan Volume Growth in August
In the UK Zopa expects a record month of new p2p loans funded. CEO Giles Andrews told P2P-Banking.com today: “We are going through some dramatic growth at the moment. July was a record month with 908 loans for 4.5 million GBP, but we should do 1100 for 5.5 million GBP in August.”
Gartner: P2P lending will be 5 billion US$ in 2013
Gartner forecasts p2p lending volume to read 5 billion US$ outstanding loan volume in 2013.
Consumers who lose their jobs can’t get loans to cover periods of unemployment; businesses that encounter trouble due to low demand can’t get credit lines to see them through to recovery. Furthermore, banks are more interested in recapitalising than in lending. Growth in P2P lending will be driven by investors seeking higher returns and borrowers shunning (or being shunned by) banks. Gartner recommends that financial services providers investigate how to partner and collaborate in adding P2P to their existing offerings rather than building their own P2P lending networks.
An earlier forecast of Gartner from Feb. 2008 overestimated the impact that p2p lending will have on bank lending in 2010 – at least in my view – but 2010 is not over yet.
Auxmoney Adds More Loan Term Choices
Auxmoney.com has added more loan term choices for it’s p2p lending borrowers to choose from on the weekend. Previously available loan terms at Auxmoney were 12, 24 and 36 months. Now any term between 12 and 60 months (in 6 month increments) can be selected.
Auxmoney achieved substantial growth rates in the second half of 2009 (see Wiseclerk statistics tracking Auxmoney loan originations per month). And this is despite the fact that Auxmoney was criticized by a renowned consumer advocacy institution for misleading marketing and unfavourable fee structures.
In international comparison of p2p lending fee structures, Auxmoney is a rare exception, as it charges many fees regardless of whether a loan request is successfully funded or not. With it’s listing fees Auxmoney generates revenues even from those customers with bad credit history that have little or no chance of getting funded by lenders.
(Source: Uses information from yesterday’s article at P2P-Kredite.com)
P2P Lending Company Prosper.com has High Q3 Loss
Prosper Marketplace, Inc. the company running the p2p lending site Prosper.com had a net loss of 2,238,138 US$ in the third quarter of 2009. Furthermore Prosper’s cash reserve is low. As of September 30th, 2009 Prosper had 2,079,624 US$ cash and cash equivalents left from an initial VC funding of 40 million US$. Even accounting for the recent 1 million US$ investment of a banker, at the current burn rate Prosper will need new funding soon.
However the timing and circumstances make chances for a new VC round look less than ideal.
Prosper reopened the site for new loans after completing the SEC registration process in July 2009, but still struggles to reach growth rates the marketplace had in 2007 and 2008.
Kiva Loans Surpass 100,000,000 USD
Congratulations to Kiva. They have tackled another impressive milestone: more then 100 million US$ total loans funded since inception. And the growth curve is pointing straight upwards. 60 million US$ were funded in the last 12 months.
Quoting today’s numbers from Kiva’s statistics page:
| Total value of all loans made through Kiva: | $100,223,910 |
| Number of Kiva Lenders: | 585,070 |
| Number of countries represented by Kiva Lenders: | 185 |
| Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva: | 249,619 |
| Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: | 142,801 |
| Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs: | 82.72% |
| Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with): | 106 |
| Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in: | 49 |
| Current repayment rate (all partners): | 97.88% |
| Average loan size (This is the average amount loaned to an individual Kiva Entrepreneur. Some loans – group loans – are divided between a group of borrowers.): | $404.87 |
| Average total amount loaned per Kiva Lender (includes reloaned funds): | $171.34 |
| Average number of loans per Kiva Lender: | 4.91 |
Will Kiva run out of goals now? Definitly not:
But we believe this is only the beginning . . .
Kiva is about dreaming big. The entrepreneurs on the website dream about big business; our Field Partners dream about financially including all of the poor; Kiva Lenders dream about ending poverty.
Kiva was a big dream before the idea of lending to someone on the other side of the world became a reality. Now we have big dreams about making Kiva the world’s hub for alleviating poverty.
This is a quote from a Kiva blogpost from October, which also give the strategic goals for the next 5 years:
- Raise 1,000 million US$ in loans over the internet
- Reach 2 million entrepreneurs around the world
- Realize our own self-sufficiency in the process.
Kiva has my support. Let me know, if I can do anything to win your support for Kiva.