Zopa moves into Japan
Thursday, 06 Mar 2008 16:52
Social lending firm Zopa is to expand into Japan, three years after its initial launch in the UK.
Since March 2005 the site has organised over £20 million worth of unsecured personal loans – with cash lent to and from within Zopa's peer-to-peer lending model.
It is now launching in Japan, following Zopa sites in the US and Italy.
"We are delighted to be celebrating our third birthday with news of our upcoming launch in Japan," said Giles Andrews, co-founder and managing director of Zopa.
"We look forward to helping even more people around the world enjoy the big benefits of cutting out the banks by borrowing and lending with other people instead."
Zopa now has over 190,000 members in the UK. Charges from the site stand at 0.5 per cent for lenders on cash lent and 0.5 per cent on borrowers for what they borrow.
Rates are set by members agreeing terms on a loan.
Mr Andrews said: "With recent average returns for lenders the best they have ever been at 8.1 per cent, with some enjoying more than ten per cent, social lending has never looked so attractive.
"Borrowers continue to enjoy rates normally much lower than they can get from the banks, and despite months of turmoil in the credit markets, our state-of-the-art credit and affordability checks have maintained our remarkably low default rate at less than 0.1 per cent."