Zopa US launched to the public today
Posted by Brent Dixon on December 4th, 2007
If you’ve been itching to see how the collaboration between Zopa + credit unions in the US will play out, now’s your chance. Zopa US is up and open for anyone to create a profile and check it out.
Wondering what Zopa is all about? Click here to read Trey’s Zopa & peer-to-peer lending primer from two years ago.
Hey Brent:
Please excuse me if I am asking something already covered elsewhere, but taking a short cut, could you possibly answer the following:
1. Must a person be a member of a partner credit union to lend or borrow money from Zopa? Is that the case in Europe?
2. Is there an entry free for a credit union to partner with Zopa? Ongoing fees?
3. What exactly are credit unions doing with Zopa CDs and loans and what is their expected gross and net basis point spreads?
4. To what extent will the CU partners be advertising the Zopa option to their members and what percentage of their existing personal loans do they expect to have cannibalized?
5. Do all the partners get the same spread and is competition among the partners leveraged to compress Zopa’s and (potentially) the consumer’s costs?
6. Any idea when Zopa plans to engage banks for partnerships and how will their “Love” for credit unions “evolve” when that happens?
7. Any opinion one way or the other on how a CU’s partnership with Zopa would compare to one with the Lending Club?
8. Are any of the peer-to-peer loans being packaged and securitized similar to what is done with other loan portfolios?
Thanks for the article and for any info you can throw my way! I think the peer-to-peer lending model will prosper if credit unions participate or not, so they might as well get in the game. In the end, it also provides their members with more affordable options.
Have fun at the conference!
I’ll try to answer some of these. Long list!
Generally, yes you must be a member of one of our partner credit unions to transact on Zopa in the US. And yes, all products in the Zopa program are standardized across partners. That might change, but is certainly the case for now.
As much as I love that there are people out there putting together these P2P lending businesses – I have not yet borrowed or lent money using them.
I am a member of the sites just to check them out. I am tempted to throw a few hundred out there to just see what happens. Has anyone else actually used one of these services and if so, how was the experience?
Three tries to get my confirmation email sent to my business email address…
I’m in now. Oddly enough, it worked with my Hotmail account and not my business email.
Hi Wade. We spoke on the phone a few weeks ago. Where is the info page my firm made for USA Federal? I can’t find it. All I see is the grid of six CU logos that are hotlinked to their homepages.
@Tony – Yes I have used one of the other biggie P2P lenders. Threw a little money out there to see how it worked and so far, I’ve been happy with the experience. Will definitely be joining Zopa before long as I like their model a little better. The other one requires a bit more effort to find/bid on/win good loan opportunities.
@Tony – I haven’t used one either but I know a board member at another local CU here has used one of them and was very pleased.