This online business idea made me say "Wow"
 

Zopa.com is a UK company that has created an eBay style loan exchange.

Zopa is a place where creditworthy consumers who'd like to borrow money can get together with other consumers who are happy to lend it to them. Cutting out the middleman, lenders set their own rate of return and choose which borrowers they want to lend to.

www.zopa.com


What do you think?

nice, just hope its legally ok, so can someone from say Holland borrow money from someone in Australia ?

Before looking at the site, I'm confused.

Simple concept really

People want to borrow money

People want to lend money

Zopa brings them together, no more going to banks for loans

ok answered

To be able to join Zopa you must:

1. be over 18
2. have a UK current account
3. be a UK resident
4. not be lending in the course of a business

Hmm,m creating a middle man by eliminating the middle man!

This is a very good idea.

How it's carried out and legal aside, that is.
I wonder if there will be legal issues to come?

you left out,

People like to borrow and not pay back.

Zopa handles that for the lenders

All lenders and borrowers enter into a legally binding contract with their respective borrowers and lenders. Zopa manages the collection of monthly repayments and if any of that money is not paid on time, uses exactly the same recovery processes that the high street banks use.

It's a bit like a Mafia, isn't it....

If by 'a bit' you mean 'exactly' then, yes.

uhhh.....no :ugone2far

thats asking for a scam.

Peer 2 peer loan sharking? lol

So what's their gain?

lending is really a GREAT-risk kind of biz

the joy of providing a quality service :1orglaugh

:1orglaugh

Kind of a neat idea. I think there would be some rather huge issues with it though.

Ah the joy of going out every morning with their baseball bats, to kindly ask people to return their loan! Especially in a country like the UK, where everybody is in debt. Seems like a business idea that will last forever. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

They don't go "out every morning with their baseball bats"

They do exactly what normal banks would do with borrowers who aren't paying. They send the account to a collection agency.

Yeah I'd be weary about lending money

You're not just lending to random people.

You can choose to lend money to people who have an excellent credit rating.

I'm sure they'll also introduce a feedback system like eBay where people can leave feedback about previous borrowers. Were they good? Bad? Did they pay on time, etc...

It's definitely an interesting idea and may work. There will be some problems just as their is on Ebay but it could very well work if it's run properly.

They do an Equifax credit rating on everyone who joins

Another bonus for lenders is that you don't get charged anything. Borrowers have to pay the Zopa 1% fee.

Dangerous system i guess.

I do this once in awhile with people I know and it would be cool to have a more formal deal and more deals.

It can be a nice idea, but alot of trouble !

Last time I checked, all investments have the ability to be a lot of trouble.

It begs the question, why?

If someone is asking for a loan through that site, my brain is telling me it's because a bank won't give it to them.

How open is this to scamming? the possibilities seem endless

How are you going to get your money back if they don't pay? how do you even know the person you've lent to is who they say they are?

Where's sharky?

Maybe Joe Pesci needs a job.

:pimp

Maybe they will get a better interest rate through this site than they can get from a bank?

How do banks get their money back when people don't pay?

i think this all flys in the face of logic. if you have great credit - the bank will suck your cock if it means you will take their money. conversely, a person who is lending money should know the value of the cash, the risks etc and would not be lending money at rates lower than a bank unless he is very irresponsible. a bunch of people getting together and saying "we can do it better than Wells Fargo" is a little insane, idealistic and short sighted in my opinon.
:2 cents: :2 cents:


what i am saying is ... how is it logical that a group of people can get together and think they can loan money cheaper or better than Fanny Mae who has around $100,000,000,000.00 in loans out.

I know of business forums that are full of people that say they've been rejected by banks even though they have great credit.

But who would risk their own money lending to people they don't know for a lower interest rate than banks charge? It would be a risky and poor investment

Banks have debt collectors who charge extortionate fees (ontop of the bank's fees), they either do this inhouse or outsource it to a hired debt collection agency (I figure these are the people turned down as child supprot payment collectors).

True, you'd have legal options but it seems way too risky

What do you think Zopa has?

Maybe it will be a higher interest rate?

Maybe people rejected by banks will flock to a site like that? Maybe they will get approved for a loan, but the interest rate will be 15% whereas a person with good credit could get the same loan from a bank at 8%?

Where there is risk, there is reward.

OK, I understand what you're saying but...

There are hundreds of agencies that advertise to people who have low or poor credit rating and can't get a bank loan. If the people wanting to borrow from this website can't get one from them, do you really want to lend your money to them?

I know i'm being a bit pedantic but i'm financially anal. Everyone I hear with a bad credit rating always has some kind of story about how's it's not their fault or something happened. I'm sceptical of the kind of people who want loans but can't get them through traditional means.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh so true.

If you've ever used ebay, you would be familiar with the feeback system. I assume this site will have a feedback system similar to ebay.

A person might not have the best credit rating, but they might have built up a history of good feedback because they have borrowed and paid back on time in the past.

Clearly there is a market for people looking for loans, and I think this is an example of a business that can bring lenders and borrowers together, and succeed.

Maybe it will fail? I dunno. I just really enjoy examples of innovative businesses. It beats talking about someone and how they just launched a new TGP. :winkwink:

Interesting, but people lending using this system are just asking to get fucked...

I really like the idea!!!

ok... the point is that there is never a shortage of commercial lenders. thats a fact. if someone truly has "good credit" by a lenders standards, they should never have trouble borrowing money.

those lenders compete with each other for the business and to make the loans and its a highly competetive game from a lenders standpoint... so much so, that many big mortgage companies have restructured their business models so they are not dependent on interest rates and make money on mortgage insurance for the loans they write and on other financial instruments.

the idea of a bunch of people getting together to lend money to each other is nice if you buy into the idea that you can't get a great deal if you are qualified anyway (basically you have to head down the conspiracy route) - you can be dead broke, have shitty credit and buy a BMW right now. 18 year old kids with no credit history get flooded with credit card offers.

so what i am saying is that money is always out there to borrow from traditional lenders. its everywhere. lenders are looking for qualified borrowers and there is a lot of competition to give you the best deal... that would mean that people on this site would be somehow competing with traditional lenders which, unless you are motivated purely by philanthropical reasons, you would be making a shitty investment (lending money) and none of these guys will ever do it as well as a traditional lender, manage the risk as well, be able to absorb the bad loans and do it for the best rates.

if a person can't get a great deal on a home loan for example from a bank or mortgage company, it would be hugely irresponsible for a private investor to loan that guy money. he would have to adjust the numbers to cover the risk - bigger down payment, higher interest etc and always be on par with what a traditional lender would offer.

Citi Bank or Wells Fargo or Bank of America does not pull their interest rates or lending criteria out of their ass. They have complex risk assessment models and are great at knowing who is a good risk and who is a bad risk. A site like this in my opinion is nothing more than a naive, utopianistic view of how the financial world works and someone who would lend money in this way is irresponsible and naive as well.

nice good luck1

and dont get me wrong... i think something like this makes sense for high risk lending. there is a lot of money made in that game. particularly in commercial properties. i just dont see how it makes sense to try to be an alternative to traditional lenders for people "with good credit".

I don't know, but the company was started by people who basically are traditional lenders.

Either way, I thought this was an interesting concept for a business, and I'll be interested to see how well it does.

As far as delinquent borrowers go,

"Here?s the really clever bit. An individual lender doesn't lend to an individual borrower because that?s too risky. Instead a lender lends their money across at least fifty Zopa borrowers, and similarly a borrower borrows from a group of Zopa lenders. So the risk is well and truly spread."

Great idea: I'd rather lose 1% of my return than be the 1 person in 100 that doesn't recover ANYTHING. :)

Nice idea.
How do they prove the last one though?

On other parts of their site that say that if you're lending more than GBP25,000 at any one time then you're considered a commercial lender by the government and you'll need to buy a licence. I presume that's what rule #4 means.