Social Lending, zopa

Question for Zopa | is that 10K registered or 10K real customers?

Zopa are reporting 10,000 members in their US service. At first I was highly impressed and pleasantly surprised, however on reflection, I now question this number.

Is it:

  1. registered members with investments or loans at Zopa? (lower but a ‘real’ number)
  2. registered users of the site (always a higher number)

Both numbers have importance, but the Finextra press release is written to suggest that the 10k number relates to 1. but I am betting now that it relates to 2.

I can’t locate this info on Zopa’s blog, something I also find odd … so am posting here.

Anyone from Zopa care to comment and clarify?

Finextra: Zopa reports 10,000 US members

After its first full quarter of operation in the U.S., Zopa, an online lending company that uses the power of community to help people reach their goals, has reached a number of significant benchmarks for success.

In addition to growing to more than 10,000 US community members, a number of Zopa borrowers have actually achieved a negative effective rate on their loan.

5 thoughts on “Question for Zopa | is that 10K registered or 10K real customers?”

  1. There is a huge difference between registered members at p2p lending services and active lenders or borrowers.
    E.g. smava in it’s press releases states it has more then 28000 users.
    But the stats I track, show less then 800 active lenders and less then 600 active borrowers

    Wiseclerk

  2. Hi there Bank Watchers, Luke here from Zopa.

    When Zopa refers to its number of ‘US community members,’ we mean individuals who have registered with Zopa and established profiles in our network. So these folks may or may not be active borrowers or investors.

    Hope this clears things up a bit,
    Luke

  3. @Luke … thanks for the clarification. There is so much hidden in statistics, and it becomes something that “marketers” can manipulate, so I believe its essential to get the right information, and so keep the debates focussed on real issues.

    Thanks again.

  4. Same with Prosper for example. There are 690,000 registered members but less than 42,000 people who have made loans.

  5. @Tom .. you are right, and this is key. Its not to understate things, but just to keep facts in perspective.

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