How is my lending offer matched to borrowers?
At Zopa you lend into a particular market. Markets are defined by the credit rating of borrowers (Market A, Market B etc.), and the term of the loan (12 months, 24 months etc.) When you place money in a Zopa market, your money is lent in separate contracts of £10 each to at least 50 borrowers. Your offers, together with those of all the other lenders in a market are ranked, firstly by the rate lenders have set (lowest to highest) and secondly by the time the offer was placed in the market (earliest to latest).
You can see your ranking in the loan offer screen: click on mkt at the end of the table on the right hand side.
When a borrower makes a borrowing request in a market, the money is taken from each lender in rank order until the full amount has been matched. The interest rate that the borrower is charged for all the loan contracts is the average rate at which the lenders are supplying the money, so each lender gets the rate they asked for.