Smart investments in real people

Peer-to-peer investing

Generate target returns of up to 5.2%
Best results over the mid to long-term (+3 years)
Also available as a tax-free ISA

Your capital is at risk, fees apply when selling loans. Tax treatment depends on your circumstances and may be subject to change in the future.

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Fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
Not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme

Excellent 9.7 out of 1012,930 reviews on

About Zopa

1st

The world’s first peer-to-peer platform

14 years

of personal loan investment expertise

£4.5 billion

in personal loans lent to over 470,000 UK consumers

£280 million

interest generated for over 60,000 active investors

Numbers as of June 2019

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Understand Zopa in under 90 seconds

We bring borrowers and investors together

Start off from as little as £1,000 and we’ll split your money across a unique selection of loans to reduce risk and help you reach your target return.

Feel good knowing your investment will help people across the UK with everything from unsecured loans for home improvements to secured car finance for new wheels to get to work.

We find people in the UK that want to take out a loan for a maximum amount of £25,000. Drawing on our wealth of lending experience, we assess their risk and calculate a fixed interest rate for a period of up to five years.

Then, we match them with people like you – people who want to earn a good return while helping others achieve their goals.

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How investing with Zopa works

1

Zopa splits your investment into small chunks. These are then put into a queue to be matched with different loans.

2

We’ll work out how to distribute your investment so you’re set up to match your target return

3

You’ll receive monthly repayments, including interest but minus our borrower servicing fee.

4

Some loans default. We factor this in when calculating target returns.

5

By letting us reinvest your repayments as they come in, you can earn interest on interest.

Who you invest in

Our borrowers come in all shapes and sizes, but we run checks on every single one. Here’s a snapshot of what they look like.

*average January 2018 – April 2019

Can demonstrate a good track record of repaying debt

Are current UK residents

Have at least three years of UK address history

Average age of 40 years old*

Average income of £40,000*

How we manage the risks

Your investment will be spread across many different loans. This reduces your risk as no one person is lent more than 1% of your initial investment.

We know that sometimes repayments may be missed. That's why we factor this into your target returns and have an experienced Collections team who help to get things back on track. The vast majority of our borrowers who miss a payment will go on to fully repay their loan.

If four months of repayments are missed on an unsecured personal loan, we default it and you’ll lose the value of that loan from your investment. But even after a default, we continue to try and make recoveries on your behalf. Secured car finance loans default after three months of missed repayments. As the loan is secured, we can repossess the vehicle and then sell it in order to recover as much of your investment as possible.

Finally, our business is robust, but we also make sure your loans are taken care of if Zopa were to go out of business. Find out more on our contingency plan page.

Borrower risk profiles

Our borrowers have to meet high standards. We only approve about 20% of people who apply for a loan with us.†

Everyone that we do approve is categorised based on their risk and given an interest rate personalised to them.

Profiles range from A* to E. Our A* borrowers are the most reliable. Profiles beyond E are considered too risky. This process is informed by 14 years of lending data and the latest credit info from three major UK credit bureaus. Learn more on our dedicated who we lend to page.

† Based on applications via ClearScore May 2018 – March 2019, representative of Zopa's borrower approval rates.

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A* A B C D E

Applicants we view as too risky

Investment tailored to your appetite

We offer two options for investors to pick from, Zopa Core and Zopa Plus:

Both contain A*, A, B and C borrowers
Zopa Plus adds higher risk D and E loans into the mix
Both Zopa Core and Zopa Plus are available as ISAs so you can enjoy your peer-to-peer returns tax free.

Your capital is at risk, fees apply when selling loans. Tax treatment depends on your circumstances and may be subject to change in the future.

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Zopa Core

Zopa Plus

Target return

4.5%We expect investors to earn a net annual return close to this rate

Target return

5.2%We expect investors to earn a net annual return close to this rate

Borrower blend

A*, A, B & C

Borrower blend

A*, A, B, C, D & E

Typically, D & E loans are limited to 20% of your personal mix

Minimum initial investment

£1,000

Minimum initial investment

£1,000

Available as an ISA

Yes

Available as an ISA

Yes

Access to funds

No fixed term

Best results over the mid to long-term, but you can choose to withdraw your repayments as they come in, or access your money early by selling loans you have invested in. This process depends on demand from other investors to buy your loans so can take several days and your loans may be revalued. A 1% sale fee applies.

Zopa Core

Zopa Plus

‘Jen’ has achieved annual returns of

3.9%

Her target return was

4.1%

‘Dan’ has achieved annual returns of

4.6%

His target return was

4.9%

That’s the middle investor, here’s a look at the vast majority:

Annual return achieved by 90% of Zopa Core investors

over 2.7%

Annual return achieved by 90% of Zopa Plus investors

over 3.4%

So far, fewer than 1% of our investors have made a loss. Of these investors, the average loss amounts to less than 1% of the money they invested.

Have a look at our middle performing investors

These are our ‘median’ investors, as of April 1st 2019. They’re right in the middle – about 50% of investors have performed better and 50% worse.

Net Annualised Return (NAR) shows you the annual rate of return on an investment over its lifetime. NAR is based on actual borrower repayments received, minus service fees and default losses, but including any recoveries made on defaulted loans.

There is a spread of annual returns because every investor’s loan book is unique to them.

We look at the NAR of investors that started in Plus or Core with 100+ loan chunks, held 100+ loans as of April 2019, have been investing for at least 12 months and have been reinvesting their repayments. We feel these are most representative of performance.

We sometimes revise our target returns to reflect the latest market conditions. Have a look at our historical rates below:

Core

Start	End	Target
14/09/2018	Current	4.5%
19/01/2018	14/09/2018	4.0%
22/08/2017	19/01/2018	3.7%
15/06/2017	22/08/2017	3.9%

Plus

Start	End	Target
14/09/2018	Current	5.2%
19/01/2018	14/09/2018	4.6%
22/08/2017	19/01/2018	4.5%
31/01/2017	22/08/2017	6.1%
28/10/2016	31/01/2017	6.3%
08/09/2016	28/10/2016	6.5%
27/05/2016	08/09/2016	6.7%
16/03/2016	27/05/2016	6.5%

One way in which we measure investors’ performance is by comparing target returns against actual returns. The key driver causing differences between these expected and actual returns is the loan default rate:

If defaults are higher than expected, actual investor returns will be lower.
If defaults are lower than expected, actual investor returns will be higher.

By closely tracking how our investors are performing against their target, as well as looking at wider market trends, we’re continuously working to improve our return projections.

How our investments have performed

At Zopa, we aim for our peer-to-peer investments to be nestled in the middle between low-risk, low-yielding savings accounts and volatile, high-return stocks & shares investment.

Our track record of stable, inflation-beating annual returns

Graph showing Zopa’s consistent inflation-beating returns between 2008 to 2018

Source: Inflation - Office for National Statistics | Savings accounts (IUMB6VJ) – Bank of England | FTSE All-Share – FTSE Russell

Zopa investor return is defined as the weighted average investor interest rate of loans minus the annualised actual loss rate on these loans.

As an FCA-regulated company with a commitment to transparency, we regularly disclose the historical performance of our investments.

But remember, you can’t predict the future

Our past performance can’t be relied on as an indicator for future results.

You can read about our risk information and Zopa’s public loan book, showing historical performance, is available to download.

Invest with confidence

UK Finance member

Best Personal Loan Provider

9.7 / 10 out of 12,930 reviews

Most Trusted P2P Platform

Best customer service 2018

Ready to start investing?

When you invest your money, your capital is at risk and is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Our risk statement has all the details. Tax treatment depends on your circumstances and may be subject to change.

Peer-to-peer investments are not like other investments, so before you continue make sure you’ve read and understood all of the information above.

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People often ask us

Loan sale fee

Paid by: Investor

What:

1%, charged if you sell loans before their terms end. So, if you sell £1,000 worth of loans, you’ll receive £990. The fee covers the cost of us finding new buyers.
Fee is deducted from sale proceeds before these are passed to you.
When you request a sale, we will also revalue your loans according to the latest market rates and repayment history. That might mean they are worth less than what you paid for them. Have a look at an example.

Loan servicing fee

Paid by: Borrower

What:

This fee may vary across investment options.
Fee is factored in before we calculate your target return and is deducted directly from each borrower repayment before it’s passed to you. 
This fee does not change your given target returns.

You are able to withdraw your funds at any time but remember that this investment performs best if you reinvest your repayments over 3+ years. 

Sell your loans to other investors for a 1% fee

If you want to access money that is still invested in loans, you will have to sell these loans to other investors first. After you request a loan sale, we have to find other investors to buy them before you receive your funds.

Good to keep in mind…

This is a good way to withdraw a larger amount from your investment.
We charge a 1% loan sale fee and will revalue your loans according to the latest market rates and repayment history. That might mean they are worth less than what you paid for them. Have a look at an example.
Selling can take several days as we need to find buyers.
Loans in arrears cannot be sold.

Keep your monthly loan repayments

You can choose not to reinvest your incoming loan repayments so they remain in your Zopa account, ready for you to withdraw for free.

Good to keep in mind…

This is a good way to withdraw a small amount from your investment.
You can only withdraw at the pace of your incoming repayments.
If you withdraw rather than reinvest your repayments, your initial 1% exposure to a single borrower could increase over time.

Your Zopa investment is unique to you: your loan book is a little different to any other customer’s, therefore its performance will be too.

However, by investing for the mid to long-term (3+ years) and automatically reinvesting your repayments into new loans, you set yourself up for the best results.

You make sure any interest received is put to use immediately by buying new loans, meaning you start earning interest on interest.
By reinvesting in new loans, and doing this for a longer time, you continuously diversify your loan book, reducing the impact of any individual loan default.

The more loan chunks you have, the more likely you are to earn close to the target return: that’s just the laws of statistics at work.

The target return we show is the net annual return we expect the average investor to earn. It is made up of a blend of the interest rates of the different loans you invest in, minus expected losses from defaults and our loan servicing fee (paid by the borrower).  Your actual return could be higher or lower depending on the actual rate of defaults. 

We sometimes revise our target returns based on the latest market conditions. If you choose to reinvest your repayments this will be done at the latest target rate.

A 1% sale fee applies when selling loans early: this is not taken into account in the target return. 

Zopa has been providing secured car finance to our loans customers since 2017 and opened them up to our retail investors in June 2019. These are the four main differences between secured car loans and unsecured personal loans:

In the event of default, we expect to recover more from secured car loans than we do on unsecured personal loans, because the loan is secured against the car.

A secured car loan is classed as defaulted after 3 months of missed payments, as opposed to 4 months on an unsecured personal loan.

With secured car loans, we pay introducers a commission to originate the loan. Zopa pays this commission up front and recoups it through the loan servicing fee which is why there might be a larger difference between the investor rate and the borrower rate than you’d see on an unsecured personal loan.

We class secured car loans as being in the ‘A-Secured’ or ‘B-Secured’ risk markets. That’s because we expect these loans to have similar default rates as our unsecured A and B profiles.

Smart investments in real people

About Zopa

Understand Zopa in under 90 seconds

We bring borrowers and investors together

How investing with Zopa works

Who you invest in

How we manage the risks

Borrower risk profiles

Investment tailored to your appetite

Zopa Core

Zopa Plus

Zopa Core

Zopa Plus

Have a look at our middle performing investors

How our investments have performed

Our track record of stable, inflation-beating annual returns

But remember, you can’t predict the future

Invest with confidence

Ready to start investing?

People often ask us

Sell your loans to other investors for a 1% fee

Keep your monthly loan repayments

We're here to help

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About Zopa

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