I’ve been following a fascinating development in the U.K. Budget process this month. It appears that Britain may be on the cusp of legitimizing P2P Lending as an investment vehicle for tax-exempt retirement savings. If this happens, it’s likely that P2P lending both to consumers and to small businesses will increase dramatically. And, if the financially conservative Brits can do it, why not other countries?

Peer-to-peer lending (the electronically-enabled kind) marks its 10-year anniversary this month. Zopa was the first business to create a really viable model that enabled consumers to lend directly to one another with low risk. Its innovation included spreading the risk. Each amount you loan was spread across small loans given to 50 different borrowers. Zopa has evolved and simplified its offerings over its 10 years in business. It has spawned hundreds of imitators and competitors. Zopa remains the leading P2P lender in its local market.

One of the things I most enjoyed about revisiting Zopa this week was browsing around their Zopa's customers’ forum. You can get a really good idea of how well a company is doing by eavesdropping on its customers’ conversations with one another, particularly when there are 10 years’ worth of conversations to mine. The Zopa Customer Forum provides a fascinating glimpse into the sociology of peer-to-peer lending over the last decade.

We first wrote about Zopa in 2006 (both in my book Outside Innovation and in a longer case study). In this new case study (which is available for download to Customers.com Strategies’ and Technologies’ subscribers), we bring you up to date on the company and its evolution.

Zopa: Peer-to-Peer Lender Celebrates 10 Years
Spawned a Global Multibillion Industry; Still Going Strong
By Patricia B. Seybold, CEO & Sr. Consultant, March 20, 2015

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