| By Jim Bruene on November 12, 2008 6:09 PM | Comments (4) |
Industry blog, P2P-banking.com recently compiled a list of peer-to-peer loan volumes from around the world. The chart is reprinted by permission below.
These numbers are cumulative, all-time volumes since inception. More than half is from Virgin Money USA which has helped individuals put $370 million in loans together since it began as Circle Lending in 2001.
Because these companies don't all use the same model, I've revised the tables somewhat, excluding:
- Facilitators: My definition of peer-to-peer lending excludes Virgin Money and Loanback because they do not serve as matchmakers (note 1). They do play a crucial role in putting a legal framework in place for friends-and-family loans and often end up servicing the loans as well. They are more like PayPal where Prosper/Lending Club are like eBay.
- Microfinance markets: I would exclude Kiva as well. It's an awesome platform that allows U.S. citizens to loan money to third-world merchants at zero interest. A powerful tool for philanthropy, yes, but not really peer-to-peer. The same goes for MyC4 and Microplace.
So excluding the above companies, total worldwide originations are $262 million, with two-thirds of that from Prosper.
Here are the market shares of the 8 true P2P lenders that have originated more than $1 million since launch:
| Company | US$ (mil) | WW Share |
| Prosper (US) | $178 | 68% |
| Zopa (UK) | $39 | 15% |
| Lending Club (US) | $20 | 8% |
| Money Auction (Korea) | $7.8 | 3% |
| Smava (Germany) | $5.8 | 2% |
| Zopa (Italy) | $4.3 | 2% |
| Boober (Netherlands) | $3.1 | 1% |
| Other | $4.5 | 2% |
| Total | $262 | 100% |
Source: P2P-Banking.com, 28 Oct 2008
Note:
1. This does not mean I dislike Virgin Money's business model, just that its loan volume is not comparable to the others on the list.
2. For more info on the P2P lending market, see our Online Banking Report on Person-to-Person Lending
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Two questions:
1) Do you have a link to the Money Auction Korea website?
2) What does Boober mean in the native tongue of the Netherlands?
Jim,
Great post. That is one way of measuring market share (by adding up the total loan volume originated by each company since its inception). Another - more typical? - way would be to look at the last 12 months or any given calendar year. Otherwise, a cumulative approach (rather than a typical annual sales approach) would make Ford the World leading carmaker by market share, only because they had a 40-year head-start on their Japanese rivals...
Best, Renaud
@Jim
glad you found it useful
@CBK
1)http://www.moneyauction.co.kr
2)from a company story it is the name of a dog. In the beginning there was a cartoon like dog shown on the homepage of Boober.nl
Don't think they use it any more
@Renaud,
of course you are right. But obtaining numbers for the last 12 months is much more difficult on most sites (not on Lending Club, I know)
Claus Lehmann
Editor
http://www.p2p-banking.com
Interesting table, I had no idea there were so many in the space.
I've been using Zopa for a while and it's beaten my expectations so far.
When you consider it only has £30 million of the multi-billion pound savings market, there's clearly lots of room for several players in the market.