P2P Lending Gains Ground in U.K. (Feb. 2, 2016)
The peer-to-peer lending industry in the U.K. lent some £2.20 billion (US$3.16 billion) in 2015, according to data from the Peer to Peer Finance Association, a trade group. Its figures show that the U.K. peer-to-peer industry has doubled in size since 2014.
New peer-to-peer lending in the U.K. reached nearly £660 million (US$950.2 million) in the fourth quarter of 2015, up 8.6 percent from about £608 million (US$875.4 million) in the third quarter of 2015 and up 90.2 percent £347 million (US$499.6 million) in the fourth quarter of 2014.
The data also show that the number of lenders increased 22 percent year-over-year in 2015 to more than 128,000. At the end of last year, the number of total borrowers stood at 273,000, double the amount reported at the end of 2014.
By contrast, P2P lenders in the U.S. generated $6.6 billion in loans in 2014, up 128 percent, according to a report in The Lending Mag. And while the U.S. has one of the largest P2P lending markets in the world by loan volume, the U.K.’s loan volume is 72 percent larger on a per capita basis, the report notes.
