Zopa

[MrsFreedy]

Does anyone have or had any experience of lending money through Zopa?

Im wary of companies that use dodgy looking Lego men to advertise. (Unless they are actually selling Lego)

Ill look into it now, but Im extremely sceptical.

Guardian had an article about it this week.

Maybe start small?

Problem 1) Not backed by government

Otherwise, not looking too bad so far

Oh, hang on, do you want to put up money to be lent to someone else, or you want to borrow someone elses money?

Yes I have used Zopa for last 3 years and increased my lending recently as all other rates so poor. You can lend as little as 10GBP and chose what credit rating market you want to lend to. The minimum is C but you can stick with A* if you want to get a lower rate with less risk.

You are taking the same risks as the banks do with lending money and we always think there onto a good thing.

I have read about Zopa through a number of newspaper articles over the last few years but don't know of anyone who has actually lent and I fancy lending not big amounts. I just wanted to know if anyone has successfully lent out money and if it was worlth it.

I am interest in trying this too. I think the site was setup by one of the founders of Egg. It certainly looks very reputable and professional. There was a phone-in about it on Radio 2 last week.

SarahLondon1 if you do lend I would be interested to know how you get on.

I created an account have started to lend already.

It looks really good and the risk is spread over a 100 or more borrowers, so for example if you lend £1000, then only £10 or less of that is to any one person. So even if you do get one or two people defaulting the loss is small compared to the potential gains.

DH has been using it for the last 8 months or so. think he has lent out £500 - £1000 and has been very happy with the return.