Funding Circle originated the most volume during the month posting £31.3m in lending volume, narrowly beating RateSetter who has held that honour for the previous 3 months. Funding Circle’s record October was the first time ever that Funding Circle had originated over £30m in one month with 12.3% growth on its previous record month last month. The growth is likely to have been driven, at least in part, by increased institutional participation in the platform, as we discussed earlier this month.
The other notable performance amongst the big platforms was from Zopa, the founding father of P2P Lending. Proving that it still has a few tricks up its sleeve, Zopa originated in excess of £28m loans during the course of the month, the highest ever for the platform breaking their previous record by over £3m (a record set in October 2013). This is a big jump for Zopa whose monthly volumes have been rangebound for all of 2014, posting volumes between £19m and £22m each month. Perhaps like Funding Circle,Zopa’s growth is being fuelled by institutions or maybe it is as a result of some tempting cashback offers that the platform has run this month.
The Index welcomes two new entrants this month: Lending Works and Crowdcube’s Minibonds.
Lending Works, a nascent consumer lending platform with an innovative approach to lender protection, has stormed into the index. The P2PFA member posted an impressive £920k in the month, more than doubling its previous best and firmly announcing its arrival. Its good to finally have a platform emerge within the consumer lending sector that can look to challenge the giants of RateSetter and Zopa.
Crowdcube’s Minibonds continue to be a massive success with the £1.5m Eden project bond reaching its maximum in just 20 hours. We have broken out the minibonds from Crowdcube’s equity crowdfunding total to enable our readers to better track this new product.
The other platform to have record month in October was the UKBondNetwork, which originated just over £1m in one bond transaction. This is the platform's first transaction for a few months, however we are told that the piple is looking healthy.
