Zopa hits profitability 21 months after winning banking licence

Zopa expects to close 2022 with a £2bn balance sheet after hitting profitability for the first time.

Just four months after exiting the peer-to-peer lending world and 21 months after acquiring its banking licence, Zopa has become profitable.

According to Zopa, this makes the company one of the fastest digital banks to achieve profitability ever, and it expects to remain profitable from here on out.

The news comes off the back of a series of wins for the company over the last year and a half.

It all kicked off in June 2020 when Zopa was granted its banking licence and began shifting towards a more traditional model of funding lending through  savings 

Then, in October 2021, the company raised $300m led by Japanese telecoms giant Softbank, cementing itself as a fintech unicorn.

After revealing to AltFi it had exited peer to peer lending in December, the digital bank revealed it reached £1bn in customer deposits earlier this year.

It also launched a “hybrid” savings account, Smart Saver, last month, that has already amassed 10,000 customers and £8m deposits. 

The tool aims to help young users at the start of their savings journey post-pandemic.

“Hitting profitability in just 21 months is a testament to our unique model that meets customer needs by focusing on how they borrow and save – the two things with the most impact on finances,” Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana said.

“Today’s news [...] reinforces our thesis on the importance of sustainable growth as a catalyst for accelerated product and market expansion.” 

The company has also now issued more than a quarter of a million credit cards, becoming a top five issuer in the UK and tripling its revenue per customer.

After exceeding its targets over the past year, the company anticipates closing 2022 with a balance sheet of £2bn, more than doubling its revenues again.

It will also be launching a fully regulated Zopa ‘buy now, pay later’ product this autumn.