Zopa reportedly delaying its 2022 IPO

Zopa is reportedly delaying plans for a public offering due to the current market conditions.

Originally the UK’s first peer-to-peer lending platform, it exited the sector to focus on its digital bank and initial public offering plans earlier this year.

It had previously been very public about its plans to IPO before the end of 2022, and has had a successful 18 months having reached profitability in April, but now suggests the timing is not right.

CEO Jaidev Janardana told CNBC last week at Money 20/20 in Amsterdam that “the markets have to be there” for Zopa to go public.

“The markets are not there — not for fin, not for tech,” he said.

Times have been tough across both finance and tech as inflation levels rise, with the war in Ukraine resulting in dips in both public and private markets.

“We will just have to wait for when the markets are in the right place,” he added. 

“You only want to do an IPO once, so we want to make sure that we pick the right moment.”

It's not the first time Janardana has cautioned that Zopa's 2022 IPO may not happen, he told City AM earlier this year that the company was in "no rush".

The digital bank recently launched a new ‘buy now, pay later’ offering, describing it as “BNPL 2.0”.

This followed a successful year for the company, with the launch of a new suite of employee benefits, including up to 120 days of work from abroad, as well.

Zopa also hit profitability just 21 months after gaining its banking licence, has raised $500m and surpassed £1.5bn in loans.