I recieved my informational email from Zopa announcing that they are in the testing phase. Zopa is promising to be different than the existing Person to Person lending sites such as Prosper.com and Lending Club in some interesting ways:

• No risk for investors.
  Your funds will be federally insured. No more worrying about whether your borrowers will pay your loan back.
• Pick who you want to help.
  Investors will choose exactly who they want to help.
• Set your rate.
  Investors will choose how much they want to earn, up to a ceiling.
• No waiting.
  Borrowers will get their loans immediately upon approval.
  Lower your monthly payment.
• Borrowers can actually reduce their loan payments after they’ve borrowed. They’ll do that using rich profiles…

How will we do all this? By using some very cool technology and a terrific partnership with leading credit unions. More coming soon! And we do mean soon…

I am very curious about how the federal insuance will work. I want more details on that. It seems like that will encourage reckless lending. “Rich Profiles” sounds like a great cconcept for borrowers but again I need more information to effectively evaluate this. The other two bullet points do not seem enough different to shift the market.

Zopa is also requesting potential borrowers sign up to assist with the testing phase.

We could use some borrowers to pound on the site, take out loans, and make sure all our bells and whistles are…ringing and whistling.

If you were thinking of borrowing on Zopa, have good credit (FICO 640+), and are a U.S. resident 18 or over, drop us a line:
questions@zopa.com

Edit: Zopa was mentioned in a WSJ article today and in the WSJ blogs where the comments are critical of Prosper.