{"id":136,"date":"2007-04-10T12:40:33","date_gmt":"2007-04-10T12:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/?p=136"},"modified":"2007-04-10T12:40:33","modified_gmt":"2007-04-10T12:40:33","slug":"zopacomitslendingwithoutthebanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/zopacomitslendingwithoutthebanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Zopa.com.  It&#039;s lending without the banks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/alex\/Zopa.png!\n\"Zopa\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zopa.com\/ZopaWeb\/\">http:\/\/www.zopa.com\/ZopaWeb\/<\/a> is social lending brought to the masses.  The principle is no different from a 12 year-old kid asking her parents for 10 bucks to go to the movies, but the implications are much wider-ranging.  Through the very pretty Zopa website, individuals can borrow from other individuals, much like the \"earlier profiled\":<a href=\"http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/106\/lend-money-online-to-third-world-entrepreneurs\">http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/106\/lend-money-online-to-third-world-entrepreneurs<\/a> micro-lender \"Kiva.org\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiva.org\/.\">http:\/\/www.kiva.org\/.<\/a>  Unlike, Kiva, Zopa facilitates big loans in the same way that banks do, only with much lower interest rates.  Spreading the risk over dozens of lenders, a \u00a35,000 loan over 3 years would brook 6.38% interest as compared with high-street banks rates of 8.7%-14.9%.  It's also a good deal for lenders who can dictate the rates and risk they're willing to take, making an average of 6.75%.  Rather than feed the bloated banking industry, paying a 0.5% fee to Zopa seems like a good idea.  Unfortunately Zopa is only working in the UK at the moment, although they do have plans to open in the US soon.\n*Redjoe says: \"For a comparable US based site that aims to democratize the banking industry try \"www.prosper.com\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.prosper.com\">http:\/\/www.prosper.com<\/a>\/\"\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[58,193,216,240,411],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-duenos","tag-business","tag-internet","tag-lending","tag-money","tag-zopa-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}