Comparative P2P platform performance in 2015
Dec 29, 2015 16:12:03 GMT
blender, many38, and 5 more like this
Post by c88dnf on Dec 29, 2015 16:12:03 GMT
Although 2015 isn't quite over, I present for your own analysis and entertainment a spreadsheet & graphs which seek to compare the relative performance during 2015 of 5 P2P platforms in which I have my own investments. Please note that nothing in the sheets or graphs is intended to suggest one platform is more suitable for investment than another, nor than any platform is of higher risk than another. You should make any such judgements against your own criteria.
The five platforms tabled are: Funding Circle; Ratesetter; Saving Stream; Wellesley; & Zopa. It's clear that the P2P business is robust. The amount on loan with all five platforms has risen during 2015, in some cases very significantly indeed. Irrespective of debates about whether the P2P offerers are, in the purest sense, P2P nowadays, the "disruptive technology" they represent is clearly successful in terms of attracting business.
If anyone finds errors in the base data or can supply the missing data (see * below), I'll amend the spreadsheet accordingly, but you must tell me where the better data is located, so I can verify it for myself, or confirm that you are an authorised representative of the firm concerned.
In the spreadsheet you will find:
Tab 1 - two graphs. The first shows loan sales averaged over 13 week moving periods for the top three lenders. This is handy as a snapshot of "aggressiveness" in the markets, but by definition is flawed since the more short period sales you make, the more total sales are reflected (i.e. if £10 is loaned in a monthly market and rolled over repeatedly it shows as £120 worth of sales, but that same £10 loaned once for a year is just £10, even though the amount on loan over the year is still £10). So graph 2 shows the actual amount of money on loan by platform. This is arguably a better definition of the "health" of each lender, though see the comments for tab 3....
Tab 2 - the base data: taken from the platforms' own websites with one exception (see * below). Sales data for Funding Circle is taken from their weekly blog and is only up to date to week 50 as FC's blog is on holiday until January.
Tab 3 - each platform's profit or loss over time, taken from their annual reports to Companies House. Those can now be checked online for free by using beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/ I should emphasise that making a loss is not necessarily bad. New businesses in particular are likely to require large capital injections to set up computing systems, provide employee facilities and the like. Some established businesses also eschew profit taking in favour of reinvesting in the business: Amazon being an obvious example. Readers should compare what they see in the graph & spreadsheet with their own assessment of a business' desirability as a place to invest.
P2P lending stats.xls (79 KB)
(*) - Zopa have never provided data on their website about the amount of money on loan. Zopa's loan book can be accessed via the AltFi website, but it is not stated to be current on a specific date. In addition, the Ts & Cs appear to preclude its use in a post such as this. I have no idea why, alone of the major platforms, Zopa do not publish this data. @zopamat kindly provided loan data to this forum on three occasions (1 4Q14, 2 in 1Q15) and from that data I have extrapolated the amount on loan. I suspect it underestimates the amount slightly, but in the absence of better data, it's the best I can do.
The five platforms tabled are: Funding Circle; Ratesetter; Saving Stream; Wellesley; & Zopa. It's clear that the P2P business is robust. The amount on loan with all five platforms has risen during 2015, in some cases very significantly indeed. Irrespective of debates about whether the P2P offerers are, in the purest sense, P2P nowadays, the "disruptive technology" they represent is clearly successful in terms of attracting business.
If anyone finds errors in the base data or can supply the missing data (see * below), I'll amend the spreadsheet accordingly, but you must tell me where the better data is located, so I can verify it for myself, or confirm that you are an authorised representative of the firm concerned.
In the spreadsheet you will find:
Tab 1 - two graphs. The first shows loan sales averaged over 13 week moving periods for the top three lenders. This is handy as a snapshot of "aggressiveness" in the markets, but by definition is flawed since the more short period sales you make, the more total sales are reflected (i.e. if £10 is loaned in a monthly market and rolled over repeatedly it shows as £120 worth of sales, but that same £10 loaned once for a year is just £10, even though the amount on loan over the year is still £10). So graph 2 shows the actual amount of money on loan by platform. This is arguably a better definition of the "health" of each lender, though see the comments for tab 3....
Tab 2 - the base data: taken from the platforms' own websites with one exception (see * below). Sales data for Funding Circle is taken from their weekly blog and is only up to date to week 50 as FC's blog is on holiday until January.
Tab 3 - each platform's profit or loss over time, taken from their annual reports to Companies House. Those can now be checked online for free by using beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/ I should emphasise that making a loss is not necessarily bad. New businesses in particular are likely to require large capital injections to set up computing systems, provide employee facilities and the like. Some established businesses also eschew profit taking in favour of reinvesting in the business: Amazon being an obvious example. Readers should compare what they see in the graph & spreadsheet with their own assessment of a business' desirability as a place to invest.
P2P lending stats.xls (79 KB)
(*) - Zopa have never provided data on their website about the amount of money on loan. Zopa's loan book can be accessed via the AltFi website, but it is not stated to be current on a specific date. In addition, the Ts & Cs appear to preclude its use in a post such as this. I have no idea why, alone of the major platforms, Zopa do not publish this data. @zopamat kindly provided loan data to this forum on three occasions (1 4Q14, 2 in 1Q15) and from that data I have extrapolated the amount on loan. I suspect it underestimates the amount slightly, but in the absence of better data, it's the best I can do.
).