SAN FRANCISCO — The nation's financial meltdown has apparently struck another victim, the U.S.-launched social lending venture Zopa, which was started a year ago with six participating credit unions as an innovative way to reach the youth market.
"Yes, we have altered loan procedures with our U.S. credit union partners as we found the ratio of suitable applicants to loans very challenging," declared Douglas Dolton, Global CEO of Zopa, the United Kingdom lender which has maintained its U.S. base here.
Dolton, who stressed the Zopa Web site remains intact and actively usable by consumers, told Credit Union Times that under policies started this week loan applications once processed by Zopa will now be routed online "directly to our credit union partners."
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He said the U.S. Zopa "business model", debuted in December 2007 with considerable media fanfare offering both loan and deposit products in an investor/borrower linkup, is being "revised and remodeled" considering it incurred participation problems coming during "unprecedented" conditions.
The six CUs included: USA FCU of San Diego; Addison Avenue FCU, Palo Alto, Calif.; Forum CU, Indianapolis, Affinity Plus FCU, St. Paul, Minn.; First Technology CU, Beaverton, Ore., and Provident CU, Redwood City, Calif.
Under the original setup of Zopa's online peer-to-peer transactions, participants had to become CU members in any of the six CUs to take part. Reaction from the six CUs was not immediately available.
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