The Monthly Funding Report January 2021

What happened last month in P2P finance and crowdfunding? Which platforms are on the rise and which ones are falling behind? How has the sector performed over the last 12 months? We take a look at numbers reported to P2P Market Data in January 2021 and dive deeper into this month’s special focus: the (under)performance of Polish P2P lending sites.

About The January 2021 Funding Report

In the Monthly Funding Report, we track the funding amounts of real estate crowdfunding, peer-to-peer & online marketplace lending platforms. None of the numbers is an estimation – the amounts are reported directly to us or pulled from the platforms’ publicly available loan books and statistic pages. However, we convert all amounts to EUR for comparison reasons. 

We currently track data from 83 participating platforms, including originations operating in 27 markets and with 12 different currencies. In January 2021, New Zealand’s Lending Crowd was removed from the report due to their non-compliance in timely reporting. But we also welcomed Income Marketplace, which launched in late December 2020 and joined the P2P Market Data database with a modest but not insignificant €44,200 raised in their first month.

Please also note that a while back we had to also exclude some prominent platforms such as Lending Club, Funding Circle and Prosper. Lending Club and Funding Circle have closed their P2P lending activities and remain open only for institutional and corporate investors while Prosper only reports data quarterly.

Key highlights: What happened in the market last month?

We recorded a total funding volume of €520,39m in January 2021. This included:

• €346m funded in the main tracking currency – EUR;
• £134m (approx. €152) funded in GBP; and
• €22m financed in other currencies.

Compared to the previous month, there has been a slight increase in total funding volume of 0,86% since December 2020(up from €515,94m). However, the EUR market has actually declined quite significantly (down from almost €400m) while the loans denominated in GBP have gone through the ceiling, increasing by roughly 60% from £84m in December 2020.

We also reported several noteworthy milestones reached last month:

• Raizers has funded over €100m since its launch;
• EstateGuru has crossed the €300m total funded barrier;
• Bondora and PeerBerry have broken above the €400m mark;
• Fellow Finance has reached €700m funding volume; and
• Mintos has arrived at an impressive €6 billion funded loans since it launched in 2015.

Big player ranking

The table below shows 10 platforms that raised the most capital in January 2021. Mintos remains, by far, the largest funder in our database. Last month, Mintos along with Credimi and PerrBerry accounted for more than half of total funding volume in EUR. Other main platforms trading in EUR (October, EstateGuru) fell way behind, contributing to the decline in the EUR market. On the other hand, the largest UK-based platforms – ZOPA and RateSetter, accelerated significantly and climbed up the ranking compared to December 2020. Together, they dominated the GBP P2P lending market with over 80% market share.

Platforms with the highest funding volumes in January 2021

Rising star ranking

This table shows 10 platforms that have grown the most over the past 12 months. Most rising stars come from Europe (7 out of 10) and all, unsurprisingly, tend to be start-ups with short track records and still low total volumes. Two platforms particularly stand out: Lendermarket – a European consumer loans marketplace and MyConstant – an American crypto-based P2P lending platform. Both are quite new to the business, having launched in 2019 and both are noting amazing growth rates (700% and 660% respectively). 

Fastest growing platforms in the last 12 months

Slow-mover ranking

The table below is the reverse of the rising star ranking as it gathers 10 platforms that have noted the slowest growth in the last year. This ranking features some of the largest platforms out there (Sharestates, RateSetter, ZOPA), for whom it is naturally difficult to keep up the growth rates given their large total volumes. Two geographically focused platforms also top the list: Finnish Fixura and Polish Finansowo – we take a closer look at the latter in the ‘deep dive’ section below.

Slowest growing platforms in the last 12 months

The bigger picture: How is the sector performing?

Globally, P2P finance and crowdfunding still have a way to go to reach the pre-COVID numbers. Nonetheless, the recovery has been quite stable and the sector has managed to more than double the funding volumes since reaching the all-time low in April 2020.

A deep dive: Why is Polish P2P lending so small and slow?

Finansowo – the largest Polish P2P lending platform is again among the worst performers. This might fuel worries about the state of Poland’s P2P sector overall. After the withdrawal of German Lendico in 2016, native Kokos in 2018 and Scandinavian Lendo in 2020, options have narrowed down for Polish borrowers and investors. However, the traffic on Finansowo has not kept up the pace even amidst the decreasing competition. 

The sector growth overall has been sluggish too and the total P2P funding volumes in Poland remain exceptionally low. All this despite Poland being one of the largest national markets in Europe and a decent crowdfunding player. Some media reports suggest that this non-take-up of P2P loans and investments might be due to unfriendly regulation for digital lending as well as an already competitive loan offering coming from traditional banks and offline non-bank credit providers. Let’s keep the hopes up though – the P2P revolution might yet to come to Poland!

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