Consultancy Gartner predicts that: "By 2010, social-banking platforms will have captured 10% of the available market for retail lending and financial planning". Not surprisingly Zopa is happy about that forecast. I think this is an over-optimistic outlook but James Gardner of BankerVision (working at Lloyds TSB bank) who also thinks it is aggressive points to the example of Paypal, which has been underestimated years ago. A more supportive view comes from Antony Mayfield while taking Zopa as example.
banks
Micro-lending regulation in Europe
Found this interesting paper written by Prof. Dr. Udo Reifner on regulation of micro loans in Europe. Written (2000) well before the advent of p2p lending over the internet, it compares regulation for micro loans in 7 European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, UK). It is one of the best sources that is publicly available, that I have seen so far.