British p2p lending company Zopa has recently entered two partnerships.
Zopa Prime
Zopa partners with the Charity PRIME to offer loans to entrepreneurs over 50 starting or running a business. The loan is not a loan to the business but a personal loan of up to 15,000 GBP (approx 24,125 US$). PRIME is the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise. The charity’s role is to vet the business plan of the applicant.
Lenders benefit because all Zopa prime loan listings are 50% guaranteed by PRIME. More details on how to obtain a loan.
Zopa and Good Energy
Zopa also partnered with Good Energy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier. Customers of Good Energy can use a Zopa loan listing to fund the initial installation cost of solar panels or wind turbines. In this partnership Zopa uses affiliate links with a branded landing page:
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/affiliates/zopa
Benefits for Zopa from the partnerships are:
- More borrowers
- More quality without more costs – borrowers are vetted/screened by partners
- 50% of loan amount secured for PRIME loans
- Possibly earning referral fees from the affiliate link to Good Energy
- Great story for press coverage and marketing (catchwords:Â “Prince Charles”, “renewable energy”, “credit crunch”, “older age”, …)