How It Works

SAVERS have never had a worse deal but for most borrowers, credit is scarce and costly. That seeming paradox attracts new businesses, free of the bad balance sheets, high costs and dreadful reputations which burden most conventional banks. Foremost among the newcomers are peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, which match borrowers and lenders directly, usually via online auctions. The loans issued often comprise of many tiny slivers from different lenders. Some P2P platforms slice, dice and package the loans; others allow lenders to pick them. Either way, the result is a strikingly better deal for both sides. Zopa, a British P2P platform, offers 4.9% to lenders (most bank accounts pay nothing) and typically charges 5.6% on a personal loan (which is competitive with the rates most banks charge).

The Economist 1.05.2014

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21597932-offering-both-borrowers-and-lenders-better-deal-websites-put-two

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Peer-to-peer lending, sometimes abbreviated to P2P lending, is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that matches lenders directly with borrowers. Since the peer-to-peer lending companies offering these services operate entirely online, they can run with lower overhead and provide the service more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders often earn higher returns compared to savings and investment products offered by banks, while borrowers can borrow money at lower interest rates, even after the P2P lending company has taken a fee for providing the match-making platform and credit checking the borrower.

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer_lending

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The interest rates can be set by lenders who compete for the lowest rate on the reverse auction model or fixed by the intermediary company on the basis of an analysis of the borrower's credit. The lender's investment in the loan is not protected by any government guarantee.

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