Emerging this week is another announcement of a P2P lender partnering with a retail bank. The newest relationship belongs to P2P lender Zencap and Sparda-Bank Berlin. Unlike other banks and marketplace lending deals which are affiliate driven and based on the bank referring borrowers to the P2P lender, the current partnership between German firms is investor driven. With the deal in place, Sparda-Bank is adding Zencap to its available investment sources. Being referred to Zencap, Sparda-Bank customers will be able to invest in lending deals and provide investment capital to SME’s requesting loans on the P2P platform.
For Zencap, partnering with Sparda-Bank puts their product in front of more than 500,000 prospective clients. According to the firm, nearly €10 million euros have been lent on Zencap’s platform to SMEs since its launch last year. Backed by Rocket Internet, Zencap is one of a growing list of firms introducing alternative lending platforms to Germany. Dwarfed by the UK and US, alternative finance transactions were estimated at €140 million in 2014. Of that amount, marketplace lending composed the bulk of transactions.
Our mission is to offer a wide number of private clients an investment product that they understand within minutes and convinced with a transparent return and fee structures - Dr. Christian Gross
In announcing the partnership, Dr. Christian Gross, Co-Founder and CEO of Zencap, stated, "The cooperation between the Sparda-Bank Berlin and Zencap is part of this development and setting the new standard for modern banking. Our mission is to offer a wide number of private clients an investment product that they understand within minutes and convinced with a transparent return and fee structures."
