The London online loan facilitator Zopa Ltd. is expanding into Japan.
The company said last week that it has created a Japanese unit, Zopa Japan KK, that it expects will be the first peer-to-peer lender in that country when it begins operations sometime this year.
Zopa Ltd. began facilitating loans between individuals in the United Kingdom in 2005. Last year it introduced similar services in the United States and Italy.
Its business model is different in each country. For example, its U.K. Web site lets individuals make deals with one another to lend and borrow money.
Its U.S. site facilitates loans between its users and a handful of credit unions and acts as a clearing house for people to purchase high-rate certificates of deposit from the credit unions. People who buy the CDs are required to donate a portion of the interest to Zopa borrowers, who use the money to help repay their loans.
Zopa did not provide details on how the Japanese unit's model might differ, but said it would resemble the U.S. model more than others.
"We will draw from the Zopa's experience across the globe and introduce a social lending platform that is tailored for the Japanese culture and regulatory environment," Takashi Yoneda, the unit's chairman, said in a press release.
