Challenger Zopa is planning a stock market flotation next year after celebrating its first year as a bank.
The FinTech lender is on course to reach profitability before the end of the year, having transitioned to a full bank 12 months ago and generated ‘higher than expected growth’ across a number of metrics, including revenue.
The bank has become a top ten credit card issuer in the UK, attracting in excess of 100,000 credit card customers in nine months. It has also attracted more than £400m in customer deposits.
Zopa, which has lent £6 billion in personal and auto loans in the UK market, says its focus on lending and its ability to attract deposits mean that it has a unique business model amongst challenger banks as it generates strong customer revenue. This approach has resulted in revenue per customer more than doubling since launching its bank.
Zopa said it is on track for an IPO in late Q4 next year, by which time it would have shown a £12m+ track record of consistent profitability.
“The past year has been a highly successful one for Zopa Bank and we’ve exceeded our targets across new and existing products,” said CEO Jaidev Janardana.
“We built a bank to better meet the needs of UK consumers and our year one success endorses that approach. We look forward to using the momentum that we have gained to expand our products and services further and to help more customers.
“At Zopa, we are also passionate about building a sustainable business and so I’m excited to see that our trajectory puts us on course to be amongst the fastest digital banks to achieve profitability.
“We will continue to build from that base with an IPO on the horizon as early as Q4 2022.”
Zopa has built an in-house credit health tool Borrowing Power and also secured recent partnerships with ClearScore and CreditLadder.
Additional innovation in the last year includes features such as SafetyNet, which allows credit card customers to set aside part of their credit limit for a rainy day.